Crocus Project 2017-2018
This year I joined the HETI-Ireland Crocus Club with my students!
We surfed the net and saw all other schools in the world which take part in the project: it is a special opportunity to take part in an international project and share the various activities: inside and outside the classes!
When the envelope arrived my students could not believe we would work with soil and pots and bulbs…
The project gives the opportunity to create CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) lessons at various levels and also with middle school students: we started with Geography and History when we found in the map all countries and people who suffered the Nazi rules. Then we learnt about bulbs and flowers, just some clues about Science and Biology. So we went to the playground for gardening and we used real gardening tools, flower pots, gloves and soil!
We found a place for our flower pots and visited them week by week. We also studied some weather forecasts… and students understood they we must wait patiently for some results and in the end something happens!
We worked also with stars and Technology and we created our special posters. In the end bulbs will find their place in the garden, in a big star, and will reproduce year by year.
This year the Memorial Day has just had a special result: all 4 classes worked together for a common goal and I am sure they will not forget it!
Read their own words and see the photos for the working progress of the project…
Prof. Elena Rigo
Scuola Secondaria di I Grado – International Middle School
This year we participate in the Crocus Project with our teacher of English. Each of us plant a crocus bulb to remember all the people who lose their lives during the Holocaust. On 30th October we receive and envelope from England: it contains all the bulbs that we plant in the soil on 2nd November. We follow the growth of the bulbs and water them every week. On the pots we put some yellow stars. We see the first sprouts in January.
Taking care of the flowers helps us to remember of the Holocaust tragedy and of all the children who died during the Second World War.
(Luca, 1^ A)
To plant yellow crocus bulbs, in memory of 1.5 million Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust, is an original way not to forget the atrocities of Nazism. It is an experience that I recommend to all students.
I would like to see, on the Memorial Day, all football stadiums in the world covered with millions of yellow flower bulbs! It would be a way to apologize for those who suffered and to demonstrate to people who go to the stadium and praise Nazism that they are a minority and that they have not learnt from mistakes made in the past, yet!
I hope that what happened will never happen again!
(Giada, 2^ A)
The purpose of the Crocus Project is remember the Holocaust of Jews children. The location of the project is in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. The association that organises is the Holocaust Education Trust Ireland (HETI) in Dublin. Thanks to this project we can remember a sad event having fun and learning new interesting things.
We plant yellow crocuses in flowerpots, we go to see them and pour water every week. We also made a poster with information about the project and drawings of the stars of David.
(Margherita and Carolina, 2^ B)
This year the Junior High School Collegio Immacolata of Conegliano has joined an Irish project called: “the Crocus Project”, which reminds us what happened to the Jewish people and also to the Italian military and political deportees in the Nazi camps – because this should not happen again! We really liked this project and so we participated with great enthusiasm because we had fun planting the bulbs, all students of the class together in the courtyard, and it was exciting to see the crocuses growing.
I especially liked this because it made me think about how much our present is different from that sad period.
(Elena, 3^ A)
