Madeira: an island in the Atlantic Ocean.

Due to the situation in Ukraine, all partners have agreed to change the mobility in Falticeni (Romania) for the visit to Funchal (Madeira). We had several online meetings to make all the arrangements. As this visit was intended to be the last in our project, the hosting school prepared a programme of activities for six days.

On Sunday evening, we had a welcome dinner that included some live Fado singing. Some students also spent some time with their Portuguese partners. The Portuguese team had arranged these gatherings for the students from those schools that had sent the list of participants well in advance. Also, these students had dinner with their host students’ families on Monday.

DAY 1

On the first day, we started with welcome and ice breaking activities, then we were welcomed by the Portuguese headmistress at the auditorium of the school, where we then saw and listened to the presentations of the schools from Malta, Latvia and Spain about “Natural Treasures”: ecosystems in the region/country of each partner, National Parks, UNESCO sites, etc... After the tea break, we went on a school tour in small groups guided by Portuguese students while other groups participated in a workshop on waste recycling next to the school’s amazing sustainable vegetable garden. During this visit, we also attended an exhibition on school paintings to celebrate the International Day of Museums.

In the afternoon, students had an Instagram challenge divided into international groups in Funchal city centre while teachers had a meeting. We had to change the date of this meeting because one of the hosting teachers, who was in charge of the organisation of the program of this mobility, had to attend another meeting somewhere else in the following days. This was mainly a project follow-up meeting and we also discussed about when and how to do the mobility to Romania. We had dinner all together except for some students, who were with their hosting families.

DAY 2

The next day, we visited the West part of the island, including a “levada walk” into Rabaçal valley as far as its famous “risco” and a visit to the natural pools in Porto Moniz after lunch.

DAY 3

On Wednesday, at school, we had a teachers’ meeting in the morning to talk about the Mobility Tool platform while the students had a lecture and visited a panel exhibition on the most famous type of forest in Madeira, the Laurissilva Forest, considered as Natural World Heritage by UNESCO in 1999. Then, our students had an art workshop. They created a key ring inspired in one of the famous traditional houses of Madeira, the “Santana House”.

In the afternoon, we visited the History Museum of Electricity. During the visit, students recorded in video the explanations related to energy production and transport of electricity and participated in several interactive activities of applied science in the field of electricity. They were divided in small groups, each one with a specific task and another group was in charge of editing the video of the visit. (Other groups were in charge of recording every activity to create a diary of the mobility).

Then, we visited the Mercado dos Lavradores where we learnt about tropical fruits.

DAY 4

The following day, we had a catamaran dolphin watching trip. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see any, but had a close look of the cliffs of this beautiful volcanic island from a different perspective.

After that, we had dinner all together, students and teachers.

DAY 5

On Friday, we had a working session at school that included a workshop on “Basic Portuguese” and the presentation of the Italian and Romanian schools of their work on “Natural Treasures”. Then, we had a Farewell Ceremony and the Handout of the certificates of attendance.

After lunch, we visited Funchal’s Cathedral and the 3D Fun Art Museum of Funchal, which uses perspective to create incredible 3D effects.

DAY 6

The last day, we visited Monte by Cable Car and the Tropical Garden “Monte Palace”, where we could admire endemic plants of Madeira and many exotic flowers and trees brought to Madeira from other places worldwide. We could also visit its African sculptures and its museum of minerals. Some of us came back to the centre of Funchal in the “carreiros do Monte”.