What is the Europa diary?

•  A school diary for students to write down their homework and activities with inspirational quotes, fun facts or thought-provoking questions at the bottom of each page,
• A  book full of information about important topics for young people: career opportunities, healthy living, environmental issues, the European Union and more;
• A valuable classroom resource for both students and teachers on secondary schools;
• Up-to-date information and attractive graphical style.Školní diář, do kterého si studenti mohou poznamenat, co dostali za domácí úkol, plný inspirativních citátů, zajímavých údajů a provokativních otázek na spodním okraji každé strany.

What is the teacher’s guide?

• A resource to help teachers broaden the students’ awareness and understanding of the issues addressed in the diary;
• Contains suggestions for classroom or homework activities, based on the contents of the diary: research, discussion, analysis, debates, quizzes, etc.

About the history of the project

In order to support new teaching methods, a network of partner organizations Generation Europe led by the Belgian Foundation Generation Europe Foundation developed a new training method of "Learning Diaries" that respond to the specifics of the selected target group.

The method is based on the knowledge that in addition to the content, a very important aspect of an educational material is the form, by which we want to reach the target group. Diary is a perfect example of the educational concept that is called  edutainment -  a combination of entertainment and education. It is most successful for the target group of children and adolescents. The concept is based on the idea that it is especially necessary to arouse the interest of the educated person and the confidence in the educational content which we provide. Students must feel that we are not trying to teach them or manipulate them. It is therefore particularly important:

• Speak the language of the relevant age group;
• Talk about interesting things, or talk about “uninteresting” things in an interesting manner;
• Use the principles of critical thinking – e.g. present a problem from different points of view and let the student do the final evaluation himself;
• Use visually interesting ways of graphic presentation and avoid long, continuous texts.

Statistics and feedback

Generation Europe realized the project Europa diary – Wise choices for the first time in the academic year 2004/5. Under the financial support of the European Commission, Generation Europe issued and distributed free of charge a total amount of 560.000 copies in the 15 old member states.

In the Czech Republic, the diary has already been published in five editions (the first time in 2005 / 6) and the feedback from the professional community, teachers and students was very positive. The project addresses all types of secondary schools from vocational schools to high schools. The project participants are public and private schools, and as expected, schools which focus their interest on civic education,  the European Union, environmental education etc.  In particular, schools appreciate information which that helps the students understand the issues of European integration and the consequences resulting from it.  The methodological guide is a helpful source of ideas for new activities for teachers. It is distributed along with the diary and follows the texts from the diary. 

In the academic year 2009/10, over 131 thousand pieces of the diary were distributed free of charge in more than 880 schools.

Table 1: The number of distributed publications since school year 2005/6

source: Generation Europe

Table 2: The number of participating schools since school
year 2005/6

In the Czech republic, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and MEP Zuzana Roithová support the project and its follow-up activities financially in the long term, as a part of their consumer policy.