This document summarizes the meetings of an environmental sustainability partnership between schools in Northern Ireland, Wales, Greece and Romania. The first meeting in Greece allowed partners to visit each other's schools and see differences and similarities. They discussed environmental education methods and visited historical sites. The next meeting was hosted by a school in Northern Ireland, where partners learned about their biodiversity, energy, and water conservation programs. They visited local landmarks together. The third meeting took place in Wales, where partners saw the school's environmental programs in action. They learned about Welsh culture and history while discussing sustainability. The final meeting was hosted by a Romanian school. Partners experienced Romanian culture and saw how the project impacted the school.

1. Mind Over MatterProject Meetings

2. 1. Contact seminary – Athens, November 2008Northern Ireland, Wales, Greece and Romania establish an ESD partnership between four primary schools.

3. 2. First meetingThe first meeting, established for April 2010, in UK, had been cancelled and replanned for March 2011. A very natural environmental cause- the volcano’s eruption in Iceland and the ash cloud which didn’t allow flying.

4. 3. PalaioFaliro School (Greece) – October 2010The partners visited PalaioFaliro School, next to Athens, a friendly and colored school. They spoke with the children and admired the classrooms, the library and the sport ground also.

5. Children and teachers offered an interesting presentation of school, an extraordinary performance and everyone had time for knowing the others.

6. All the partners presented their activities and materials for dissemination and interest was special because we SEE all the schools for the first time. We compared buildings, children, activities, results and ideas. After one year, we were happy to discover that it’s possible to be a successful project for everybody.

7. The Greek partners exposed their methods to involve more active little children in environmental problems. One of these methods is through electronic games and animation and it is successful. All the project partners received CD-s with these games to test them in their own schools.

8. Visiting Sol Energy Station and Navy Museum were opportunities to understand how important is for Greece these two energy sources : sun and water and how they understand to use them for a real benefit.

9. Shipping is very important for Greeks and Corint Channel proves that.

10. The Greek experience was completed with Mikenis, Napflion and Acropolis, three pages in Greece history.

11. This first meeting offered a fairly image about country, people, schools and environmental concerns. We discovered also many similarities between Greek and Romanian educational systems.

14. At last all the partners succeeded to meet in British Isles! And our first station was the Emerald Island, the British part, Northern Ireland and our partner school: Ballynure School.

15. Severe, clean and tidy outside, the school is very lively and coloured inside. The children are well schooled, attentive and lovely. The program was combined: presentations of the project with artistic and cultural moments ( poems, songs, little plays and dance) and everybody – children, teachers and guests – were relaxed.

16. The main environmental ideas of Ballynure School are connected to biodiversity, energy, water and transporting. Everywhere is clean, birds and little wild animals are protected and nourished, the rainwater is collected. Children learn to reduce the energy consumption and which are the different energy sources.

17. Their drawings, panels and displays, their songs and plays proved their continued concerns for environmental activities. Actually, Ballynure School is involved for many years in the ECO School Program and has the Green Flag but also the Silver Flag and are working to obtain the Golden Flag.

18. Together we visited Antrim Coast, BushmillsDistilery (very old, from XVII century) and Causeway Giant – an extraordinary geologic zone- protected by the government but also with the common people support.

19. An interesting moment was to visit the Northern Ireland Parliament and to attend a parliamentary session on Education problems. Very impressed, we understood how important and considered is Education in UK. 4. BallynureSchool, Northern Ireland (United Kingdom) – March 2011

23. 5. LlandegfanYsgol, Anglesey – Wales (United Kingdom) – March 2011Water is everywhere: Irish Sea and rain. And wind and Snowdonia covered by mist. But people are very friendly, lively and warmly. We started the Welsh project activities with James Hindson’s presentation about Sustainability ( James presented at the original Comenius Contact Seminary in Athens in October 2008). We all were very pleasant to meet him as a British Council Representative and to share our ideas and experiences.