ZERO WASTE

An expert on initiatives directed towards the care for the environment was included in the group of visitors during the Erasmus+ mobility hosted in Ferrol in February 2025. She is the president of the association COSMUS DIY Thessaloniki and her name is Aravella Salonikidou.      A group of students from IES Canido involved in a previous Erasmus+ Project had had the opportunity to meet and interview her in Thessaloniki in May 2022. You can see them in the photograph. We had learnt a lot from her and put into practice some of her suggestions and, therefore, decided to invite her to Ferrol so that she shared her knowledge with a larger audience (more than 70 people in total) from several countries: Estonia, Poland, Sweden, Italy and Spain, multiplying its impact and results.  Here is a short video of some of the workshops she carried out as well as an introduction to thank her for her ideas by three students who had taken part in the "growing loofah activity". CL...

Last February 2025, IES Canido hosted an Erasmus+ mobility in Ferrol. The participants were students and teachers from Tallin (Estonia), Bierun (Poland), Verona (Italy) and Uppsala (Sweden) together with our own students and teachers from Ferrol (Spain). We were a really large group, which was difficult to handle, but we did our best and think all in all it was a very nice experience through which everybody learnt something and enjoyed our Spanish way of life! The mobility took place from February 10th till February 14th, with a total number of participants of more than 70 people and the presence of an expert in the fields of recycling and upcycling, called Aravella Salonikidou, and a group of students and teachers from Verona who are working in professional studies in fashion.     We had a talk and several workshops with Aravella Salonikidou, which will be shown in another post, we investigated how SOGAMA (Galician society for the care of the environment, also in another post...

The visit to Sarmizegetusa was kind of a magical experience. Before starting our mobility in Romania, we had found that this beautiful place was reachable in a day with a little effort. We took our bus early in the morning and, after driving for several hours, got to the place.   To our astonishment, there were warnings of bear presence everywhere on our way up to Sarmizegetusa. A bit scared and attentive, we walked up to find out the magic of the temples and remaining constructions, which we could fully understand with the help of our guide. We recommend this visit to anyone interested in the preservation of ancient cultures and natural habitats and encourage them to help preserve them for future generations. CLICK HERE if you like to learn more about this wonderful place.

An important part of our discoveries in Romania was based on nature as we would like to preserve it!. This way we had the chance to visit "Pestera Ursilor" or Bears' Cave, where an extinct animal: the cave bear used to live. It was a fascinating experience to all the group as we learnt a lot about this type of bears and their habitat, which today has become a wonderful cave where you can admire both beautiful stalagmites and stalactites as well as bones from these extinct animals.     CLICK HERE to explore this beautiful cave.

This is a podcast in which four students and two teachers amongst the participants in the trip to Beius (Romania) talk about their experience with the interviewer. It's in Spanish! Sorry for that! Our group presenting our school!   LINK to the interview.

Because of flight combinations, we were lucky we could visit Budapest in our way back from Beius. This way, we could explore this beautiful city, which is Patrimony of Humanity, and get to know a bit about its peculiarities. We learnt the city is divided in two parts: Buda and Pest and there are many thermal baths, each with its own style and characteristics, which make the city attractive to the visitor even in winter.   We stayed in a nice hotel next to the Central Market Hall and the Danube and had a look around the Parliament House, the Market, the Opera House, The Cathedral and several churches, therefore, being able to understand its importance and why we should preserve it for future generations. Come visit Budapest with us. Click to have a look at the presentation.

During our mobility in Beius (Romania) we were working in international teams about the changes in biodiversity which have taken place in the countries involved in the visit. After returning to Spain, we prepared a short presentation based on the ideas worked on with our mates. Here is our presentation. Clik HERE to have a look.

On our first afternoon in Beius (Romania), we could visit the ethnographic museum of the town. It was an interesting visit through which we could learn a lot about different objects which were used in the past, in a more sustainable way than we do in the present day.    We were surprised Samuil Vulcan school also had a lot of museums, five in total, of which we visited three: the ethnographic and the science amongst them.   Come visit the ethnographic museum in Beius with us. Click to see .

When we visited Beius in Romania last April 2025, our team focused on analysing the differences between what life was like in the past and what it is like today and extracting conclusions to see which one is more sustainable in terms of damaging the environment.   In the presentation we made, you can see that today many of our daily habits are based on the use of electricity, which, of course, means using more resources and is less sustainable. In the past, you could do exactly the same as today but it meant a bit more hard work like when you washed your clothes or typed any text and it was the same in terms of travelling or communicating with others. Our conclusion was that life was by far more sustainable in the past so we should try and find a middle way between past and present where we can meet both a solution to our needs in modern society and the preservation of resources and good natural environments where we can live. Click HERE to watch the presentation.

During the recent mobility of schools from Estonia, Sweden, Poland and Italy to IES Canido (Ferrol, Spain), we made our best from our loofah production.     We organised several activities related to the use of loofah. Here are some of them. GOAL: The goal of the whole set of tasks is that, by using digital means, the students will create a poster or a small presentation for a startup they are going to invest on. They will sell loofah and have to promote it to get as many customers as possible.   Activity 1 STEPS: First, we divided the students in international small groups. They were 60 in total: 7 from Estonia, 12 from Sweden, 13 from Poland, 6 from Italy and 22 from Spain. We asked them to form groups of 5 students and, therefore, we got 12 groups. (10 minutes) Second, the groups gathered together and we showed them individual loofahs and asked them to touch and analyse the product and start thinking about which products they could create using this biodegradable ...

Ever experienced your dish cloth wasn't eco-friendly enough? Well, we've got the answer: make it out of hemp!   Hemp is a plant that you can make a special kind of string out of. As long as this string isn't processed it's completely biodegradable, meaning it can be composted in nature as good as anything! Therefore this dish cloth wouldn't kill the fish in the ocean should it be dropped in there.   Hemp also possesses resistant properties against mold and other fungi, which means there won't be any suspicious mushrooms growing on it. And now you might say, "but my non-eco-friendly, low-time-use, plastic dish cloth doesn't mold!" My response is: first of all it's not eco-friendly, and second of all, you can make the hemp cloth yourself! Just buy some hemp string, learn to crochet and make one! And when that one stops working, make another one!   I made the dish cloth in the picture during my visit to Poland with Erasmus. I saw that other people...

During this mobility we learned about sustainable ways of reducing the use of single used plastic in our homes.  We got the chance to make a wax wrapper out of bee wax and cloth. Wax Wrappers are used to contain food while, for example travelling or just storing it. These wrappers can reduce our use of plastic and it's more eco frendly. When we made the wax wrappers, we took cloth and put it in a frying pan filled with melted wax at around 60 degrees Celsius. Then we took the wax wrappers and let them dry, followed by crumpling it to make it easier to bend. Using my own homemade wax wrapper has been a positive experience. It is easy to use and keeps food fresh longer. Although it made my hands and fridge greasy every time I used it. It didn’t feel sanitary to use it as a wrapper direct on food.     The wax wrapper can replace plastic wrap, which is a common one time use product. Plastic wrap is often used and gets thrown away directly after, by using a beeswax wrapper ins...

Wieliczka Salt Mines are Patrimony of Humanity because of their importance through the centuries in providing wealth to the region where they are located in Poland. Visiting is a must as the mines are really beautiful and pretty an impressive experience to the visitor, who must go down about 400 steps to reach the corridors which can be visited. It's just a small portion of the full mine, where they still work today. Here is an interview between the two of us (students) where we talk about our experience in the mines and, below, you can also see a few photographs. Enjoy! CLICK to watch the short video. CLICK to see the photo gallery.

This was another activity that we enjoyed a lot as many of us had never knitted anything. We were shown what to do by a few Polish students and teachers who were really good at it and we learnt quite easily. In small groups, we started our designs using this sustainable material (jute in this case) and were amazed at what we got by the end of the activity.   Here is a presentation where we explain the activity with a few pictures as well as we describe the materials a bit more. Have a look at it, you won't be disappointed. CLICK HERE to see.

In this activity, we learnt how to make a beeswax wrap which will help us store food in a sustainable healthy natural way. The only precaution you have to take when preparing this material is closing the windows because as wax is exactly that, wax in pure state, it attracts other bees in the vicinity and they may hurt you!   This was an interesting activity as we learnt about a natural product which can help us reduce the use of plastic and we were working in international teams, which allowed us to communicate in English with our European mates.                                           A Polish teacher is cutting the wax to melt it. We brought the materials we made home and we are using them with good results. CLICK HERE to see all the process.

We have chosen this title for our post because, after visiting, we think it is a really hard experience, but, at the same time, in our opinion, it should be visited as you experience in reality what all people who were taken to concentration camps could have felt. The places, both Auschwitz and Birkenau, make you shiver from head to toes. The conditions the prisoners used to live in were inhumane and one wonders how it is possible that situation could have happened. It is a reminder of cruelty of human kind which should not be repeated ever. So, if you are a sensitive person get prepared for the visit because, probably, you will cry. Anyway, as a homage to those who were prisoners and died in the camps, we recommend the visit. CLICK HERE to see our experience in the camps.

As we ususally do, we visited the Radio Voz station to talk about our experience in Poland during our mobility last October 2024.    We had many different details to talk about so we had to go there twice. We wish to thank Radio Voz and Isidoro Valerio for their invitations to his programme: Ferrolanos viajeros por el mundo. We are sorry! The interviews are in Spanish. CLICK HERE for the 1st programme. CLICK HERE for the second programme.

The interactive garden we visited in Cracow was an amazing experience. It is a large park with about 110 different machines where you can learn by experiencing how the machines interact with you. The fact that it is a park and the machines don't pollute enhances its benefits and relates it to our project.         It's a place where all youngsters visiting the city should go! CLICK HERE to see our experience using the machines.

                                         This is the Swedish group by the Wawel dragon In this post we like to show you beautiful Cracow, the second largest city in Poland. We visited it during our mobility in Poland last October 2024 and learnt about its history and about the Polish culture. We could see some of its most outstanding spots like Wawel Castle, with its legendary dragon at the bottom of the hill or lively Rynek Glowny and Florianska street as well as we the Barbican, part of the defensive system of the city. Come discover Cracow with us! CLICK HERE to see the presentation.

   This beautiful species of bird used to live in Galicia (our region in Spain) a few decades ago but, unfortunately, now, it's considered extinct in the mountains where it used to grow and live. To our surprise, in Poland, it was about to go extinct as well until they started a successful programme to increase its population, which has had really good results. In our opinion, we could learn from this interesting project and try and bring the species back to our mountains. The photograph was taken from behind a glass where the capercaillies usually spend their first months of life until they grow enough to be able to be set free in nature. For this reason, the quality is no good! This is our experience in images! CLICK HERE to see.