22 countries together in the European Space Agency
22 countries are Member States of the European Space Agency (ESA): Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Preparation: Draw the flag of each ESA Member State in the appropriate country on the map of Europe
Activity:
- Split the class up into 15 groups, one for each ESA Member State. With the help of encyclopaedias, dictionaries, an atlas, the internet etc. each group prepares an identification sheet for its country using the following worksheet:»»
- On the back of this information sheet, each group draws the map of the country, placing the capital city, the 5 major cities, the bordering countries, the rivers, the mountains, the seas and ocean and the border countries.
- One by one, each group presents its country in front of the class. The other students are invited to ask questions.
- On this satellite image of Europe, each group sketches the borders of its country:
Conclusions: Discuss all together in the class:
- What did you learn about these countries?
- Have you ever visited one of these countries? If yes, did you like it? Which country would you like to visit next? Why?
- When there are meetings at the European Space Agency, there always are people from many different countries in one room. Each of them has his/her own mother tongue. To communicate, we use the official ESA languages English and French. Which of the European languages would you like to speak? Why?