BERTÍ SCHOOL TRAVELS TO PAKRAC, CROATIA, IN THE FIFTH MOBILITY OF THE PROJECT ERASMUS + CHAMPIONS
Bertí School continues with its project ERASMUS+ BECOME EUROPEAN MATH CHAMPIONS and during the week of March 26 to 31 it will have its fifth mobility in Pakrac (Croàcia). On this occasion, the students and teachers have visited the Osnovna škola braće Radića Pakrac school, together with the other countries that are part of the project: Portugal, Greece, Italy and Romania.
On Monday, the welcome ceremony kicked off, offering us an exciting concert. Next, each student will make a friendship bracelet with the colors of the flag of their country, a beautiful activity to break the ice and meet each other. Once finished, they are going to prepare a review to familiarize us with the school and to end the day, we are going to practice mental arithmetic with some of the classmates created by the center’s math teachers.
In addition, we will program both scratch robots Mbot and there, to complete a path. After that, we’re going to build our own holograms with a transparent plastic pyramid. An ideal experiment to work out geometry, calculation and strengthen the space with 3D experiences. In the afternoon, we will arrive in Omanovac, a marvelous natural area where we will carry out a mathematical gymkhana to work on calculation, areas, height and learn about the culture of the area. A full afternoon of work on the math team in a gamified way will be very motivating for the students.
On Wednesday, we spent the day in the Plitvice Lakes National Park, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco since 1979. A natural space of exceptional beauty, composed of a system of lakes connected in a cascade between them. Solving some mathematical puzzles allowed us to learn about the legend of the Black Queen that explains the origin of the lakes.
On Thursday, the last day of mobility, was a day of great cultural activity. First, we visited the baroque Janković Castle, located in the town of Daruvar, known for its thermal tradition. In its gardens you can find one of the symbols of the city, a 7-meter Ginkgo biloba, protected since 1974 for being one of the largest and oldest in all of Croatia. Next, we visited the Military and War Museum in Pakrac, where we became aware of the war conflict in Croatia between 1991 and 1995. The city of Pakrac and its surroundings was one of the epicenters of the war of independence and suffered major clashes causing much of the city to remain destroyed. We watched a BBC program called “Challenge Anneka”, where the British Red Cross asks the journalist Anneka Rice to rebuild the school where we spent these days and which had been destroyed during the war. An emotional report that shows how all citizens come together to recover what was lost. Another symbol of the city of Pakrac is its own coin, so we were able to reproduce one. In the afternoon, the closing ceremony, together with the presentation of diplomas and the farewell dinner, closed the Erasmus experience in Croatia. The emotion filled the hearts of all the students and teachers who will surely remember these days forever.
To finish this project, we have the last mobility, which will be next May in Romania, specifically in Radauti, where the students and teachers will continue their mathematical journey.
We are CHAMPIONS!
Here is a document with all the activities carried out during this mobility: