Partner schools

As a budding national park school, we have set the following goals:

• We teach the students to deal responsibly with both the natural and the designed living environment and its resources.
• We sensitize our children to the beauty and need for protection of nature.
• The students should get to know and understand the wilderness idea: "Let nature be nature".
• We promote tolerance and attentiveness in the children with the goal:" Sustainable and prudent action" to secure our future.

Our previous excursions and projects within the cooperation with the National Park and the Biosphere Region:

• Habitat forest and waters in the national park
• Waste disposal/waste avoidance/building a school composting area
• Flower meadow and insect hotels to protect biodiversity
• What does my CO2 footprint look like?
• Tree planting campaign with the Bavarian Forestry Office
• Forest experience days
• We produce our school fruit juice: from harvesting to pressing the fruit
• Strengthening community with Isidor the hedgehog
• Native animals in winter

Our projects in cooperation with the Biosphere Region and the National Park:

• Joint events and training sessions with teachers and parents
• Discovery and research in cooperation with the biosphere region and the national park
• Establishment of the "Outdoor Classroom" in the National Park

The elementary school Saaldorf-Surheim in the northern district of Berchtesgadener Land has two school locations in accordance with the motto "Short legs - short distances". Thus, each district has its own small elementary school. Environmental education, sustainability and a mindful use of resources have been a priority for us for years. "What I didn't learn to appreciate as a child, I can't protect as an adult!"

We are cooperation partners of the Biosphere Region and the Berchtesgaden National Park with conviction. We want to bring connections about sustainability and environmental awareness to the students. Ecological thinking and protection of biodiversity is promoted through numerous projects. We follow a holistic approach and want to give the students the ability to act for the future.

Our school grounds alone offer numerous ecological fields of action:

• An own school pond / biotope for water studies
• An own school apiary, with currently three bee colonies
• Meagre meadows around the school building
• Old apple and pear trees next to raised beds and a herb spiral in the school garden
• Natural hedges with numerous hedge dwellers
• "Wild bee area with insect nature trail" within walking distance

For the cooperation with the biosphere region, nearby learning sites are offered, such as the Abtsdorfer See, the Haarmoos or the Schönramer Filz. The Berchtesgaden National Park with its unique flora and fauna can be experienced by our students as an excursion. We want to educate our students in an environmentally conscious and sustainable manner in order to promote maturity and decision-making skills for future generations.

"We want to light lights that can continue to burn on their own."

As a biparental secondary school in the neighborhood of the national park, cooperation with the park has always been carried out in the form of national park days and use of the school's offerings, e.g. in the House of Mountains or at "Youth at the top".

The school hopes that the expanded cooperation with the biosphere region will provide new ideas, concrete goals and support in achieving them.

Following the introductory workshop, the secondary school has set itself the initial measures of "waste avoidance and separation" and increased implementation of excursions and class trips, especially to strengthen social cohesion, but also to deal with ecological aspects.

We impart knowledge about global interrelationships and challenges such as climate change, the protection of biodiversity or global justice. Understanding the interplay of economic, ecological and social factors is just as much a part of this as the acquisition of shaping competencies, so that students are enabled to make decisions for the future and thereby assess how their own actions will affect future generations and life in other regions of the world.

In cooperation with the Biosphere Region Berchtesgadener Land and the National Park Berchtesgaden, we want to become active together as a pilot school in the district of Berchtesgadener Land in various projects and make lessons "experienceable" in harmony with nature. We want to get to know our beautiful landscape and also enjoy it in the classroom.

Zenoschule  Strengthening environmental awareness and living sustainability  Shaping the future

Our school prepares children and young people for the challenges of the future. The focus here is on education for sustainable development. Our entire school family is to be empowered to think and act in a way that is fit for the future.

The focus is on health, lifelong learning and the environment. We want to consciously perceive and increase quality of life and physical, mental and social well-being. The teaching of traditional cultural techniques in combination with innovative learning methods and the use of diverse media and learning strategies create a basis for lifelong and independent learning for all children and young people with different learning requirements.

Our school initiates an awareness of the environment through diverse experiences with nature and sensitizes the children and adolescents to the sustainable use of natural resources. On the way to achieve this, the students take part in decision-making processes according to their age. We consciously pay attention to fulfill everything under the aspect of "school with profile inclusion".

As a partner school of the Biosphere Region Berchtesgadener Land and the National Park Berchtesgaden, we want to participate in projects of the institutions and also implement our own projects with the network. Here, the environment in the school environment as well as in the district should be included under the premise of experiencing joy in and around nature.

Highlights for us are always the exercises and not everyday practical work in the great outdoors in often very special places.

The Berchtesgaden High School has been working together with the Berchtesgaden National Park for many years and recently also with the Berchtesgadener Land Biosphere Region and is now aiming for official recognition of the long-standing cooperation through the partner school project.

Under the motto "Partnership cooperation with our protected areas: a matter of course", we want to continue to convey an awareness and deeper understanding of the need for protection and global interconnectedness of our habitats.

With each other - For each other

The students, parents and teachers jointly developed our mission statement in the form of a word cloud.

At the center of our school life are the words: Cohesion. Openness. Responsibility.

We implement these in an exemplary manner within the framework of environmental projects. We are open to new ideas, which we realize together and thus recognize and perceive our responsibility for the environment or, better yet, co-environment.

Within the framework of the project, several highlights have already taken place, such as the protected area day, the sowing of a rough grassland and the P-Seminar Eurim-Pharm. Before the project phase, we had already integrated the 'fair break' and the 'school garden' into our school system.

Our school has been cooperating with the Biosphere Region BGL and the Berchtesgaden National Park in various areas for many years. The projects relate to tourism, regional crafts and gastronomy. For example, regional pieces of furniture have been made, tourism projects have been carried out together with the Berchtesgaden National Park, or special attention has been paid to regional cuisine in gastronomy and in the vocational schools for hotel and tourism management.

The award as a partner school reinforces the awareness to live and work in the spirit of the national park and the biosphere. In the future, this approach should not only be pursued in the school, but should continue as a seed in the families.

In the sense of sustainable school development, cooperation becomes an integral part of our actions. We have the ambition that the topic of sustainability in an ecological, economical and social point of view is a fixed component and thus permanently anchored in the lessons.

With the signing of the cooperation agreement, we have planted a small seedling that can grow into a large tree.