Our school is situated in Florina, a small town of about 20.000 people in the Western Macedonia Region near the borders with North Macedonia and Albania. It has 130 students, aged from six to twelve years old and a staff of 15 educators and 5 people in auxiliary positions. As Experimental our school has the liberty to make changes in the curriculum and teaching methodology. We have a close relationship with the Primary Education Department, University of Western Macedonia. We accept undergraduate and postgraduate students for training and research. We also cooperatively design and assess teaching methodologies, interventions, and practices concerning all aspects of educational life and activity. Moreover, our school organizes and hosts evening clubs for students from all nearby schools with various themes like robotics, STEM, photography, local history, creative writing, art, etc.
Climate change and how societies can adapt to new sustainable economies and behaviors are very important to us. Florina is mountainous and has a rich fauna with a lot of bear and wolf habitats. On the other hand, our region is an energy center for Greece with a number of pollutant coal power plants and coal mines in the area that are scheduled to be closed in the next few years. This enormous change will impact our local society in many ways. Our economy is currently based on the excavation and industrial use of coal and has to adopt a new mentality, find new opportunities and invest in clean and sustainable energy sources and practices. We strongly believe in our school’s European dimension and we consider that cooperation between students and people from different countries is crucial in order to face global challenges such as climate change. Throughout this project, we would like to share our local challenges and experiences with the other schools and discuss our common future.
In charge of the project will be Ioannis Arvanitakis (robotics teacher) and Kiriaki Amarantidou (teacher) with the help of Vivi Pougaridou (teacher) and Anastasia Kapatou (teacher) who will take over Ioanni’s or Kiriaki’s place in case they leave their post.
Mr. Arvanitakis is working for the last two years on an Erasmus+ project as a member of the team of Ydrousa elementary school of Florina. Mrs. Amarantidou and other staff members have participated in another Comenius project that our school was engaged in five years ago. Our school has also a lot of experience in organizing and hosting workshops for teachers, meetings, student exhibitions, and competitions in cooperation with other schools and universities in the region.
More info: http://ppf.edu.gr