A further contribution to the success of the new role as a local
cultural institution that the school is going to play is given by
projects that aim at integrating
the activities of schools of the Park with the schools outside the
Park and that the Park can facilitate and coordinate. The organization
of twinnings between the classes,
the collaboration in common projects,
the joint programming of the
teachers in the park with their colleagues of the visiting schools
allow a very useful exchange of experiences.
Due to these activities, the schools inside and outside the parks
become mutual didactic "resources" able to mutually guarantee a
strong added value to the didactic activity and allow an exchange
of experiences, information, points of view, etc. In this way, the
Park’s school becomes a "privileged witness" for urban schools as
they represent a reference point towards various social and environmental
contexts that are able to break the traditional isolation of rural
schools.
Since the WWF is strongly and widely
rooted in the schools of large urban areas (7,000 primary and low
secondary school classes are members of the WWF’s Panda Club), it
can collaborate with the Park Authorities in designing and managing
joint programs between schools inside and outside the Park.
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Boys
during a fase of project "Licheni"
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Organization
of the
educational offer:
the network activities
It is even too clear that the small size structures of the park
authority do not allow it to play alone and effectively all the
roles that we are describing. Therefore, it is essential that the
Park Authority plays exclusively or mostly the role of calalyst
of the park’s cultural offer with the function to facilitate
the network activities of the schools, associations, Local Authorities,
decentralized ministerial structures (School Superintendencies,
Local Health Units, etc.), social private sector (cooperatives)
and of the economical and professional contexts. Therefore, the
park also appears as an articulation and
joint between what is inside and outside the park as
well as a protection structure.
The WWF can collaborate with the park
in mapping the cultural offer of the area and in structuring an
integrated educational offer. The training context can also become
an object of collaboration between the Park and the WWF that can
design and manage, with competency, qualified training activities
for the education personnel working in the Park Authorities.
The
Environmental
Experience Centers and
the Local Laboratories
The Ministry of the Environment defined two different types of local
structures for environmental education:
- the
local laboratories are usually managed by Local Authorities
(sometimes in collaboration with the associations or the schools)
and gathered in a national network (LABNET). They play the role
of a point of information, contact and facilitation between the
active local stakeholders in the field of environmental education.
The Park itself could be – in collaboration with the regional
authorities – the promoter and manager of a Park’s Local Laboratory,
gathering in it the above-mentioned functions of facilitation
and documentation points.
- The
Environmental Experience Centers appear as service
structures (hospitality, green weeks, training courses, etc.)
usually managed by associations, enhancing their experience and
specific culture. The number and type of these structures must
be carefully considered, for they have to be sustainable from
the economical and managerial point of view.
At present, the WWF-Italy manages a large national network of Environmental
Education Centers and laboratories and puts its own managerial experience
to the Parks’ as well as the possibility to include new structures
in a coordinated national network, involving, training and motivating
the local operators available.
Visitor
Centers, Faunal Areas
and Botanical Gardens
These structures may represent not only an excellent
cultural and didactic tool for the visitors of the Park,
but also the possibility to create a cultural
growth and integration
for the schools of the Park and for the local associations. Therefore,
instead of asking external technicians to design and create these
structures, it is certainly better to involve
the local community in their creation. In this way, the
visitors may see not the stereotype of that area, but a living and
deep picture, made of very significant cultural contributions: a
common work talking about the traditions, nature and the soul of
that region.
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A
green future
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