The students of the English European option had a year project dealing with the protection of the environment. The main question was: “How to manage tourism and agriculture in a protected area?”. To answer this question, two group mobilities had been organised in order to work on the rules of national parks, in Slovenia and on Reunion Island.

First, we went to Slovenia in October 2024. We joined the students of the high school of Idrija, our partner establishment, at the national park of Triglav. We made water analysis to evaluate the pollution coming from agricultural or touristic activities. We worked on the Slovenian rules which protect the environment, and ended with a visit of a farm to understand how they work with these rules. 

Then, we had been hosted by the student of Idrija and went to their high school for jobshadowing. We also started the redaction of an e-book gathering all the knowledge we collected.

Afterwards, we hosted the Slovenian students in April 2025. We went to the volcano, le piton de la Fournaise, the forest of Bebour. We visited the Garden of the Mascarins, the vanilla plantation of Bras-Panon. The goal was to work on the environment protection policy of the Reunion Island. The history had been studied too, thanks to the museum of Stella Matutina and thanks to a visit of the city of Saint Paul and the cave of the first French settlers, visit realised by the students with small presentations of the different main sites.

At the high school, a session had been organised to present the Creole and the Maloya, as the core of the Reunion population culture. Moreover, the Slovenian students particpated to jobshadowing, mathematics games, handball competition…

At the end of their stay, we went to the computers room to end the e-books we started in Slovenia. It was now possible to compare the two policies of environment protection thanks to national parks studies, to understand how, in each country, agriculture and tourism run integrating the different environmental rules.  

This year has been really amazing, with this exchange funded by the Erasmus programme. Two different cultures, two different histories had met. The hosting in family was great to discover different way of living, eating… Last but not least, for the student of the Reunion Island, the feeling of being part of the European Union had hugely increased !