The rapid growth of technology has meant global communication is easy; social media, email and video calling can all provide instant exchange of information. However, for global collaboration to be successful, cultural appreciation must also be developed. In line with the EU key competence “cultural awareness and expression”, and national guidelines such as the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence aim to teach global citizenship, each of our schools has a key priority targeting development of culture and community awareness. Delving into the term community presents many definitions: “living in the same place”, “shared ideas and practices”, “common attitudes and interests”. In reality, 21st century communities are often composed of people with diverse characteristics whereby tolerance, respect and even celebration of different perspectives and cultures, allow these people to work together and engage in joint action. Understanding culture is significant in helping understand our own and others’ views, values, ideals and therefore ways of interpreting the world and is therefore an important part of the journey to equality and social cohesion. Fostering awareness and appreciation of culture and community is imperative to preparing our students for life and employability within the current global market - and therefore in making progress towards the Europe 2020 strategy. Our specific objectives are: - To research and foster a deeper and more meaningful appreciation of one’s own culture. - To overcome stereotypical ideas and foster a deeper and more meaningful appreciation of other cultures. - To encourage understanding of what community means on a local, national and international scale - To build on research skills, particularly planning and implementing different methodologies and presenting and analysing findings in an appropriate manner. - To use communications technologies in practice to communicate with peer groups and communities on an ongoing basis. This will develop student’s IT skills and their ability to form an international community and work collaboratively with partners in another country – mimicking and preparing our students for a modern working environment. - To develop International Education, specifically cultural appreciation, within our curricular. Students aged approximately 13 years old will be directly involved in the mobilities. All students in this year group at school will be involved with and directly benefit from activities during the “host” mobility. Students across the school will benefit from the project through embedding it as a cross curricular theme at the schools for students aged 3-18 years old and through dissemination activities. Students will engage in an ongoing digital exchange for the 24 month project as well as three mobilities: one to Edinburgh, Scotland, one to Padua, Italy and one to Steiremark, Austria. They will research and gather data on stereotypes and preconceived ideas about culture in the partner regions. Following this they will research their own national culture and present this to their peers and visiting partners. They will experience urban and rural culture at different scales (school, local and national) on an international visit. A documentary will be produced to convey experiences during the mobilities and how these have changed perception of culture. A piece of digital artwork will assess how perception of culture has changed among those directly and indirectly involved as students aged 3-18 will be asked to “draw” their ideas about culture using the theme of the 5 senses – what would you expect to see, hear, feel, taste and smell in each region. This activity will be repeated three times throughout the duration of the project to monitor change in perception of culture in Italy and Scotland. It is expected students will develop a more meaningful appreciation of Italian, Scottish, Austrian and European culture. They will develop an understanding of what community means in different places and how international communities can be formed. Students will develop skills and competences to foster employability. These will include communication, digital literacy and wellbeing, data collection and analysis and research skills. They will develop cultural values and appreciate the importance of different viewpoints and perspectives. We expect the skills developed to improve students’ confidence in opportunities working abroad – and allow them to make better informed choices about university destinations and future careers. Staff will have the opportunity to engage in educational dialogue with international practitioners supporting professional learning. It is also expected that the project will inform changes to the curricular at both schools to prioritise international education and cultural learning.