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ON THE WINNERS' LIST!




We are very happy to tell you we are on the winners' list of the national competition Euroscola 2016. We'll be visiting the European Parliament in Strasbourg and will participate with the winners from other EU countries in many activities to understand the job of the EU deputies. 

We'll keep you posted!


Congratulations to the rest of the winners, a big thanks to our teacher (Gabriela Torrens Ansell), and thank you all for your support!




Euromadina (IES Madina Mayurqa, Palma)


The team!

PD: It's a great experience! Join the competition next year!

EUROSCOLA 2016: HERE WE GO!


Source: Euroscola
Hi! First of all, we would like to introduce ourselves. We are ten students from IES Madina Mayurqa, in Palma de Mallorca. Our teacher, Gabriela Torrens, told us about this competition and we are really excited about it. We are going to talk about the last 30 years, as it's now 30 years since Spain joined the EU. We have selected a piece of news related to Spain and the EU for every single year, and have prepared activities, surveys and interviews to learn more about the EU and about the changes Spain has undergone since it adhered to the former EEC.



testcivitas
Source: Palma Town Council
CIVITAS DYN@MO project logo
Source: Palma Town Council

One of the many EU projects that have helped in the construction of a better Europe is the CIVITAS DYN@MO project. Palma is one of the four European cities in the project, which aims at implementing more environment-friendly means of transport for all of us to use. We believe in the importance of this project, so we intend to share a lot of information about it with all of you.


Welcome to our blog! We hope you like it!
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WE ARE DYN@MIC! OUR TEAM AND OUR SCHOOL

Hello!


We are a group of high school students at IES Madina Mayurqa (Palma de Mallorca). We are studying fourth of ESO and we all belong to different groups.

Our team is composed of: Angel Garcia, Margalida Ribas, Aitana Benítez, Maria Martorell, Carmen Pujadas, Guillermo Velarde, Paula Blàzquez, Raquel Sebastián, Jaume Munar and Maria Frontera.





This is the first time that our school participates in EUROSCOLA. Our English teacher (Gabriela Torrens) thought that it would be a good idea to participate and it has been a great experience! 

We have learnt a lot about the European Union and we have learnt things that are not in our school books. Also, we have put into practice some of the EU values: respect for other's opinions and rights, democracy, pluralism, non-discrimination.... all necessary to work in a team of 10! 


WE ARE DYN@MIC! DIFFUSION STRATEGY

First of all, our school promoted our blog and "Euroscola" on its website. They have also promoted all of the activities that we have done on the school's social networks (Twitter and Facebook).



After that we opened our own Google+, Youtube and Twitter accounts (@euromadina) and linked them to our blog. We published our articles and got many retweets (RT). We made use of the hashtags #YYaVan30 #Euroscola2016. After our visit to the Europe Direct Centre in Palma, they promoted us on Twitter, giving us RT. As you can see we offered to write press releases if anybody was interested.






We made our own digital newspaper on Twitter: The EuroMadina Daily News, with news from our blog and on the EU. 

The digital newspaper "DebateEduIB" selected one of our articles and published it.
The Mayor of Palma tweeted about our visit! It got many RT too!

And the newspaper Diario de Mallorca published this!




Our blog has received many visits. Our diffusion strategy has worked!

2016: 30 YEARS IN THE EU, MANY REASONS TO STAY IN THE EU!





















WE ARE DYN@MIC! SEE THE RESULTS OF OUR SURVEY BELOW!

GUYS, OUR SURVEY IS FINALLY DONE.



It didn't take us much time to get the results from the survey about the EU that we promoted on social media and by whatsapp. Thanks to those people who answered it very fast we could start correcting them the next day (in fact, in less than 24 hours we got more than 100 answers) so now is the time to analyse its results and draw conclusions.




Well, our survey was like a "little exam", which only had 10 short and easy questions. Those questions were about some basic things about the EU (it should be pointed out that there were some questions that were more difficult than others). 


Now let's comment the results!




First of all, we asked for the age of the people who were going to complete the survey. It was necessary to have a balanced survey and we achieved it! 


We were very happy to see that our survey got to different ages, which means older people use new technologies too!                




After that, we asked about the meaning of the acronym "EU" ("UE" in Spanish). We knew it was easy and, obviously, all of the answers were right.



The second question was also easy. It said: "Where are the EU headquarters? And almost 96% of the users answered it correctly. 

Yes, the EU headquarters are in Brussels(Belgium).



So questions number 1 and 2 were easy and almost 100% of the answers were right, but this hasn't happened in all of the questions and one example of this is the next one.




The third question asked about the number of countries that are in the EU nowadays and, in general, most part of the people were right, but there was a meaningful group of people who were mistaken. More than 20 people failed here. 

It's important to remember that today there are 28 countries in the EU. Not more, not less.



We decided to ask people about basic things of the EU so we decided to ask about its flag. It was really easy. Too easy maybe. And obviously, most part of the people did well. 


Nearly everybody knows that the EU's flag is blue and that it has 12 yellow stars on it (which must have the tip up).



One thing that surprised us a lot is that there's a lot of people who don't know much about the EU's anthem. If we have a look at the graphic we see that there's a very big part of the people who were mistaken. Only 48.5% of them answered it correctly. 

Yes, what's today the EU's anthem was composed by Beethoven and its name is "Ode to Joy".  


And what about the next one? It was a complete chaos (but it should be pointed out that this one was probably one of the most difficult questions in the survey). But the most surprising was that they chose to answer "I don't know". 


Don't forget it, Europe's day is on the 9th of May. 


The two following questions were about political things of the EU. For example, in question number 7 we can see that what people had to do was to end that sentence with the correct choice.



Most part of the people answered correctly. This sentence is considered a EU principle: 







"The EU single market allows free movement of persons, goods and services"




Another thing that surprised us was that there is around 40% of the people that don't know that the adhesion of Spain to the EU was signed in 1985 but it was effective in 1986.



It should be pointed out that 36% of the people who answered the survey are under 18 years old, so they hadn't been born yet in 1986. Anyway, we're sure that they have studied it at school at some time. 


Finally, these were the most complicated questions, we know it. If you know the answer, they are not difficult, but if not, and you try to guess it, then it is when you fail.



In question number 9 we asked about the elections to the European Parliament and most part of the people said that they happen every 4 years (like the elections in Spain). This one was a trick question!! 


The European Parliament elections are every 5 years! 

Did you know it? If you didn't answer it correctly it's normal, don't worry. The most important thing is that you must learn from your mistakes, even in this case.



This was our last question, not easy at all but not as difficult as the 9th. It says: "How often does the EU presidency rotates?" 

Luckily, most part of the answers were correct. 

Yes, it happens twice a year. 






We hope you enjoyed this survey. We prepared it with great enthusiasm. If you have got 5 or more than 5 correct answers you have passed this test, but if not, you should read a bit more about the EU and repeat it again another day. You will get better marks next time.





After correcting all of the forms you answered, we started calculating the average of the number of right answers and the result was 6,985/10. The mark is improvable, but it's not a bad mark. 

Congratulations!!!


*If you want to repeat it again and improve your knowlegde on the EU just click here and practise!

How did you do? Send us a tweet!
                      

Sources: 

Everything was taken from our online survey: http://goo.gl/forms/sB5PF1xP1o

WE ARE DYN@MIC! A VISIT TO THE TOWN COUNCIL

Last Friday, we had an amazing meeting with the Mayor of Palma, José Hila and the alderman of mobility, Joan Ferrer, together with some responsibles from his Office, to learn more about the EU Civitas DYN@MO Project and the work that has been done on sustainable mobility in Palma.


We were welcomed very warmly in the meeting room. The Mayor congratulated us on our blog, in which we talk about the 30 years of Spain in the EU, and especially on choosing to talk about the EU project Civitas DYN@MO in Palma, as a lot of good things have been done thanks to this project. 


The Mayor asked us to talk about EUROSCOLA and our project. We explained to them that it is a national school contest to learn more about the EU. We presented the work done on "30 years in the EU, 30 years of news". They were very impressed that we had done it in English too!

After this we wanted to know a bit more about the EU Civitas DYN@MO project in Palma, and they answered all of our questions. We talked about the MobiPalma app (which is fantastic!) and that they are planning on including more services on it. This app has won a prize because it is the first one to integrate different means of transport. For example, you can plan how to get to school combining bus and a public bike. It is great! (You can go to your app store on your phone and download it for free).

There are many more cycling tracks in Palma now (we have one just in front of our school, IES Madina Mayurqa). There are charging stations for electric cars. There are public energy efficient buses. We will write a post including more details!

After the talk, we went to have some pictures taken with all those amazing people. The Mayor also thanked our teacher (Gabriela Torrens) for involving us in the project.







We can only say THANK YOU for that amazing chance to meet you personally and for having shared a bit of your time. 

We hope to see all of you again soon!

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WE ARE DYN@MIC! AN ONLINE SURVEY: HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW THE EU?


We wanted to do a survey that could reach to as many people as possible. We wanted to be eco sustainable too, without having to use any paper for it.

So... we used new technologies to write the survey and to share it, not only on this blog, but also by whatsapp, and social networks (Twitter, Facebook...)



This is the link to our survey. If you have read our blog you will know all of the answers. If you haven't, then, maybe you should!



We'll tell you how it goes!



OUR 10 CONCLUSIONS AFTER THE PROJECT


Thanks to this project we've learnt lots of things, not only about the EU, but also about working as a team and putting into practice values as pluralism, respect for others' opinions and solidarity.



1.The EU has impacted on the progress of Spain since Spain joined, because before 1986 Spain was behind all the member states, not only economically, but also had bad roads, small airports, etc.

2.We believe it is very interesting that the European Union has intervened in the sports' world in many occasions, improving the working situation of sportspeople.

3.Before we started Euroscola's project we didn't know about the  existence of Eurocorps.

4.We were surprised by the fact that the EU has an anthem, since none of us knew about its existence.

5.Thanks to participating in Euroscolawe feel closer to the EU and we have been able to visit institutions such as the Europe Direct Centre and we even met the Mayor of our city and one of the heads of the CIVITAS project, a European project in Palma that we have studied because of Euroscola.

6.We realized that the EU isn't as far as we thought. Many things around us have been done thanks to the EU funds. A clear example is the Civitas project, in Palma.

7.In our opinion, the best thing about being part of Europe is the right of free movement, as it grants citizens to travel, to study and to work freely within the member countries.

8.Another advantage of being part of the European Union is that we have a stronger voice in international affairs.

9.The fact of having participated in the category English has helped us to improve our English.

10.We were able to work in a team, in a very organized way. 


1995: THE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN PARTNERSHIP



Source: 30giorni.it
                  
The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was created in 1995 with the objective of promoting the stability and the growth in the Mediterranean region.

This project could benefit the economy of Spain, which couldn't meet the levels set by the European Parliament that year.

In November 1995, the 1st Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference was held. More than 20 countries met in Barcelona to speak about the future of the trade in the Mediterranean sea.

The foreign ministers of the fifteen member states of the European Union and twelve states from the south and east of the Mediterranean sea established the foundations for a common space for free trade in the Mediterranean. 


Source: prlog.org
    

The three main objectives of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership were:

(1) The definition of a common area of peace and stability, by reinforcing political and security dialogue among the Mediterranean countries.
(2) Promote a shared prosperity of the Mediterranean countries through an economic and financial partnership and the gradual establishment of a free-trade area.

(3) Encouraging understanding between Mediterranean cultures and exchanges between civil societies.


They believed that their dream could be real in 2010.



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Source:

http://www.barcelona.com/barcelona_news/the_barcelona_process_or_euro_mediterranean_partnership

2005: THE EU PROTECTS OUR TEXTILE INDUSTRY

On 14 June 2005, the EU imposed quantitative restrictions on textile products from China. Those fees were imposed after the European Commission and the Chinese Trade Ministry reached an agreement on June 10 at the strong request of France, Italy and Spain to protect European textile manufacturers by limiting Chinese imports to Europe. 

Spain was the 3rd country of the European Union in textile industry, so it affected us directly. It was important for Spain that the EU set some boundaries.

Millions of Chinese textile products were blocked at European ports. 5.4 million sweaters, 1.3 million trousers, 16,800 blouses, 107,300 T-shirts and 901,500 bras were prevented from reaching the Spanish market that year.

Chinese textiles blocked for weeks at European ports can be released on Wednesday, when a quota deal struck between the EU and China goes into effect, AFP reported.
Source: AFP
In September 2005, the European Commission allowed half of the blocked goods into the EU under China's 2006 fees.


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Sources: 

- http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/fmar/168462.htm
- http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/home/2005-08/24/content_471862.htm
- http://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/sep/05/china.eu