From October 12 to 14, 2018, a group of pupils and teachers of the Bougas High School and Lyceum visited North Epirus, Albania. Our visit was for two purposes . On the one hand, we were going to visit the territories where the work of locating, digging up and identifying burial bones of Greek soldiers killed on the Albanian front during the Greek-Italian war of 1940-41 is being carried out, and on the other hand, to pay tribute to the most important Greek soldiers ever which had been scattered , not buried and not identified in the area of Epirus.
At the same time, we wanted to get acquainted with Greek Orthodox pupils attending the Greek-Albanian School of Gjirokastra “Breath of Love” and the Lyceum that has been operating for two years, both truly “inspired” by Archbishop Albania, Anastasios.
In conclusion, we would like to say that our journey has stimulated both the national memory and contributed to the formation of a healthy national consciousness of the students, as well as strengthening our bonds with the Greek community ,recognizing the multifaceted work of Greek Orthodox education provided to Greek-speaking schools.
Our main tours:
- The Military War Museum 1940 – 41. A small museum thanks to the comprehensive and informative guided tour of the Thracian Battalion guerrilla and the visual representation of the heroic battles that took place in Kalpaki made us aware of the decisive contribution of the VIII Infantry Division Commander of Chief of Staff Charalambos Koutsimitros to repel the Italian invaders during the early days of the war.
- The village of Vouliarates in the province of Dropolis on the road Kakavia – Argyrokastro. There we visited the military cemetery (inaugurated in 1999), in the courtyard of the small church of Ag. Skepis where we observed the first graves with recognized Greek soldiers of 40-41, including the names of Messinian soldiers.
- The valley of Kleisoura. Specifically, starting from Gjirokastra and crossing a green landscape alongside the Aoos River, we reached the new military cemetery, a work of Archbishop Messenia. Anastasiou, where in the courtyard of the monastery of Ag. Nicholas rises a huge cross and below are all the empty graves (with a cross) in which the bones of the heroes kept in metal ossuaries are intended to be placed. We were very happy that our school’s visit took place on the day after the official burial of the first 573 identified dead soldiers. There and then, we placed a wreath and sang the National Anthem.
- The Hellenic-Albanian Lyceum “Breath of Love”, where we had the opportunity to learn the curriculum and the objectives of education provided by a Greek Orthodox school in Albania. Basketball and volleyball matches between the students of the two schools, traditional dances and local dishes completed this first visit with teachers and students.
- The Fortress of Gjirokaster, the emblem of the city of Gjirokaster. A castle that resists the wear and tear of time from the Pyrrhus to the present day to remind the visitor that there was a symbol of a people’s martyr, a cemetery of “alive” in the Hoxha regime, in which those who fought for the redemption of their land martyred.
- The seaside town of Ag. Forty, just across the northern part of Corfu. It is a touristy developed city that has increased its permanent population from 23 to 45,000 in the last 20 years, while at the same time providing the facilities for hosting and hosting thousands of tourists. There we walked on the pedestrianized coastal area, went to restaurants and cafes and lived moments of relaxation.
Our last station is the National Park and the Archaeological Site of Voutroto, very close to the Mavromatiou border station. We are talking about an ancient Greek city unknown to the Greeks, an adorable coexistence of natural paradise and archaeological finds from prehistoric times to recent times (eg Ancient Greek temple of Asklipios, Roman theater, Byzantine basilica
cruciform). We saw why people have always wanted to live here: a natural harbor, a natural fortified site, a rich lagoon, a hub of waterways and a unique World Heritage Site.
From the coarse description that precedes it, it is perceived that a three-day trip with targeted destinations – stations and appropriate cognitive and emotional preparation, can put another milestone in the general education of students and teachers.
Early in September, the Bougas Schools traveled to CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), the largest experimental nuclear physics research center in the world. The trip with 30 students and three Bougas teachers began on August 29th and was completed on September 3rd, it was entertaining as well as educational, combining a beautiful and interesting tour in different parts of Italy and Switzerland. On 1/9/2016, students and professors were at the CERN gateway that reminds of a border outpost as only those working, or those with the necessary accreditation pass can enter. Here Mrs. Ioanna Dimitrakopoulou – Koutava co-ordinator of the visits to the CMS experiment and Mrs Despina Hadjifotiadou, researcher and head of the ALICE experiment. In the Bohr meeting room in the building 40, Mrs. Chatzifotiadou gave a lecture in order to introduce them to the world of particle physics and in the end the students asked various questions. Their visit continued in the ATLAS Experiment one of CERN’s two major experiments, where officials Anastasia Patsouli and Krysztof Zabrzycki described how the big detector works and saw the scientists in their control center in action.
Their tour continued in the SM18 cryogenic test building where Mr. Apostolakis, Patsoulis, Mr. Fantakis and Mr. Papastergiou described to them in groups, the operation of the large LHC accelerator , how they accelerate various particles, the use of magnets and the purpose of all experiments.
At noon they ate at the famous CERN canteen, where they had the opportunity to meet with students, professors, researchers from all over the world, and some of them met Professor John Ellis.
In Cern’s second major experiment, the CMS detector,while wearing appropriate safety helmets, they went down 80m below the surface of the Earth, where huge computing systems collect the detector information and was in operation at the time. The briefing at CERN continued on the following day 2/9 where Despina Hatzifotiadou, an experimental physicist working at Cern since 1987, guided them through the ALICE experiment, one of the four LHC accelerator detectors. The ALICE experiment studies the interactions of heavy lead ions by trying to identify if, as it has been described theoretically, a “soup” of elementary quarks and gluons particles was created in the first seconds after the big explosion, which naturally is not free in nature. Mrs. Hatzifotiadou works at CERN as the first researcher of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Italy, based in Bologna.
General information:
CERN is located west of Geneva, on the border of Switzerland and France. It was founded in 1954 by twelve Europeans, including Greece.
The Large Hadron Accelerator (LHC), a 27-kilometer circular experimental array of electromagnets, is sunk 100 meters below ground, between the two countries in Central Europe. Scientists from all over the world are working to find out what happened in the universe a few seconds after the Big Bang. To achieve this, they accelerate proton energy packets (atomic nuclei) at extremely low temperatures, which collide within four experimental detector assemblies (circular structures with thousands of 40 meter length sensing sensors and a height of more than 20) producing particles that do not appear freely in nature.
But CERN is not only important for his research in Physics. Tim Berners Lee has created the world of web which now uses millions of computers worldwide to navigate the internet and is now ready to give the world of computing a new revolution that hears to the Grid name.
Dr. Ellis is Professor of the University of London King’s College Maxwell, and has done his research at CERN for more than 40 years. He served as Director of CERN’s Theoretical Sector and adviser to CERN’s General Manager.
![ξ09[[]](https://bougas-school.gr/wp-content/gallery/cern-1/%CE%BE09.jpg "ξ09[[]")
Τransforming Fablabs Into Steamlabs
ERASMUS+ EDUCATIONAL TRIP TO THE CANARY ISLANDS
The private school Ekpedeftiria Bouga , so as to prepare its students for the new things happening in the worldwide job market and society , with the usage of new technologies and improvement of language and communication skills, is taking part in the Erasmus+ program and is co-operating with 5 European schools from Belgium , Italy, Spain and Croatia.
The project is on STEAM ( Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics).The students of the 4th , 5th and 6th grade of Ekpedeftiria Bouga take part in science labs so that they can understand the meaning of intersectionality. The students construct things that have to do with Ancient Greek technology and at the same time study Maths, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering. They also study the culture and facts of this period of time in history.
Each country is working on the project topic which is the sciences of STEAM but they are in charge of different aspects of it. Ekpedeftiria Bouga is focusing more on Science, the Italian school on Art, Croatia on the cultural heritage of Europe and presenting it on digital maps, the school CEIP TAGOROR of the Canary islands in Spain is researching the transformation of mechanical energy to electric energy.
Ιt is very important that the Erasmus + projects succeed and co-operation is something essential.
From the 24th till the 29th of March 2019 four of our teachers travelled to the Canary islands where they saw the way that Maths is taught, came into contact with new technologies, programs and logistics, made robots and put them in water, so as to see how they work under water, made cogwheels, used 3D printers and brought back many ideas.
The project began in December 2018 and will finish in November 2020. It is a project of co-operation and any new knowledge is valuable for the school and the society.
PARTICIPATION OF EKPEDEFTIRIA BOUGA IN AN ERASMUS+ PROGRAM
On Sunday 13/01/2019 teachers of Ekpedeftiria Bouga travelled to Pescara, Italy in the context of the European program Erasmus+KA2, as partners in the educational project “ Transforming Fablabs into Steamlabs”, which will have a duration of 2 years (2018-2020).
The project focuses on transforming the traditional teaching approach of STEAM into a more complete and versatile one, where the student is not only the observer and passive recipient of the new knowledge, but is put in the centre of the educational process with experiments, challenges , taking initiative and doing all the research that is needed.
Under the umbrella of STEAM each school-partner will be taking responsibility and working on a particular aspect of it. The students of our school will work with their teacher’s guidance in researching and constructing Ancient Greek mechanisms with an aim of interdisciplinarity and co-operation.
This new educational approach of STEAM will succeed with the co-operation of Ekpedeftiria Bouga and 5 European schools (Belgium , Spain , Italy and Croatia). After our teachers first trip to a an Italian primary school and taking part in a technology workshop, new knowledge has been gained which will bring great results in the improvement of Ekpedeftiria Bouga educational methods.
By participating and co-operating in this European project Ekpedeftiria Bouga is showing that the school is capable of following the changes in the field of education and taking on the challenges of the 21st century.
SUBJECT: Ekpedeftiria Bouga, New Educational Practices – Transition to Osijek, Croatia.
Bougas School, as a school that deepens new knowledge and pursues it, aware of the new demands of the century and the challenges that students of the present will have to face as adults of the future, could not fail to consider the educational system as it has been developed in European Union countries.
So, working for a second year in a row with STEAM, its essence, its features and the way it can be understood by students, through their everyday observation and application in real life, the children participating in the “Transforming FabLab ‘s to SteamLab’s “certainly cultivate technological skills but learn by experience. They learn about the Ancient Greek beacon and the transmission of the message by fire but they make their own beacons, they understand the mechanism behind them and how people communicated at that time.
But most important is how a group of Elementary students from five European countries (Greece, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Croatia) works simultaneously using the concepts of STEAM in selected topics, in order to exchange good practice among the participants, in program, schools. For this exchange, from Monday 7 October until Friday 11 October, teachers from Ekpedeftiria Bouga had the opportunity to get acquainted with the techniques and methods used by the Osijek Elementary School in Croatia ‘Jagoda Truhelke’.
The subject of the Croatian school was its cultural heritage and preservation. Therefore, the pupils of this school, in order to get to know the cultural heritage of their place, used Science after special study of the flora of the area, Technology through which historical monuments were analyzed while designing electronic monuments. the traditional ‘Mandala’ of Engineering where objects were made that depicted places and people symbolizing the cultural heritage of the place, Art, as a theatrical act was represented I was referring to the science and culture, and the Maths that are needed to understand and apply all of the above.
All of these techniques and methods were introduced by teachers through the ERASMUS + KA2 program, who understood new practices that transmit information and promote it in an innovative way. The purpose of this move is, of course, to apply these methods to the school and disseminate it to the local community. Interacting with teachers from Belgium, Italy, Spain and Croatia of course prepares teachers but mainly benefits our school students, as the effort to move from the old to the new, from the traditional to the modern, from the usual to the innovation becomes even more intense and synchronized with new social and cultural contexts.
In the framework of Etwinning 15 students from the 1st year of High school till the 2nd year of Lykeio travelled from the 8th -12th of March 2019 to the Le Longeron , near the city Nantes and had a fantastic time.
The students and 3 teachers , were hosted by the French families and were part of their daily routine, saw how school lessons were and the culture of a French society.
They visited important areas of the city, the Duke’s castle , the castle Goulaine in the valley of the Loire river, the biscuit museum LU famous for the petit beurre biscuits, the picturesque villages Clisson, Cholet, Noirmoutier and the picturesque villages on the coast of the Atlantic. They tasted great French specials like la galette nantaise, la choucriute, les crepes, la vaclette and many varieties of French cheeses.
They took part in the lessons at the French school and worked with students doing exercises ,which had to do with Ancient Greek mathematicians , French literature and Spanish. The French students learnt Greek everyday expressions and learnt about Kalamata by watching a video.
We are waiting for our French friends to visit us on the 30th of April , 18 students with 2 teachers, so that we can offer our hospitality and show them our area.
This project called : Tisser des liens et devenir citoyen du monde (Bridging relationships and becoming a citizen of the world) gave the whole group the opportunity to learn authentically, co-operate , use new technologies but also practice foreign languages.
The French school Lycee Champ Blanc wrote on its website: We hope that the bonds created during this first meeting with the Greek students will continue and will be put down in the history of Lycee Champ Blanc.
UK 2016 – KEELE UNIVERSITY
The Bougas school organizes an educational trip to England every year. This trip was from July 8th to July 17th 2016 and the children visited 4 cities, Manchester, Liverpool, Chester and London. They visited museums and attractions and took part in activities such as vocabulary group games with children abroad, Mini Olympics, a Talent Show, Quiz night and sports tournaments. In addition, they attended English classes at Keele University in Manchester and had fun, not only with their classmates but also with their new friends. It was a journey that gave the children the opportunity to practice English and to get to know the cultural identity of England.
Ekpedeftiria Bouga has ,again ,given students the opportunity to participate in a summer educational program in the UK, in particular at Keele University in Manchester. This program lasted ten days – 7 days on the university campus and 3 days in London. The aim of the trip was for the children to get to know about another culture, speak a foreign language, communicate, entertain and cultivate values such as friendship, mutual respect and solidarity.
From July 8th to July 15th,2016 the children stayed on the Keele University premises where they were taught by qualified staff. During their stay they took part in many activities as well as educational trips and the children also came in contact with students from other countries. There was a specially designed educational program, which provided 4 hours of teaching per day and was approved by the British Council. The students were ranked according to their level and were given a certificate of attendance at the end of the lessons. Along with the lessons, the students visited the cities of Manchester, Liverpool and Chester. They also took part in activities – such as sports tournaments, disco nights, group vocabulary games – Quiz night, a Talent show and mini-Olympics.
The trip continued from July 15th to July 17th in London where the group went sightseeing and the children saw the life in the English city. They visited the British Museum, the Natural History and Science Museum, Madame Tussauds Museum – they saw the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and most of the famous places in the city. They had the opportunity to walk around the city, see, shop and have fun.
It was a wonderful trip full of new experiences and many sweet memories that will accompany them forever.
UK 2017 – OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY
From July 11th -20th , 2017 students of the 6th year of Primary school, Secondary school and Lykeio students of Ekpedeftiria Bougas traveled with their teacher Tina Giannakea to Oxford, England.
Students taking part in the trip attended English courses at Oxford Brookes University. In combination with the courses, they took guided tours and went on sightseeing tours of Oxford, Cambridge and Bath. They also had the opportunity to participate in sports activities, collaborate in group games with children from other countries speaking English and thus share views and experiences. The program also included a theatrical play,a cinema night and a disco night.
It was another trip to the UK from which they gained great experiences and memories.
UK 2018 – READING UNIVERSITY
From July 10th -18th, 2018, students of Ekpedeftiria Bouga Primary School, High School and Lykeio along with their English teacher Tina Giannakea traveled to Reading, England to attend a summer educational program at Reading University.
The children took English lessons for which they received an attendance certificate , worked with students abroad, participated in group activities, shared experiences, thoughts and learnt about different cultures. In combination with the lessons, the students relaxed with games, parties, karaoke nights, excursions and guided tours. The students also visited Bath and, of course, London, where they admired the UK’s most important sights.
Another trip full of memories came to an end but we are looking forward to the next one!
The new day began with the Museum of Human History and Culture, the British Museum, where the children saw collections of more than seven million objects coming from all continents. Particular admiration and awe was felt when they saw artifacts from ancient Greece such as the Caryatida and other sculptures of the Parthenon. They discussed the sculpture because during the school year they had performed a Theatrical play based on the Caryatids and Acid rain titled “The Beauties of Athens” with which they participated in the “Science through Theater” competition.
Then their curiosity about botany, entomology, minerology, palaeontology and zoology led them to the Natural History Museum. There, they traveled to other worlds and experienced dinosaurs, strange insects and rare plants. Finally, their love for S.T.E.A.M., made them curious and they wanted to get to know a museum full of technology. So they did not fail to visit the Science Museum, where they walked on 7 floors with educational exhibitions, while with great interest they participated in interactive games. Leaving all these museums, children had “taken with them” the most beautiful souvenirs: knowledge, images and unforgettable experiences. In the evening they wore their formal clothes and watched a spectacular musical entitled “School of Rock”. In the best way, they said goodbye to London and continued their beautiful trip, at Oxford Brookes University (Oxford).
The second station was Oxford.
For the next seven days the students of Bougas School satyed at Oxford Brookes University. The University Team welcomed the students and helped them go to their rooms. After a tour of thestate-of-the-art University, students from different parts of the world played games of acquaintance, and various groups of pupils from all countries were quickly created.
For Seven days the University provided children with unique experiences, knowledge and entertainment such as English lessons with innovative methods, excursions and recreational activities.
The practice of the English language was done daily, talking to their teachers, discussing, eating in the canteen, playing with other children. Apart from knowledge, the children met different cultures, exchanged views and saw different attitudes than they had seen so far. They traveled to other places through their thoughts and of course made new friends. But all this was not limited to the University, the children visited the city of Oxford and wandered on the beautiful streets with beautiful buildings , spoke with their friends, ordered food, paid in pounds and learned about equality.
They visited Blenheim Palace, a monumental mansion located in the Woodstock area, spoke about the Duke of Marlborough, and came into contact with the palace history with the help of special headphones explaining the history of each room in English. We visited Oxford’s oldest college, Christ Church College. The size, architecture and extent of the College impressed both young and old. A wonderful excursion took place in the historic town of Warwick, on the banks of the Avon River. The children wandered in the great castle (Warwick castle) built in 1068. They learned about its history depicted in a modern and exciting way. They did not fail to see the classy home (Earls Warwick) and learn about the Victorian lifestyle of high society. At the same time, events such as archery and flying eagles took place in the walls, mainly in the lawn area, which impressed children.
Stratford was the next destination, the birthplace of the English poet and playwright Shakespeare, an area known as the Mecca of millions of Shakespeare lovers all over the world. The students learned about the most important writer who wrote in English, spoke about his works such as Hamlet, Roman and Juliet, and finally saw the family grave.The students were particularly impressed with the inscription on his grave, which includes a curse against the movement of his bones. Leaving Stratford, the students admired the beautiful city, listened to music from various bands, and walked by the canal. Our trip ended with a great boat trip in the city of Oxford, on which we admired hidden beauties.
The children, arriving at Heathrow Airport, had their suitcases full of beautiful and sweet memories, unique experiences, great knowledge, new friends, and dreams for future trips.
