EPASsionate eTwinners's contribution to the European Year of Digital Citizenship Education

In August 2024, the eTwinning project EPASsionates was registered on the European School Education Platform (ESEP). It is currently in the dissemination and evaluation phase and will last until June 2025, when it will be submitted for the National and European Quality Label awards. The project is a continuation of the eTwinning projects Down EU Avenue (2022/23) and Vote4Democracy Ambassadors (2023/24). The founders and coordinators of all three projects are English teachers Gabriela Ciolpan (from the Lazar Edeleanu Technical School in Năvodari, Romania) and Ivana Opačak (from the Secondary School of Economics in Slavonski Brod, Croatia). The project includes European Parliament Ambassador Schools (EPAS), which also hold the title of eTwinning Schools, from Greece, Spain, Romania and Croatia.

The project EPASsionates focuses on strengthening international cooperation, European digital literacy and active citizenship. These are key concepts highlighted by this year’s Council of Europe initiative – 2025 has been declared the European Year of Digital Citizenship Education. The theme also aligns with this year’s eTwinning campaign Education for Citizenship, and coincides with the 20th anniversary of eTwinning. The project promotes the importance of collaborative planning in the educational process, integrated learning/teaching of vocational and general education content and foreign languages (Content and Language Integrated Learning/CLIL), using European teaching materials, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the STE(A)M methodology.

During the first project meeting on October 4, 2024, teacher Ivana Opačak presented a model lesson plan (her original work), which served as the foundation for the year-long project work. As an example of project collaboration, the two coordinators (Opačak and Ciolpan) presented their experience of (co-planning) co-teaching in September 2024 – implementing a joint educational scenario EDL – Poetry & Wellbeing to mark/celebrate European Heritage Days and the European Day of Languages.

From October 2024 to May 2025, project partners communicated and collaborated in international teams to co-create, implement, and (self-)evaluate structured learning scenarios, together with their students, and to compile a digital collection of activity proposals for teaching about Europe (for Europe). All project activities were carefully planned, systematically documented on the project's TwinSpace and disseminated through the project’s online platforms (EPASsionates – Secondary School of Economics, Slavonski Brod, Croatia; Facebook, Instagram).

On the Linktree platform (HERE), the project blog eTwas Learning About Europe was published, presenting a compilation of eight (8) educational scenarios for teaching about Europe (for Europe). These include elements of STE(A)M and CLIL methodology, focusing on the ethical and safe use of digital tools and artificial intelligence and supporting the Sustainable Development Goals and the EPAS programme. The blog’s homepage, with a list of scenario topics, reflects the comprehensive and extensive nature of the project work.

As the culmination of the project, the publication Etwas (eTwinning & EPAS) about Europe: pedagogical guide compiled within eTwinning project Epassionates was published on April 25, 2025. The online edition (49 pages, in PDF format) is authored by a group of contributors (project partners) and registered with the Romanian National ISBN Agency under the international standard book number ISBN 978-973-0-41807-1. Thanks to the efforts of the two project coordinators to standardize the collaborative educational scenarios into a unified, original format and compile them into a cohesive publication, the year-long work of teachers and students has become an officially recognized publication. It will remain permanently accessible in national and international book databases as inspiration for all educators seeking to enrich their teaching about Europe.

Teacher Ivana Opačak is the co-author of three educational scenarios in the publication, covering seven (7) English language lessons, in correlation with Croatian language and literature (EDL – Poetry, Language of Well-Being), Mathematics (EU in Riddles & Numbers), Political Science and Economics (Participatory Democracy), as well as various cross-curricular topics. The implementation of the second scenario – during the public event Maths Evening: EU in Riddles & Numbers in December 2025 – was submitted to the international Scientix STEM Discovery Campaign 2025 competition and published on the Scientix event map. Teacher Opačak is also credited with creating an interactive image on the Genial.ly platform, which brings together ten reports on the implementation of the educational scenarios in classrooms of project partners from Romania, Greece, Spain and Croatia.

The two teachers – Ciolpan and Opačak – are also responsible for continuing a Europe-Day-celebration tradition started the previous year. Together with the Secondary School Konjščina from Croatia, the Pontus Euxinus General High School from Lumina, Romania, and the Avellaneda Secondary School from Miguel de Cervantes’s hometown of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, they organized a hybrid event: the MarEUforum Festival, held in celebration of Europe Day and eTwinning Day on May 8 – 9, 2025. 

Representatives of the five organizing schools participated in person at the two-day Festival in Năvodari, Romania. Croatia was represented by one second-year student at the Konjščina Secondary School, accompanied by her homeroom teacher Marija Brkić, as well as two first-year students of class 1E at the Secondary School of Economics in Slavonski Brod, accompanied by their homeroom teacher Ivana Opačak. On the second day (Europe Day), partner schools from Romania and Greece joined the event online via Microsoft Teams. In total, the festival gathered around 150 participants from four countries.

On May 9, 2025, the 75th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration (which laid the foundation for the creation of the European Union that we know today) was celebrated across Europe. The Festival participants also celebrated the EU’s 75th birthday – through work, but also with a birthday cake and song, performing the collaborative project anthem Shining Together: The EPAS Anthem. (The anthem was created in April 2025 using the Suno AI tool, based on a verse from the collaborative lyric poem eTwas (eTwinning/EPAS) Unites Us, available HERE. It was selected as the project anthem through a democratic method—by e-voting involving all project partners.)

That same day also marked the 20th anniversary of the eTwinning programme. Since the international EPASsionates project connects eTwinning schools that are also European Parliament Ambassador Schools, both anniversaries were celebrated with a variety of events and activities. The programme included thematic presentations aimed at disseminating final project outputs and marking the European Year of Digital Citizenship Education. Three studens from Croatia represented their schools and country excellently, delivering a presentation/workshop titled Eurolesson together with their teachers. As part of their session, they presented materials from the European Parliament Liaison Office in Croatia on the topic of disinformation, with the message: Scroll Smartly!

An art workshop was organized to create a large banner featuring the title EPASsionates and handprints of all project partners, followed by a drone recording; there was a flashmob performance of the project anthem, a workshop on disinformation, organized by the Romanian association Station Europe and a workshop on participatory democracy, organized by the Romanian School of Values as part of the Digital Civic Incubator programme. The event programme, including a chronological list of lectures and workshops with accompanying working materials, is available HERE.

The festival culminated with the presentation of the project banner on the roof of the host school and a concert by the band Maladeț, which united the participants’ emotions in a unique, free, European spirit – true to the name of the project EPASsionates. The evening continued with music, dancing and cultural exchange. It was truly inspiring to witness how (not only) young people, through international cooperation, contribute to strengthening democracy and a shared European identity. A video summary of the event in Romania is available HERE.

The results of the project’s descriptive evaluation on the Padlet platform, along with the collaborative My eTwinning Diary on Canva, testify to the success of the project and the satisfaction of all participants. 60 (out of 82 participating) students have stated their overall satisfaction and evaluated their upgraded knowledge of the project matter in a final evaluation Google survey, conducted by teacher Opačak 15 – 30 May 2025. 

The results of the survey (HERE) showcase enormous students' efforts and contributions in shaping a better European and global society. Students significantly increased their knowledge across all project topics. Topics they knew the most about before (and know most about after) the project work are Human Rights, Cultural Diversity & Multilingualism. Topics they knew the least about before the project work (but seem to have improved most at) are (De)Coding, STE(A)M, Social Entrepreneurship and Participatory Democracy. Great improvements were noticed within the area of European Citizenship and Digital Citizenship, which is not surprising, bearing in mind the EPASsionates' plan in the European Year of Digital Citizenship Education.  

Students' average enjoyment rating was 4.45, and average usefulness rating was 4.55. What students liked most was international collaboration and teamwork; learning new skills and knowledge; using English and digital tools; engaging, hands-on activities (e.g., coding, online meetings, cultural exchange). They are proud of their presentations, teamwork, improved communication, contributions to human rights and democracy topics, learning and applying new skills. Topics they would like to explore next year are European history and politics; democracy, law, and students' rights; coding, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, Erasmus+ opportunities and cultural traditions. Participants praised the project for building knowledge, friendships, collaboration and digital skills. Many expressed the wish for more time for project work at school, more in-person meetings and continuation of similar projects.

Ivana Opačak, English/Croatian teacher & EPAS/eTwinning coordinator 

at the Secondary School of Economics in Slavonski Brod, Croatia