Teachers' meeting in Budapest. September 2011

During the last week of September, 2011, teachers from the different schools, met together in Budapest (Hungary) to prepare the COMENIUS project that we want to develop with our students, in our schools. It was a long week. We had a lot of meetings but we also had the chance to visit some parts of the city (Guided by nice students from the Hungarian school), enjoy the Hungarian food, and had fun together, chatting, walking around and knowing better each other. It was a really good start for our project. Here is a summary of the visit written by the Hungarian team: A Visit to Budapest (25th September -30th September) 26th September, Monday The first encounter between our students and the Comenius partners took place in the hotel lobby, from where they were escorted by two volunteer students (early birds) to school. On the way to school they were given a taste of the city by these two students, Réka Mándoki and Eszter Lévai, who introduced some of the famous buildings and let the enthusiastic teachers take several photos of them. In the morning there was a reception in school. The teachers met the head mistress, Ms Veronika Hámori, and the deputy head, Ms Katalin Szabó, who showed them around in the school building. Then, the teachers visited two classroom lessons, one of them being an English lesson where they enchanted our students with their introductory presentations describing the country they come from. The second lesson was an advanced Chemistry class, in which our guests were involved in carrying out experiments. Although they blew and blew, they didn’t blow up the school building. In the afternoon, together with the students involved in the project (8.d), we went on a sightseeing tour organised by the students themselves. A report on the event by a pupil, Viktória Bíró 8.d At the end of September my English group took a trip to the heart of Budapest. We were there with teachers from different countries in Europe. We walked along Danube Promenade, crossed Chain Bridge and went up to Fishermen’s Bastion. Fortunately, the weather was sunny and warm. From the east-bank of the river Danube (Pest) we had a look at the enchanting Buda Castle, the Citadel and Gellert Hill on the west-bank. We passed by beautiful squares, restaurants and buildings. From the other side we admired Pest with the Parliament. Our group had presentations about famous landmarks of Budapest such as the Citadel and Matthias Church. Our guests seemed to have enjoyed the tour very much. I felt proud of living in this amazing city. Another report from Anikó Jakab: Some teachers were here from different countries because of a Comenius project called H.U.G.E.S. We needed to organise a sightseeing programme for them. Our tour started at the gates of the school, where we had a welcome sign saying WELCOMENIUS. First, we went to the hotel where the teachers were staying. While they changed clothes, we had some nice ice cream. Next, we walked along Váci Street and across the River Danube. At the feet of Chain Bridge we stopped and Marci told us some information he had collected about the history of the bridge. After that, we went up to Buda Castle by bus. In the castle we went up to Fishermen’s Bastion , from where we could see the breath-taking view of the city. It was the first time for me to be up there. While we were there, we had mini-presentations about the bastion and the Parliament. Finally, we sang a Hungarian folk song that we translated into English, accompanied by two of my classmates playing the recorder. I think it was fun, I really enjoyed it, I had never seen Budapest through the eyes of a tourist before. 27th September, Tuesday On the second day of the visit to Budapest we had loads of work to do. Due to the fact that two of the schools had not been accepted by their National Agencies, we had to plan the whole project again. A trip to Vácrátót by Luca Pápay A few weeks ago we had a trip to the Botanical Garden and Geoterm Visitor Centre by passive house technology in Vácrátót, a small town near Budapest. On our arrival the guide was already waiting for us. He showed us around the botanical garden and told us about the history of its founding. The garden was beautiful, although I think the trip was a bit long and we were tired. We heard a lot of information about the trees, plants and lakes there. We quite enjoyed the description of this typical romantic garden, where every decoration is fake; there are artificial ponds, a fake mill and ruins of a castle. We got to know that a castle used to be there and the place itself was owned by a count, who donated it to the National Science Academy in his testament. After the visit to the botanical garden, we went to the visitor centre, which was still under construction, it had officially opened the day before our visit, so we were the first non-professional visitors of the centre. The site manager was there to tell us lots of interesting facts about the construction of the visitor centre and the innovative geothermal and biomass based heating system they have planted in Vácrátót to provide green energy for the greenhouses and research institute buildings in the botanical garden and for some of the community buildings in the town. He told us about the temperature being constantly 15°C there because of a special heating system. It consists of tunnels with hot and cold water. The insulation and the windows are special as well. Adults could go up to the roof as well to see the green roof with grass and the solar power station. The reason for having plants on the roof is that they provide shadow, which helps keeping the temperature in the house in the same level. We saw two rooms there; an exhibition and a conference hall. The main reason why this visitor centre cannot be certified as a passive house is in its nature of being designed for fifty people who need fresh air during a conference or an exhibition and whose entrance and departure cannot be controlled in the same way as in a private residence. That’s why there’s a ventilation system installed as well. The site manager emphasised the fact that a passive house cannot possibly be public because in that case the doors would have to be opened too often. Neither can it have any machines, such as air conditioning, so although the visitor centre is supposed to demonstrate how a passive house works, it cannot be referred to as a passive house. The most fascinating part of the visit was Question Time, when we could ask the construction manager to explain things. We inquired about the advantages and disadvantages of having a passive house, and finally, we asked him whether he would build a passive house for himself. He gave us a fascinating outlook on the opportunities and the obstacles someone who wants to build a passive house has to face in Hungary. He also put special emphasis on how important the personality of the owner is. Owning a passive house encourages a more eco-friendly lifestyle, a greater interest and awareness of weather patterns, a good passive house owner must not be a messy person. After the tour we had lunch at a restaurant, and then we went back to Budapest. All in all, we liked this trip because it was interesting and we learned a lot, collected a lot of information which can help us in our project called H.U.G.E.S. even if we won’t have the opportunity to build a model of a passive house during the two years of the project. One thing is for sure and it is an important conclusion we can draw from the trip to Vácrátót, and that is that the super-insulated windows and insulation itself are essential to reduce our carbon footprint, and thus the installation of these in our schools could mean a giant step towards the creation of a green energy school. Nevertheless, we also got to know that the cost of these super-insulated windows were probably the highest in the project. Many thanks to everyone involved in extending such a warm, Hungarian welcome to our guests, and congratulations to the above mentioned pupils for being such great hosts.