The purpose of this communication is to present the evaluation, from the participants' perspective, of a European project (Green SEEDS - Synergy and Environment to Empower Decentralised Schools KA2-2019-1-IT02-KA201-062254), aimed at promoting a more participatory, inclusive and sustainable education between geographically distant schools located in the mountains and on small islands, but sharing similar socio-environmental realities. 

In this way, links are created with their natural habitat, allowing the development of collective identification and laying the foundations for the protection of local culture and environment, which are part of European culture and environmental heritage (Schafft, 2016).

The survival of decentralised rural schools is currently at risk due to logistical obstacles and organisational, educational and pedagogical weaknesses they suffer from. This, in turn, is both a cause and effect of depopulation, especially in economically depressed areas. The connection and collaborative work between them offers a solution to this problem. A solution that combats the idea that geographical isolation does not necessarily mean cultural isolation (Miller, Scanlan, & Philippo, 2017).

The project Green SEEDS assumes that through the use of ICT, shared learning methodologies and extended learning environments, isolation can be broken, the risk of cultural deprivation countered, and the relationship and engagement of schools with the local environment and communities strengthened, promoting joint, inclusive and collaborative work between schools, communities and countries.

The choice of the environment as the main theme of the project is given not only by a search for increasing civic awareness among students, but also by the promotion of actions to respect diversity and the environment, using new practices and new methodologies (Echeíta and Navarro-Mateu, 2014) and care for the environment.

It is therefore important to support the idea of education for all, underpinned by the construction of values in students, among which the value of sustainability stands out, closely related to the construction of inclusive education and a global curriculum based on citizens' rights and sustainability (Booth and Ainscow, 2011).

Caring for the environment and our planet for future generations are issues of growing concern to society, and examples of this are their inclusion in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, framed in the 2030 Agenda (UN, 2015).

The project involved the participation of 20 classrooms from 8 nursery, primary and secondary schools, university institutions and research groups from 5 countries (Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece and Cyprus) and was developed in two main phases: a first phase of teacher training (based on a Toolkit) and a second phase, called SeedQuest, of cooperative and participatory work between teachers and students in different countries.

The Toolkit is a curricular proposal made up of 5 modules, specially designed for the project, based on an active and participative learning model. It was created with the aim of, on the one hand, increasing the participants' knowledge of the different cultural, organisational, methodological and practical perspectives of education in isolated and rural schools and, on the other hand, increasing the participants' capacity to engage in dialogue (through ICT) with other teachers, students and schools across Europe.

The SeedQuests are small didactic units on the environment carried out by the pupils of the participating classes, following the Webquest methodology. The 20 participating classes from the partner countries have been paired to form 7 working groups, taking into account the different school levels. Each class has developed and worked on its own SeedQuest, dialoguing and collaborating with the twinned classes.

In this paper we focus on the evaluation process of the project. Green SEEDS has opted for participatory evaluation, a type of evaluation that incorporates the perspective of the users of the programmes, projects or policies to be evaluated (Cousins, 2019). As such, participatory evaluation does not require a representative sample of participants, but can be developed from a purposive sample of participants, conducted with the intention of ensuring a diversity of views on the subject of the study. This type of evaluation also aligns with EU guidelines promoting the construction of science with and for society. This is the deliberative and democratic construction of knowledge based on the incorporation of society in science and innovation activities, so that science integrates the interests, values and needs of citizens, thereby increasing the quality, relevance, social acceptability and sustainability of research and innovation (European Commission, 2020). In this case, Green SEEDS participants were invited to share their assessments, perceptions and experiences of the project. With this in mind, the participatory evaluation of Green SEEDS aimed, on the one hand, to reflect on participants' perceptions of the project and the meaning of these perceptions and, on the other hand, to understand the barriers and obstacles they faced during their participation. Participants have been selected intentionally, based on their ability to represent the relevance of the phenomenon under study derived from their experience in the project and their concern to deepen their analysis (Flick, 2018). Different strategies and techniques (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000), both individual and group, have been used to achieve the triangulation of data sources and to contrast all the information collected. The evaluation design contemplates and combines a double type of participants: teachers and students. The evaluation was carried out at three specific moments: 1) at the end of the initial training (Toolkit), on an individual basis, to find out the teachers' impressions of the training; 2) during the development and implementation of the Seedquest, participating both teachers and students, using strategies such as unfinished sentences, SWOT analysis, timeline, dialogue circles and Digital Storytelling; 3) and finally, once this phase was completed, a World Café strategy was carried out with the teaching staff.

The results can help to understand various issues concerning small and isolated schools from the perspective of the participants, but can also be a means to establish educational improvements and policy orientations that could help to decrease isolation and promote new views and connections between schools and between schools and their communities. Cross-checking the results with the objectives of Green SEEDS, it is possible to state that the project has been able to break the isolation of the participating schools, contributing significantly to their empowerment and encouraging students to work and learn in a participatory, cooperative and inclusive way. The creation of a new network of schools created at the end of the project is a clear example of this. The project has also managed, through a global and eco-social educational approach, to increase awareness and training on the environment in the new generations, acquiring new habits and tools to become agents of change towards fairer, more democratic and sustainable societies. It has connected decentralised schools with urban schools through twinning. These connections have empowered teachers, increasing their skills and competences as teachers and as environmental agents for change. Looking to the future, it is necessary to address teacher professional development from a multidimensional, territorial and sustainable approach that considers the role of openness to other contexts and professionals as a means to advance and connect the learning needs of teachers and their concrete reality with those of the society to which any equation is due. Finally, to highlight the need for more experiences like this and further research on how these initiatives can be scaled up to contribute to improving the development of participatory and inclusive schools and their role as an educational and environmental resource.

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