Your Europe, Your Say 2022

Eight concrete proposals were handed to the European Commission's Vice-President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová by secondary school students from all over Europe. The students were taking part in the virtual youth event Your Europe, Your Say! (YEYS2022) under the title: The truth about lies. Youth challenging disinformation. The event was hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on 31 March and 1 April 2022. Our school has been the Spanish representative.

1.      ICEBREAKER

What’s the typical dish in your country? Food was the chosen topic to begin the day while meeting students and teachers from all over Europe.

Opening Session

This session was moderated by Cillian Lohan, EESC Vice-President and there were different speeches regarding fake news and media literacy.

·         Opening speech by Christa Schweng, EESC President

Ruurd Oosterwoud, founder of DROG

·         Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck, journalist and founder of Lie Detectors

After the opening session, students and teachers split up in two different groups.

 

1.      Day 1

-          Students: Under Pressure Game

Students played a game which was divided into levels. In the game you were the one who created the disinformation. You had an account where you uploaded posts and depending on how good you were fooling people you gained more followers or not. There were six levels and each level dealt with an aspect of disinformation. For example, there was a level of trolling and a level of polarisation. We finally talked about the results of the game and agreed that what makes people believe information that is not real is emotions and making an impact in people's heart.

 

-          Teachers:

a)      House of European History

The session began asking teachers their own definition of fake.

Later on, Lauren Bragard, explained different interactive activities that the House offers to students. There are many learning possibilities and they also offer the possibility of online visits.

a)      Council of the European Union

Brief introduction of the organisation and presentation of the civil education package.

Day 2

-          Students: Workshop in breakout groups

Throughout the second day, all YEYS participants were organised into groups and subgroups with whom we worked together, thinking, and working as the fake news makers. As a result, we came up with a fake news campaign. By working in the place of the fakers, we learned what details make the difference between fake news and real news. After several hours of work, we presented to the rest of the classmates. 

-          Teachers

o   Welcome by Biliana Sirakova, EU Youth Coordinator within the European Commission, who presented the Youth Goals.

o   European Commission:

§  Presentation of the Learning Corner

Presentation Spot and fight disinformation

o   European Committee of the Regions: presentation of the “Back to School” activities.

o   European Parliament Ambassador School programme (EPAS)

1.      Closing session

Presentation of the proposals to the EU Commissioner by the students

Keynote speaker: Ms Vera Jourova, European Commission Vice-President and European Commissioner for Values & Transparency

MUSEUMS

We know that not everyone likes to visit museums, and that if you're not interested in the topic, it can be really boring. For that reason, during the last weeks in English classes we've found a solution: we've created our own museums. What does it mean?  In pairs, we have searched and thought about a topic we like or we're interested in, and, agreeing, we've choosen one for our own new museum. To advertise these hypothetical museums, we've designed really original digital or physical leaflets. In these, we exposed the different exhibitions that could be found, the schedules, prices, address and ways of contacting.  But, as good entrepreneurs, we wanted to go further: we made a radio ad advertising ourselves. Lastly, we exposed our leaflets to the rest of the class, and at the same time we evaluated each other.

English Speaking Cities

Here you have some of the posters and enjoy your trip!!
In this project, we have decided one city to work with and to explain things about it.

Like:

-          The most relevant things to visit

-          Famous people who were born there.

-          City location.

-          Population of the city.

-          The surface.

-          And finally, how to arrive from Barcelona.

We have worked in pairs, searching all the information.

Éric P. and Aaron C.

3rd ESO B

The United Nations Project: Presentation

My name is Lazaros, I am 19 years old and I come from Greece. Studying business in the University of Macedonia an opportunity appeared so I came to Barcelona as a volunteer to share my thoughts about sustainable development with young people. Using activities and projects I am trying to make students aware about the problems our earth faces at this moment and motivate them to do something about it. The most important thing for me is for the students to understand how serious this is and how it will affect people in such a sort time period. For me, if they understand this they will feel like the need to do something, because this is what happened to me. In this case i will try to get them familiar with organisations like AIESEC who encourage and guide people who want to be part of the campaign designed to change this planet once and for all.

In my first 2 weeks here i met 3rd and 4th ESO's students. 

7th English Week. Reflections. Thursday 28th February

THURSDAY 27th FEBRUARY

 MARVEL VILLAINS

1. LOKI

 

 Film(s): Thor, The Avengers

 Powers: Strength, durability, hypnosis, shape-shifting and teleportation.

 Loki has a strong desire for power, and this drives his evil tendencies. His has a complicated relationship with his brother (Thor) and step father (Odin).

 2.    KILLMONGER

 Film: Black Panther

 He is a ruthless Wakandan warrior, former American black-ops operative and a terrorist leader.

 He aimed to defeat and kill Black Panther, who eventually stabbed him in the back.

3.    RED SKULL

Films: Captain America: The First Avenger

AKA Johann Schmidt was a confidant of Adolf Hitler. He tried the Super Soldier serum which transformed him into the horrifying Red Skull. After gaining unimaginable power, he left the Nazi and began to rule the world alone.

4.    ULTRON

Film: Avengers: Age of Ultron

 Ultron is an artificial intelligence peacekeeping program created by Tony Stark. Ultron was tasked with protecting earth but deemed humanity itself the greatest threat.

5.    THANOS

Film: Avengers: Infinity War

Thanos is powerful, extremist, genocidal, psychopathic, violent and tyrannical Titan warlord. He wanted to bring stability to the universe by reducing the population.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxDQh_-vJss

7th English Week. Reflections. Wednesday 27th February

WEDNESDAY 27th FEBRUARY

AVENGERS

 In 2012 The Avengers was released in cinemas, based on the comic of the same name. It is the first major crossover in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film has an ensemble^* cast that includes: Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk) and Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton).

 In the film, a spy agency called S.H.I.E.L.D recruits all these characters in order to stop Thor’s brother (Loki) from subjugating Earth. Some S.H.I.E.L.D members are being controlled by Loki, making the defeat even more challenging. In the end, the Avengers succeed and part ways, awaiting the emergence of a new world-threatening menace…

 Other films… Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Avengers: Infinity War (2015) and Avengers: Endgame (2019) – not yet released.

 *Ensemble^: Conjunt

Facts:

-      The Avengers was the first movie to make one billion dollars.

-      Scarlett Johansson was pregnant during the filming of the second movie and had 3 stunt doubles.

-      The drone scene in Age of Ultron was created by a single animator and took 360 days to complete.

-      The Infinity War trailer is the most viewed trailer in YouTube history.

-      Spiderman was part of the Avengers in the comic books.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udKE1ksKWDE

7th English Week. Reflections. Tuesday 26th February

TUESDAY 26th FEBRUARY: SPIDERMAN AND CAPTAIN AMERICA

CAPTAIN AMERICA

Steve Rogers intended to be an Army enlistee but was rejected by recruiters due to his size. Instead, Rogers volunteered to take a top-secret serum, and transformed into what is known as… Captain America – a patriotic super soldier.

Captain America had his debut in 1941 in a comic book and was very popular during the war. When the war ended the popularity decreased but was revived in 1964 and was followed by much success.  

Powers: Rodgers is the perfect example of a super soldier. He has great ability, strength, speech and endurance^*. The formula he took, enhanced^* all of his bodily function to ‘the peak of human efficiency’.

*Endurance: Resistència *Enhance: Realçar

SPIDERMAN

In his 1962 debut in the Amazing Fantasy comic book, Spiderman started to fight crime in response to the murder of his Uncle Ben. His alias ‘Peter Parker’ used to be self-absorbed and a bit of a wimp^*, but his transformation allowed him to do good, and to improve on his own life and that of others.

Personality: Spiderman retains human characteristics - he misses appointments, catches the flu, and sometimes even struggles to pay rent. He also enjoys playing tricks on people and is extremely sarcastic when helping people. Most of all, he is kind, brave and loyal.

Powers:

Spider sense – can sense danger and knows how to avoid it.

Wall crawling – the ability to cling^* to any surface that he climbs.

Strength and ability – reflexes that work 40 times faster than a normal person.

Web Slinging^* – webbing that can withstand cold temperatures and propel^* over 50 yards.

*Wimp: feble *Cling: enganxar-se  *Sling: llençar  *Propel: propulsar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUFmhKpZKlE

7th English Week. Reflections. Monday 25th February

MONDAY 25th FEBRUARY

THE MARVEL UNIVERSE

The Marvel Universe began in 1961 when Martin Goodman responded to the growing interest in superhero books and demanded to writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby to create the Fantastic Four. With the release of this comic, readers were introduced to a super heroic setting situated in the real world, most of the times in New York.

To make the comic book characters more original, Lee and Kirby allowed their characters to interact, most of the time fighting or arguing with each other. This way, the adventures in one comic would have repercussions in another title, or the most important characters would make a cameo or guest appearances in another one.

This more realistic type of comic built up Marvel’s reputation. Stories also began to deal with social issues such as pollution, equality or drug abuse.

Some of the most famous characters in the Marvel universe are Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, the X-Men, Captain America or Daredevil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZiNKB28_Ns