In a significant milestone for the project, the students and teachers overcomes the language barriers and learned how they could work together. It might be a sustainability in this project.
The goal of the project Green popup 4 all is to build a way of teaching and learning green and sustainable entrepreneurial skills that are important in the hospitality and catering industry today. To do this, the project use a mix of digital learning and hands-on experience, so both online skills and in-person learning are part of the plan.
Through the project Green popup 4 all, the participants aim to make vocational education more interesting and appealing and enhance the students digital knowledge. The project also aim to offer international experiences and foster an understanding of different cultures, especially within the food industry. Through virtual and in-person interactions, students has developed their communication and social skills. The project also helps teachers improve their digital readiness by providing training tools and methods. The week in Saarenmaa The teachers and students third gathering took place at Kuressaare Ametikool on the island of Saaremaa in Estonia. Before this gathering, the students had met several time online to prepare the menu for the dinner on Thursday evening in Kuressaare. The teachers had in addition to that met twice before in person, in Kuressaare (Estonis) and in Slagelse (Denmark). And finally, the much-anticipated day arrived… After all the planning, it was time to enter the kitchen. The students now had the opportunity to prepare the food and test their ideas. The students worked together to improve their ideas. Good ideas were kept, while those that did not work were put aside. Luckily, everything went well, and the nervousness before Thursday’s event disappeared. On the big day, the kitchen was busy with lots of work. The teams and teachers worked together smoothly. Because of this, the food was served on time and exactly as planned. What did the teachers learn during the week? One very important lesson was that an idea that might work within one educational culture not necessarily works in another. In addition, that most of the education are the same in the four participating countries. Therefore, ideas from the kitchen that could be useful in future education were acknowledge by the teachers and part of the foundation for the new manual on sustainable cooking and teaching that the project was creating. The journey towards a complete syllabus is almost over and the project are now clos to an end. It is clear that both online and in-person meetings are necessary for progress to happen. As the project moves forward, we notice that language barriers are difficult to overcome. It takes several days before people feel comfortable enough to talk, ask questions, and actively participate in conversations. And even then, it’s not always easy. Study visits in real life Throughout the week, our group went on three educational visits. Each visit focused on different products that the future hospitality industry should prioritize. During these visits, the students also learned about the challenges that exist and the need for a fresh perspective to uncover new profitable business approaches. The first trip took us to the company Karmeli, where Aivar and Karel showed us how they make buckwheat and hemp oil, among other products. The building they used was constructed during the time of the Soviet Union. It had been left abandoned for a while until Aivar and Karel decided to renovate it and start their business in the 2010s. They then chose to focus on buckwheat, a traditional crop in the Baltic region and Russia. Their main product was yellow buckwheat, which had more versatile uses compared to the brown type. These yellow buckwheat seeds can be turned into flour, oil, and heating pads. Brown buckwheat is mainly used for porridge and is not as profitable. Next, we visited the Pähkla fish farm, where Remy Kolberg gave us a tour and the group had a taste of some of their fish. The farm specialized in breeding crayfish and trout. The presence of abundant fresh water near the farm make it an ideal location. One major advantage of fish farms is that they do not harm the natural fish population in the oceans. However, they had to be careful in controlling and purifying the water that flows out to prevent diseases and contamination. Our final educational visit was to The Windmill, where Kaupo Pastak explained how using local ingredients not only created unique products but also added a storytelling element. By combining these two aspects, The Windmill enhanced the value of their products and made them competitive against mass-produced goods from around the world.
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