If you wish to explore the first part of this retrospective three-part blog series, you can find the Norway blog post here. Now, let’s enjoy Elmiina’s, Liisi’s, Ronja’s, and Tyyne’s travels and learnings from the second summer school in Malta!
Summer School 2: Gozo & Malta, Malta, 21-25 October 2024
Hello again! It’s Elmiina, Ronja, Liisi and Tyyne here. This time we are writing about our second Erasmus+ and Shape2Gether summer school trip to sunny and warm Malta in October 2024. This summer school focused on issues of sustainable development. In addition, education for sustainable development was also an encompassing theme of this summer school. During our week in Malta, we had the opportunity to witness these sustainable development issues with our own eyes. All the student participants were divided into 4 groups of 7-8 people, in which we worked throughout the week. The work we did was focused on the four pillars of sustainable development: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, social sustainability, and cultural sustainability. You will read more about these themes in this blog post.
An Insight into the History and Environment of Malta and Gozo
Malta is a Mediterranean island nation consisting of several islands, with Malta and Gozo being the largest islands. Due to its strategic location between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Malta has been inhabited for over 7,000 years and ruled by various civilizations, the most recent being the British Empire, from which Malta gained independence in 1964. The colonial past of this island nation is still visible today—English remains an official language alongside Maltese, cars drive on the left, and British-style telephone booths and post boxes can be found across the island.
Malta, the main island, is the country’s cultural and economic hub, densely populated and urbanized. Just to the north, the island of Gozo offers a more rural and laid-back atmosphere, with strong local traditions in small-scale farming and fishing.
The islands experience a hot and dry climate. Their fragile ecosystems are highly vulnerable to climate change and human activity. With limited freshwater sources, water scarcity is a major sustainability challenge. Additionally, Malta is one of the most densely populated areas in Europe, putting human pressure on natural resources. The islands’ unique limestone landscapes and coastal environments make them a popular tourist destination, but mass tourism has also contributed to environmental issues such as erosion and resource depletion.
Studying Sustainability Issues on Gozo
The first three days of the summer school, we stayed on the island of Gozo and visited seven different sites to get to know the island and the local sustainability issues. We visited the Government Farm, where work is done to protect domestic animals and to study how to improve the sustainability of agriculture. Another agriculture-related visit was to Magro Group Food Village, which produces tomato products and much more. We also got to see a popular tourist site, the coastal town of Marsalforn, where we saw traditional salt pans and got to interact with local people.
On Gozo island, we also visited two United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites: the Citadel, a fortress built from limestone, and the Ġgantija, Neolithic temples that are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Visiting these sights expanded our knowledge of the cultural history of Gozo. In Dwejra we got in touch with the local natural environment, vegetation, and erosional landscapes. Dweira is one of Gozo’s natural wonders. It is a coastal area known for its rock formations, such as cliffs made of limestone, and stunning scenery. Last but not least, we met Paul Buttigieg, the mayor of the Qala village, in Ħondoq ir-Rummien cove. Qala is the easternmost village in Gozo, located in the Ħondoq ir-Rummien cove. Ħondoq ir-Rummien is a bay area located on Gozo’s southeastern coast. It is renowned for its natural beauty, rocky cliffs, and marine life. Meeting Paul Buttigieg was interesting as he has fought against private developers for over 20 years, protecting local nature and landscapes that have been threatened by plans to build a private marina with hotels and apartments.
Developing Solutions in Malta
After spending time on Gozo island, on Wednesday evening, we took a ferry back to the main island of Malta and enjoyed the quick taxi drive from the harbor to our student hostel near Valletta, the capital city of Malta. The following morning, we continued working on our sustainability-focused multimedia projects at the university campus. We were assigned a working space in the Institute of Physical Education and Sport and could hear students swimming and listening to music in the university’s outdoor swimming pool, while we were working on our group projects. This caught us by surprise as it would not be a common vibe on Finnish university campuses in general, not to mention at the end of October!
For the group work, all groups were assigned a different sustainability pillar to focus on. Here’s a breakdown of our group projects and the sustainability aspects we were concentrating on:
- Elmiina’s group focused on environmental sustainability. The project aimed to create an informative and opinionated ArcGIS StoryMap about water sustainability on the island. The target group was the Maltese people. The topic of water sustainability came up as the group saw water scarcity as a major risk on the Gozo island, and climate change is expected to worsen the situation. You can find the created StoryMap here.
- Ronja’s group focused on economic sustainability. The final product was a game designed for secondary school students. In the game, the player adopts the role of the mayor of Gozo and is continuously presented with various tasks to accept or decline. Each decision impacts the player’s budget, environmental sustainability, and tourism numbers. The goal of the game is to educate young people about the consequences of different choices and how they affect the economy and environment.
- Liisi’s group focused on cultural sustainability. This meant trying to understand what cultural sustainability means in the context of Gozo. The group created an ArcGIS StoryMap and focused on promoting sustainable cultural tourism on the island, which could ensure the rich cultural heritage and traditions of Malta are preserved. The group noticed that traditional livelihoods practiced on the Gozo island, such as small-scale salt farming, can, in addition to preserving local culture, also benefit the locals economically and protect nature from being destroyed on a larger scale. You can find the created StoryMap here.
- Tyyne’s group focused on social sustainability. The idea was to create an ArcGIS StoryMap for teachers and 14-16-year-old students about social sustainability in Gozo and Malta. The created StoryMap highlighted social sustainability issues that the group members saw during the week, such as accessibility of public spaces and the balance between tourism and local needs. Accessibility is important as there are a lot of stairs and narrow streets in Valletta, which makes it hard for people with physical disabilities to see, explore, and move around in the city. Balancing between the tourists’ and local people’s needs creates social injustice as these two groups have different needs and wishes – tourists often need hotels to stay in, while locals would want green areas and nature. The StoryMap also includes different kinds of tasks for the students, so they can act as agents of change. Similar features are found in the Seppo game.
An interesting and new way of developing our ideas further was a ‘drop-in session’, which meant that the groups visited all the teachers at once and received feedback on the group work. The idea was innovative, but we think that the process could be improved. We would have preferred it if a couple of teachers, with knowledge of the group’s subject and sustainability pillar, had discussed the projects with the groups in more depth instead of meeting all the teachers at once.
During this summer school, we were also given a short lesson about group dynamics and how to make group work enjoyable. We found this lecture very helpful and comforting. Even though group work is an essential and common way of working at the university, we hadn’t learned about the importance of defining roles and goals in group work settings before this lesson. Group work isn’t just about working towards a shared academic goal, but also about learning to communicate ideas and interact respectfully in multidisciplinary and cultural settings.
The week ended on Friday when we pitched our groups’ projects to the other students and made plans on how to continue working on them after the summer school. Not only were the contents of our projects naturally different from each other, but also our ideas about the technical outputs were diverse. This was because we were able to apply the skills we had learned in Norway to our projects and incorporate, for instance Seppo-assignments and ThingLinks to our ArcGIS StoryMaps. As mentioned before, one group even decided to make a video game about their subject! It was inspiring to see what the other groups had come up with.
Highlights
During this second summer school in Malta, we used many skills and knowledge we learned in Norway. Being able to use these newly developed skills made the group projects easier. For example, we didn’t have to spend time learning how to use ArcGIS StoryMaps, ThingLink, or Seppo. Also, knowing each other, both teachers and other student participants, a bit better was beneficial because we already knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
The biggest highlight of this summer school was definitely seeing Malta and Gozo from the locals’ point of view. We visited places we probably would have never seen without this project. Seeing and hearing stories about local farmers, businesses, and heritage sites offered us a unique perspective on the local context of sustainability. The field trips were an unforgettable experience. We also had a lot of freedom during our week in Malta. This allowed us to look at things from our own perspective. But with freedom comes responsibility. We had to stay focused and think about which things are important to our group.
Apart from studying, we got to take part in releasing rescued turtles back to the sea. First, we cleaned the beach of huge amounts of trash, especially small pieces of plastic. After this, local volunteers came to the beach to release the turtles back into the sea. It was amazing to see the turtles waddle towards the water and then swim away to live a happy life, at least hopefully. This was an experience we will never forget.
Besides turtles, one highlight was Finnish mulled wine (glögi) during our international dinner. The purpose of the international dinner was that all participants bring some food and snacks from their home country. This way, you get to try new food from all over Europe! Since Christmas was approaching, we decided to bring some Little Christmas (pikkujoulu) vibes and traditional Finnish Christmas snacks to the international dinner. We brought, for instance, chocolate and rye chips for others to try. We didn’t believe the Finnish snacks and mulled wine would be such a big hit, but it was nice to see others enjoying something that is a big part of traditional Finnish Christmas.
This summer school had some differences compared to the summer school in Norway. The biggest difference was the amount of theory and lectures. In Norway, we had some sort of lecture every day, but in Malta, we only had two or three short lectures during our whole stay. This second summer school was more practical compared to the first one. The week in Norway was also way more intense than this one in Malta, as we had more lectures and group work tasks to do in Norway. It will be interesting to see what the third summer school will be like.
The sun and warmth in Malta were exactly what we needed in the middle of October. One more summer school left, we’re really looking forward to it in Bochum, March 2025!
Psst! While you’re waiting for the third part of this retrospective blog series, we think you should most definitely check out the game that was created by Ronja’s group during the Malta trip. Give it a try and see how you’d handle sustainability challenges on the island!