Our school is one of the few comprehensive schools in Germany. It was founded in 1987 and currently has about 1100 pupils. Their ages range from 10 to 19. The school not only has an academic focus which allows some of the pupils to complete the Abitur and go on to university, but also practice orientated learning which prepares the students for further career based training.
Langerwehe is a small town in North Rhine-Westphalia, close to the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands and also close to the National Park 'Eifel'. The town has a population of 13,500. Our students either come from Langerwehe itself or from the many villages around the town. Some students also come from villages close to the National Park which is going to be the topic of our project.
Due to the rural setting of the school, we try to expose our students to as many "foreign influences" as possible. Our school has many international contacts and has recently been certified as a European School. We are continuously expanding our network of European schools to give our students, most of who come from middle class or working class families, the possibility to get to know and perhaps meet people from other cultures. A Comenius Project gives us the opportunity to involve students from less well-off families in student exchange programmes who would otherwise not have the possibility to do so.
The Eifel National Park is the 14th national park in Germany and the first in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The relatively young national park lies some 65 kilometres southwest of Cologne close to the Belgian border and has existed since 1 January 2004 as a protected area.
The Eifel National Park protects the wood-rush and beech woods that flourish in the maritime climate and which have been preserved to this day in parts of the North Eifel, but which originally covered the entire Eifel region as well as large parts of Central Europe. An area of 110 square kilometres is covered by deciduous and coniferous woods, lakes, streams and open grassland.
The Eifel National Park is home to over 900 species of endangered animals and plants on the red list. A total of 1,300 species of beetle alone have been discovered in its woods. Amongst the other forms of wildlife in the park are the wildcat, the black stork and the wall lizard which is a rarity in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
