Day 5 - Finishing the project on cultural heritage

This will be the last blogpost from Poznán. With a large variety of activities, both during the day and the evening, time has gone by very quickly.

The students presented their brochures on different aspects regarding cultural heritage from each region: traditional music & dance, traditional customs, dialects and crafts. To finalize the project, each group presented their topic including an idea of how to preserve and promote the cultural heritage. All four groups had very innovative and interesting ideas on how to do so!

The Norwegian students and teachers would like to thank the Poznán-team for all their efforts that made this week a great success!

Day 4 - Visit to croissant museum and retro tram tour

Poznán is famous for its delicious croissants - the St. Martin croissants. According to the legend, a young baker from Poznán was inspired by St. Martin and wanted to help the poor. The solution he came up with, was to bake croissants and donate to the deprived. The croissant, "rogale", is a product with Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) recognised by the EU, and is of course an important part of the Poznanian heritage. 

The students were invited to participate in the baking prosess. Maham Zahra Mohammad did a splendid job preparing the dough! 

After lunch, a guided tour around Poznán was organised for us. We travelled in a 50 year old tram from the Communist era. While driving around the city, the guide pointed out important buildings and gave us the historic backdrop.

The students learned about the rationing system when Poland was Communist. We passed the building where the population of Poznán had to queue up to get their food rations until 1988/89. 

On one of the stops, a hooligan from the local football team got on the tram and taught us the chants of the local team "Lech". Like in many towns around the world, the football team is an important part of the Poznanian identity.

Stina Hinnerichsen had a go testing her tram driving skills.

Day 3 - Visit to Radio Poznán

After a productive morning working on the group project, it was time for a visit to Radio Poznán. 

The students were introduced to the history of the radio station, which had its first broadcast already in 1927. Since Radio Poznán is a public radio station, promoting local heritage is part of their mission.

 The red lamp tells us that a program is being recorded, and that they must not be disturbed.

We were allowed to observe the recording of a program.

One of our students, Ask Vorkinn, was one of the lucky students who were interviewed by Radio Poznán regarding the Erasmus+ project on cultural heritage. We think he did an excellent job!

Day 2 - Elaboration on the topic and visit to cultural centre

To start off the day, we were given a lecture on preservation of cultural heritage. The students were angaged in discussions on wheather it is always best to restore cultural heritage sites, or if it can also mean damaging material of great historic and cultural value.

The international groups made mind maps of associations to the word "heritage".

Later on we went to Zamek Culture Centre - an important and vibrant cultural nave in the city of Poznan with over 700 events annually. It is located in a castle built at the beginning of the 20th Century as a residence for Kaiser Wilhelm II. At the moment, a huge restauration project is going on, putting the rooms back to the style from the II World War, when the SS occupied the building.

After lunch the students continued to work on their project in the international groups. Each group has to make a brochure by the end of the week, presenting local traditions and customs from each country, but also coming up with ideas how to promote these traditions to a young audience.

The teachers in Poland are currently on strike fighting for a better school system for students and teachers.

Greetings from Poznán!

We arrived on Sunday to this beautiful city where spring has definitely arrived. Students from Norway, Poland, Spain and Netherlands are gathered here for an Erasmus+ -project where they will explore the topic of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is in fact a lot more than just old buildings and disappointing ruins.

First day of school: The students are introduced to each other.

The norwegian students are ready for an exciting week!

The students got a taste of university-life with a lecture at Poznán University on cultural heritage and UNESCO World Heritage. 

Each country presented an example of a tangible cultural heritage from their region. The Norwegian students presented the mines at Spro. 

The first day ended with an international party where each country contributed with traditional sweets. The Youth Folk Dance Ensemble performed traditional dances for us, and the students were encouraged to participate. The teachers were very impressed with their enthusiasm!

The students ended the evening exploring the city and playing snooker/pool with the their hosts.

Erasmus + student visit to Poznan 7th April - 13th April 2019

Our partner school

TheBattery

After a short day of project work at Farel College we got on the bus again. This time we were headed for Almere.

Almere sits in a part of the Netherlands which actually is below sea level, and just 30 years ago was submerged in water.

We visited the company Alfen. Alfen started out producing power transformers, but seeing the potential difficulties that todays power grid will be faced with when “every” household will have their own power source, they have branched out and are now producing large battery packs.

We’re talking huge batteries, able to power a whole music festival. The batteries can also be used for local power regulation and storage of surplus electrical energy from solar cells and windmills.

The students got a quick tour of the factory, and then we headed out to take a closer look on the wind turbines in the area.

At the wind turbines we met a representative from a group of citizens who were looking into buying their own wind turbines. This seemed, at first, a bit strange to the stutents, but we later appreciated the initiative the group showed, and how this could be an example for us, and future generations to follow.

 All students from Poland, The Netherlands, Spain and Norway visiting a windmill park in Almere.

The company Alfen is producing batteries to store green energy. These containers are batteries!

Visit to TU Delft

On Tuesday we went on a field trip to the Delft University of Technology.

The mail goal of this day was to learn about, and experience the possibilities of sustainable hydrogen based energy - The hydrogen society.

After a short - by Norwegian standards, and high spirited bus trip we arrived in Delft.

At TU Delft we met four VERY enthusiastic researchers who were eager to present their research and future plans for using hydrogen as the main energy carrier.

The students learned how hydrogen could be produced, stored and used in electric cars, and how these cars actually could be the mail source of power for our houses.

We had a nice Kahoot, and the winner got a ride in one of the university’s prototype hydrogen car*.

After the Kahoot we went to the “Green Village” which is a sort of testing area for new sustainable technologies. Our main base of operations was the “Pret-a loger” **, a test house for new technologies.

After lunch the students were divided in groups and we had a quick tour of the Village. We saw a prototype Hyper Loop tube, a salt water battery, a house with DC-power, example uses for recycled plastics and last but not least: the hydrogen car station.

Afer the tour we had a different workshops were the students explored the different technologies. Nikos, the greek phd-student put on a amzing show with his hydrogen scooter powered electric guitar.  The following workshop on the utilization of solar energy was more theoretical, but illuminating non the less.

Overall it was an impressive day filled with new facts and new perspectives.


*Actually, the car is a commercially available hydrogen car from Hyundai that has been modified in order to also produce electrical power for household use.

**http://pretaloger.eu/#blog

Mid week update from Amersfoort

Sunday - Arrival in Amersfoort.
After a long day of travel we arrived safely in Amersfoort. The students went with their host families, and the teachers arrived at the hotel.

Monday - Start of the project.
Well rested, most of us arrived on time at the Farel College for the start of the project. After some games and social activities the students started presenting the impressive results of their work on the pre tasks.

After the presentations were done, the students presented the logos they had designed for the project. The Norwegian contribution got the vote and we are proud to present the logo for the project.

After a quick lunch break we got on our bikes and braved the Dutch cycle roads and traffic. It all went well and we arrived at the Town Hall for a talk on how the Amersfoort Municipality worked to achieve the green shift.

After this it was time to visit some of the local companies to get some insight on possible ways to increase our sustainability.  We experienced everything from so called plus houses - that is, houses that actually produces more energy than they consume, to a start up company that specializes in 3D printing with concrete. We also had a look at possible solutions for carpooling.

At the end of a long day we had the International Party with “Old Dutch Games” and delicious Nepalese food. Although euphoric with the day’s experiences, the students were visibly tired and eager to get som rest before the next day.

Tuesday - Visit to the Technical University of Delft
We will have a separate blog post for this day :)



Wednesday - Project work at Farel College
Early wednesday morning saw the students hard at work on their new task: To create a website which summerizes the information the groups have collected so far in the project.

The different groups decided to create a common website with information on different technologies and recomendations on how state, local government and households could implement the new technologies to acheive a more sustainable way of life.

In the evening the students did practical experiments with different sustainable energy technologies.

Demonstration of guitar powered by electicity from hydrogen driven scooter! PhD student Nikos Chrysochoidis Antos from the University i Delft has got many talents.

6th February 2019

It's now just five days until the six students and two teachers will be travelling to Amersfoort to take part in the first project week. The students are working hard on their pretasks, collecting information about the transition to renewable energy. They are working together with students from the Netherlands, Spain and Poland, focusing on different aspects of energy transition:
Tonje - technology
Sindre - education
Kjartan - households
Vincent - transport
Ashna - finance
Sofie - politics
The information that they collect will be part of a presentation on the first day of the project in the Netherlands, and they will continue working in the same groups for the entire project week.