3rd Learning Training and Teaching Activity- Portugal
The last mobility of partners within the "VR@Geoparks" project took place in Portugal. In Leiria, a city in the central region of Portugal, the project participants were hosted by the Interact Ideas institution.
The aim of this mobility was to innovate through cooperation and exchange of experiences and to develop an application as a means of teaching about geoparks. During the week, 27.2. – 4.3.2023. in 2018, the participants - employees of the Geopark "Madonie" (Sicily), the school from Manisa (Turkey), the elementary school from Valpovo (Croatia) and the Geopark "Holly Cross Mountains" from Poland, dealt with the topics of virtual and augmented reality, tested and researched the application VRGeopark taught you to work with the application as well as to create content for it.
Leiria is a city with a rich history on the Liz River, twenty kilometers from the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. The mornings were busy, but in the afternoon the hosts made an effort to organize visits to beautiful picturesque towns with a rich tourist and gastronomic offer. We experienced the culture of Portugal through traditional fish dishes in Nazare, once a fishing town, and today, in addition to fishermen, you can meet many surfers there, because the famous surfer Garrett McNamara rode the biggest wave 30 meters high there, and by walking through the labyrinthine streets with old and colorful houses in a fortified medieval village and tasting sweets such as pasteis de nata and cod dishes in Obidos.
The tour of the region concluded with a visit to Fatima, a large pilgrimage center, and a return to Lisbon, which we experienced by walking through the hills and visiting monuments that are symbols of the city, such as the Belem Fort and the Monument to the Discoveries.
The experience of VR technology through cardboard, cheaper versions, glasses was experienced by the students upon the arrival of their teachers, and after that they considered the application of such technology in classes. After this phase of testing and verifying the application, there will be a final conference in Palermo of all partners of the VRGeoparks project.