Documenting Our Learning Journey – From Forest to Future Project Diary and Erasmus+ Information Board

As part of our Erasmus+ project “From Forest to Future”, our students took part in a project diary and information board activity designed to document their nature-based STEM experiences, reflect on their observations, express what they had learned in different ways and share their work with the school community.

Throughout the project, students recorded their experiences from practical activities such as planting a chestnut sapling, observing its development, examining different leaves, measuring tree trunks and comparing changes in nature. In their diaries, they described not only what they had done, but also what they had observed, which measurements they had taken, what differences they had noticed, how they interpreted the results and what they had learned from the process.

In this way, the diaries became more than a simple writing activity. They served as learning, observation and reflection records. Students revisited the measurements and observations they had made during previous activities, interpreted changes in nature and reflected on their own learning process. This helped them develop important scientific skills such as recording evidence, organising information, comparing observations and explaining results.

The completed diaries were then translated into English by the students under the guidance of their English teacher. This gave students the opportunity to express what they had learned from real nature-based activities in a foreign language. The activity helped them see English not only as a school subject, but also as a tool for sharing real learning experiences and communicating internationally.

The activity was also linked to key competences emphasised in the Türkiye Century Education Model, including reflective thinking, observation-based evaluation, organising information, written expression, visual communication and product creation. While expressing their own experiences in writing, students selected, organised and interpreted information and transformed their work into content that could be shared with a wider audience.

In the second stage of the activity, students contributed to the preparation of an Erasmus+ information board to share project experiences and learning outcomes with the school community. Inspired by nature, forests, sustainability and the activities of the project, they created drawings, headings, short informative texts and visual materials. In this way, individual learning experiences were transformed into a shared visual communication product.

The information board will be used as a living project space where Erasmus+ activities, student work, project objectives and future outputs can be regularly displayed. This will allow not only the participating students, but also other students, teachers and visitors to follow the progress of the project.

Through this activity, students developed skills in reflective thinking, record keeping, interpreting observations, organising information, written expression in Turkish and English, visual communication, creativity, teamwork and drawing conclusions.

The activity made visible the learning cycle at the heart of our “From Forest to Future” project: observe, measure, record, reflect and share, while supporting both nature-based STEM learning and active student participation in the Erasmus+ process.