Young Minds

Participants in the 2002 project were students, teachers and facilitators from the following countries: Denmark, Czech Republic, Holland, Iceland, Finland, Macedonia, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. They worked in teams and collaborated across classes to explore the following topics:

• Alcohol, youth, and culture
• Nutrition, food, and culture
• Well-being and the school environment
• Young Minds and the environment

For example, work on the issue of alcohol began with a brainstorming period in each country: participants wrote a list of common interesting questions concerning young people and alcohol. Students then began to find answers to these questions by interviewing experts, creating surveys, reading statistics online, and pursuing other information sources. Action plans were then developed, which led to various projects in Finland, Sweden, and Spain. Participants' findings, reflections, and discussions are presented in different sections of the Young Minds site.

Key features that each year's projects share are:

• Student participation: students are involved in dialogue and decision making about specific aspects of the topic they are working with.
• Action and change orientation: the student project work is directed towards action and change. Students' ideas and visions are central to decisions about actions to be taken with regard to promoting the health in their schools and communities.
• The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs): students use the Internet and other new technologies to investigate the topics, to exchange and discuss ideas, to present their findings and reflections, and to initiate broader debate.
• Cross-cultural collaboration: students cooperate in order to explore cultural differences and similarities with regard to the health topics, with an emphasis on global interconnectedness and social responsibility.

Representatives of the students and their teachers presented the project at a September 2002 conference called "Education and Health in Partnership". This European conference on linking education with the promotion of health in schools took place in the Netherlands. In addition, Young Minds participants will attend The Fourth Ministerial Conference of Environment and Health in Budapest (June 23-25 2004), which is entitled "The future for our children". In fact, all schools throughout Europe will be able to participate through a live interactive website during the Conference.

Youth, Health, Education.

More information about the book entitled young-minds.net/lessons learnt, which documents "Young Minds 2000-2001" and discusses the evaluation findings, is available by clicking here.