This is a standard application form , you can use it or adapt it  for your own.
 

Short description (max. 150 words) *

Please provide a short summary/description of your project (1 paragraph).

More than 3000 students from 104 schools from 25 countries over the 5 continents communicate and collaborate to reproduce one of the science's 10 most beautiful experiments of all time: Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth's circumference.

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Links to Project Outcomes

Please include all links to any online outcomes of your project such as a website, public TwinSpace, audio/video clips, etc.

December 2015 final newsletter: http://issuu.com/perbosc/docs/eratosthenes_2015_highlights
Eratosthenes library: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=35705635
Website  : 2015 measures : http://www.eratosthenes.eu/spip/spip.php?rubrique228  
EEE eTwinning group : https://groups.etwinning.net/10543/home
Facebook group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/Eratos/
Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/129846629@N04/collections/

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1.Pedagogical Innovation and Creativity (max. 200 words) *

Please provide a description of your project (1 paragraph).
Please describe the various pedagogical methods you have used with your pupils during the project work. (Examples; small group work, independent research by pupils, etc.) If your pupils are very young, please describe the methods you used to engage their interest in the project.

Antiquity and present time

The originality of this project is in the combination of the oldest science experiment and the newest ICT collaborative tools. Fort the historical measurement, Eratosthenes used the comparison of 2 shadows casted in Alexandria and Aswan to calculate the circumference of the earth.
Those synchronized measures of shadows connect about a hundred groups of students (50% of eTwinning schools), over the 5 continents; mainly primary and secondary schools, but also kinder garden (1st Kindergarten of Pylos-Greece), special needs and inclusive education (Centro Educacional Nosso Mundo-Brazil, Scoala Sanatoriala, Busteni-Romania), science clubs (Ho Chi Minh City astronomy club-Vietnam, VIPNET Science Club network-India).

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2.Curricular integration (max. 200 words) *

Please describe (in steps) how you tried to integrate the project into your existing curriculum.
What competencies did you try to develop in your pupils during the project work?
Describe how the pupils worked on the project

Intersdisciplinary and all levels

This project can be adapted to students from all levels of education and can concern many subjects The  approach, often in a ludic point of view, aims to acquire very different knowledge
History and geography, Astronomy, Physics, Technology, Mathematics, Oral and written language, ICT, Plastic arts

The fact that the primary school pupils have only a slight mathematical knowledge is not a problem, It is possible to discover these notions in a different way, more concrete, with paper, templates, paper rulers, graduated circles, and strings: the pupils do not have to prove the properties of a figure, but they simply have to check them and see what they can do with. Some children with special needs discover through these activities the opportunity to show their inventiveness, their resourcefulness, skillfulness, as well as their sense of mutual aid: these qualities, acknowledged by their peers, will give them more self-confidence and a desire to continue with other fields. With 8 teachers, the school of Ioannina was the most active in this interdisciplinary approach.

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/5691/pages/page/31502

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3.Communication and exchange between partner schools (max. 200 words) *

How did you organise the communication between you and your partners?
What communication activities did you design for or with your pupils for sharing the work of each class on the themes of the project?

A world wide project

The students present their group and their localization on a globe. For the main measurements (equinoxes and solstices), the results are shared in real time on a google drive sheet.  Photos of the measurements are published in the galleries. The main interest is to show the group of students participating to the measure and the different types of gnomon they use. The analyze of the photo may eventually give some informations about errors or mistakes in the result or process of the measurement.

Since 2013, we developed a google drive sheet that automatically calculates the circumference of the Earth with the shared data, and allows each school to find the best partnership ( the one that leads to a result as close as possible to the real circumference (40000km)). A Geogebra template is also shared for the drawing of the geometric figure. This Geogebra file also automatically calculates the circumference of the Earth with the 2 schools results.The presentation of the school, the measure, the result of the calculation with the best partner are communicated during a videoconference. The final results are published in the Twinspace and in reported in 12 newsletters.

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4.Collaboration between partner schools. (max. 200 words) *

Collaboration activities go beyond communication. Please describe the work process of the project clearly outlining the division of work between you and your partner(s). Most importantly:
In what aspects of the project did you and your partner(s) collaborate?
In what activities did pupils collaborate and work together?
Describe how the final products of the project were achieved by the pupils

Working together for a common calculation

This project is based on a scientific collaboration : We need the measurements of all the partner schools to obtain the final result. More so, we need an accurate measurement from the partner to obtain an accurate calculation of the circumference of the Earth. Students realize that advances in science are necessarily based upon team work. They are encouraged to analyse the data and observe the photographs of the measurements of the partner schools. It is on the quality of their measurements depends the outcome. For example the time of the measure is at solar noon, they can compare it to the theoretical solar noon , using ephemerides. it is also easy to detect a defect of verticality of the gnomon on a photo.

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5.Use of technology (max. 200 words) *

Please describe how technology has been used to further the work of the project both by your partners and you, and by the pupils.

Twinspace tools, Simple and varied tools

We privileged the use of Twinspace tools, as long as this was possible. It has been a big challenge for the 104 schools and the 476 measurements they made.
The pages of the Twinspace are grouped into 3 sections
--Section Schools : 4 Pages  and 104 schools children pages
--Section Measures : 11 pages and 112 measures children pages
--Section Activities-Archives-Evaluation 11 pages and 50 children pages
Hyperlinks allow an easy navigation between those 300 pages

The 2511 photos of year 2015 are in 253 albums in 12 folders of a Flickr gallery. The albums are embed in the schools pages. Such an organization was not possible in the Twinspace>Materials
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129846629@N04/collections/72157651003089456/

7 videoconferences on SabaCentra were recorded and published on YouTube
GoogleMaps is used to localize precisely the coordinates of the schools.
The geometric figures have been drawn on Geogebra

The teachers use Social Network group to plan the measurements and to communicate their results in real time: (open Facebook group of 416 members): https://www.facebook.com/groups/Eratos/

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6.Results, impact and documentation (max. 200 words) *

What impact do you think this project has had upon your pupils and your work as a teacher?
How did your school benefit from participating in this project?
What do you regard as the most successful result of this project?
Have you given links to all the documentation relating to the planning, progress and outcomes of the project?

This project opens the laptop screens like windows towards a round earth like Eratosthenes  changed the vision of a flat earth. More than feeling like scientists, 3000 students enjoyed to communicate around the world and the most exciting moments where the videoconferences specially in march with participants over the 5 continents
A hundred of teachers and educators, work now with a common teacher's guide, translated in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Greek, Malay and Chinese. The translations and discussions keep going on, in the Eratosthenes Earth Experiment (EEE) group and forum: https://groups.etwinning.net/10543/pages/page/57781

The presentation of the project at the Panhellenic congress in Patras (Greece) and the Science Fair in Baghpat (India) had a direct impact on the participating schools in those countries Greece(24 schools) and India (18 schools).