I riassunti sono riportati in questa pagina in ordine alfabetico del primo autore
Liceo “GB Grassi” di Saronno.
Corresponding email: p.veronesi@gbgrassi.it
Didattica, minerali, PLS, PCTO.
Presso il laboratorio scolastico del Liceo “GB Grassi” di Saronno giaceva da tempo immemorabile, in un armadio di metallo, una raccolta di minerali e rocce, che ogni anno ci si riprometteva di ordinare e sistemare per un utilizzo didattico più efficace. Ma come fare? Durante l’anno il tempo è poco e a fine anno ci sono gli esami, i progetti da terminare, i documenti da consegnare e soprattutto… chi di noi, quasi tutte laureate in campo scientifico biologico, avrebbe avuto il coraggio di metter mano a tale impresa con il rischio di classificare un carbonato al posto di un silicato?
Grazie all’impegno delle autrici del poster e all’opportunità concessaci dal Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra “Ardito Desio” dell’Università Statale di Milano, la soluzione è stata trovata. Nel corso dello svolgimento del progetto afferente al PLS Geologia, intitolato “Che Mostra! Crea nel tuo liceo un angolo geologico”, gli esperti geologi, nelle figure del prof. Marco Merlini e del dott. Davide Comboni, hanno guidato un team di circa venti studenti, volontari e appassionati, alla realizzazione del nuovo catalogo digitale e soprattutto alla identificazione di tutti i campioni della collezione, compresi i più complessi! E' stata inoltre un'occasione per insegnare ai giovani la storia e l’attualità dei minerali che passavano loro tra le mani, aspetto purtroppo spesso trascurato nella didattica di questa materia. Il risultato del lavoro è esposto ora nell’atrio della scuola, godibile e fruibile da tutti gli studenti e da tutti i visitatori del nostro Istituto.
Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie- Dipartimento di Geologia. Università di Camerino.
Corresponding email: alessandra.beccaceci@unicam.it
Agenda 2030, ecological footprint, food consumption, team-challenge.
“How much Earth is on my plate?” is a didactic activity that aims to address students to the topic of foods’ water, carbon and ecological footprint and, in a broader view, to encourage them in taking action towards sustainable consumption. The activity has been created in the frame of the Agenda 2030, pointing out the urgent need of a social reorientation towards responsible consumption and production (Goal 12). “How much Earth is on my plate?” is a learning-by-doing and cooperative learning activity based on a team challenge game. The gaming-challenge approach allows students to engage and enjoy themselves, increasing their own awareness about Geoscience topics such as natural resources (water and soil) exploitation and the carbon footprint due to food production and consumption. The team challenge aims to organize a daily menu throughout the choice of five foods for each daily meal. The winner team is the one that collects a lower ecological footprint menu. The activity was tested with 45 K7 students, but it is easily adaptable to younger or older students (K6-K8). Students were invited to do a simulated grocery shopping and to work in teams using tools such as food pictures (including labels and packaging), posters, reference data and operational sheets. The team-work allowed students to evaluate, discuss and think critically about the water, carbon and ecological footprints of food and the environmental impact of their transport and packaging. Pre-activity and post-activity questionnaires were administered in order to evaluate students’ awareness about use of soil, georesources exploitation and ecological footprint related to food production and consumption. Results are very satisfying in terms of involvement of students and show an improvement in pupils’ consciousness on the tremendous environmental impact of food consumption, especially meat as well as imported products. The challenge engaged students in thinking critically about the environmental impact of their choices and how they could change behaviors in an eco-friendly manner. Pupils also discovered that a healthy diet for humans is healthy for our planet as well.
1Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa. 2Corso di Dottorato Regionale in Scienze della Terra della Toscana.
Corresponding email: alessandra.borghini@phd.unipi.it
Teachers' formation, distance learning, hands-on activities.
In a survey about geosciences and distance learning conducted on Italian secondary school teachers in June 2020 (Borghini, 2020), one of the challenges frequently reported by the teachers was the organization of hands-on activities and laboratories during on-line classes. In early 2021, we began thinking about how to design and deliver an online teacher Earth science course, maintaining a good level of interaction among participants and providing a relevant space to experiment with hands-on activities that could be replicated with students in school or in distance learning. Here we present the experience of the course “La tettonica delle placche dietro l’angolo”, which was organized as part of the PLS (Piano Lauree Scientifiche) initiatives of the Earth Science department of the University of Pisa. The course included four different online activities: seminars conducted by geology professors of the University of Pisa; laboratories dedicated to the use of models, real data and samples observation; didactic planning meetings, and a final meeting in which the participants shared their own “good practices”. All the participants received at home a kit of rocks that were used during the laboratories, whereas for the other hands-on activities only common and everyday objects were used. The digital didactic materials, as well as the recordings of the meetings, were made available to the teachers on a website. The data collected at the end of the course through an evaluation questionnaire allows us to say that both the materials and the activities were considered useful by the participants. Although we all hope that teachers and students could soon return to the real classroom for good, this experience indicates that on-line courses for teachers can have some advantages, such as the possibility to reach teachers that live in different towns and in rural areas.
1 I.C. Ardea I, Virgilio - Ardea, Roma 2I.C. Ottorino Respighi – Roma 3 Engeo Praxis S.r.l. Sezione Storia delle Geoscienze SGI 4 ISPRA – Dipartimento per il Servizio Geologico d’Italia
Corresponding email: giovanni.decaterini@gmail.com
GIS, discover, the teaching of geology, digital skills.
This project is the result of several years of debates and voluntary collaboration among teachers of different schools and geologists ( researchers and freelances). Our leading idea comes from the words of Ardito Desio:”Every geologist is an explorer in his own home”. We have a double aim to reach: we want to engage pupils and students with the discovery of their own territory and present a programme of computational thinking and technical skills using GIS (Geographic Instrument System). The digital revolution we are leaving nowadays has basically changed the way to get, manage and use the data. As a matter of fact modern data banks are geo-localized: while you surf the net looking for something you can also get information about where that place is. ( i.e. where that address is, where that monument is, a hiking trail)
The idea of re-discovery is the basis of scientific re-search which is based on the constant need every researcher of all times has always had, that is to look at the world from different viewpoints and with different diagnostic tools. Modern exploration, scientific research and the world of work have become a cross-disciplinary and shared experience driven by curiosity and technical expertise. Ardea represents a complex social reality set in an ancient and amazing territory from a geological point of view, not only for its sites but also for its georesources and its environmental issues (natural and non natural). The title of this abstract is a play on words, the word “turn” recalls Turno, the king of Rutuli ( he was a character in the famous epic Eneide set in Ardea) and of course together with the word “on” they link the place together with the project. Google Earth has been used as a tool together with a geographical app which enables you to put additional information such as the drawing of the area, routes, dots you can relate to more information, photos, pictures, etc. All information is displayed by the programme and can be shared with other people. This project has been developed within the PON/FSE “Pensiero Logico Computazionale e della Creatività Digitale e delle Competenze di Cittadinanza Digitale”, code 10.2.2A. All the classes were held in the computer lab where pupils had the chance to use some softwares, afterwards they did some activities to refer, from a geological p.o.v , to all the sites. We made different small groups: Geology, Archeology, Environment, Alternative mobility. Teachers and pupils walked around the routes practicing and experiencing Google Earth.
1Biblioteca di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova. 2Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova. 3Biblioteca di Scienze della Terra 'A Desio', Università degli Studi di Milano. 4Biblioteca di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Torino. 5Biblioteca Dipartimento Scienze della terra, Università La Sapienza di Roma. 6Biblioteca ISPRA. 7Biblioteca di San Giovanni - geoscienze e psicologia, Università degli Studi di Trieste. 8Biblioteca di Scienze - Sede di Geomineralogia, Università degli Studi di Firenze. 9 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell'Ambiente e delle Risorse, Università degli Studi di Napoli. 10Biblioteche Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. 11Biblioteca del Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro. 12Biblioteca del Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e del Mare, Università degli Studi di Palermo. 13 Biblioteca Centrale 'G. Marconi', CNR.
Corresponding email: cecilia.furlani@unipd.it
libraries, education, geosciences.
The two main missions of libraries consist in supporting teaching and research: different objectives that ask for diverse services and collections. Research has increasingly been based on scientific literature in electronic format, and this trend caused libraries to include the management of subscriptions and access to e-journals and bibliographic databases in their services. As regards their educational purposes, libraries make their documental collections available to school and university students as well as to their local communities and citizens in general, thus pursuing the aim of what is nowadays called “Third Mission”. The purpose of our contribution is to illustrate some of the most interesting activities for education implemented by Italian libraries specialized in the area of geosciences, ranging from cartographic reproduction to virtual exhibitions of ancient and rare bibliographic material belonging to their collections, from e-learning courses on information literacy to seminars and book presentations, from internships for schools (“Alternanza Scuola-Lavoro”) to collaboration with archives and museums aimed at enhancing documental and material funds of ancient geologists or geological events of the past. Libraries also contribute to the research, retrieval and processing of bibliographic and documentary information relating to particular natural events or landscape evolution. As their core service for education, libraries work in close connection with the teaching and research staff of their institutions to implement development strategies that keep their collections updated, by acquiring textbooks for course readings as well as specialized bibliographic material for in-depth study, and a broad range of other specific documents that include various kinds of maps and related explanatory notes, field-trip guides, chronostratigraphic charts, photographic material like airborne imagery, theses and reference tools, apart from ordinary books and journals. Contrary to the extreme volatility of electronic materials that are most useful for the continuous updating of research, traditional paper collections are long-lasting for the study of geosciences. Therefore, libraries guarantee their preservation and the constant maintenance of catalogues and discovery tools that can help users to retrieve items of their interest; furthermore, services are offered in collaboration among libraries for reproducing, borrowing, and exchanging documents: document delivery and interlibrary loan boast a long history of cooperation among libraries. Let this congress enhance it and promote awareness of the important heritage of the Italian libraries of geosciences among their entitled users.
1Società Romana di Scienze Naturali. 2Museo Civico di Zoologia di Roma.3Università di Camerino.
Corresponding email: daniele.gianolla81@gmail.com
Education, Popularization, invertebrate palaeontology, Mediterranean Sea.
Since the moment in which it has been recovered, the cave Grotta Guattari (Southern Latium, Central Italy) has never ceased to surprise. Located on the eastern side of the Monte Circeo, 5m above the modern sea level, it is part of a complex system of 40 caves dug into the Lias limestone. The cave has been hidden by a landslide for about 50.000 years, until some workmen found the entrance in 1939. The exploration and the study have been carried out by the palaeontologist Alberto Carlo Blanc (1906– 1960), of the University of Pisa, who found many mammal bones (identified as remains of deer, ox, roe deer, fallow deer, horse and hyena), together with a well-preserved skull of Homo neanderthalensis. Recent researches have brought to light many other remains of large mammals and nine other people, dated from 0.1 to 0.05 Ma, pointing at the site as one of the most important of the world for the study of the Neanderthal man.
A.C. Blanc studied largely the geology and the palaeontology of the area between the 1930s and the 1950s, collecting much material from the Monte Circeo (caves of Guattari, Fossellone and Capre), from the Agro Pontino plain, during the excavation of the canal Acque Alte, and from the retrodunal lakes. The collection of fossil invertebrates (mainly molluscs) is stored at the Civic Zoology Museum of Rome, while the vertebrate remains are stored at the Italian Institute of Human Palaeontology in Anagni (Southern Latium). The analysis of the material (partly still unpublished) is of a large interest not only in understanding the palaeoenvironmental evolution of the area, in relation to the sea-level changes (driven by the climatic modifications of the Pleistocene), but also in reconstructing the dynamics involving man during the Middle Palaeolithic: the relationship with the large mammals, the ecological role in the environmental framework, the cultural evolution, etc. An exposition proposal has been organized with the aim to present the pioneering research of Blanc in a modern perspective, paying attention in illustrating the fossil remains of the Blanc’s malacological collection in their ecological and biogeographical background, compared to the present-day climate change. For example, the so-called Senegalese warm fauna (e. g. the bivalve Eastonia rugosa or the gastropod Thetystrombus latus) allows us to illustrate the long-time evolution of the climate in the Mediterranean Basin, and offer many interdisciplinary links, useful in the frame of the school curricula. At last, the Mt. Circeo area is a destination chosen by different kinds of travellers: students in class trips, excursionists, tourists, etc. Thus, the exposition, both as permanent installment and as a temporary one, will help to improve the awareness of the public on the importance in protecting and studying the area, but also to focus on the record of climate change in time: an educational tool to understand the future of the planet from its geological history.
Corresponding email: aleianna@unina.it
climate change, Milankovitch cycles, music analogies, geosciences education.
Climate change is one of the most important topics in geosciences that are cross-disciplinary and relevant for social implications. Teaching activities addressing this topic often focus the students' attention on the potential future effects of climate changes, mainly in terms of global warming. Discussions about the fundamental role of geologic records in reconstructing the Earth's past climate, and understanding its complex dynamics, are generally neglected. The goal of the present research is providing a tool for approaching the study of the long-term records of paleoclimate through the power of music analogies. This offers not only a fascinating way to visualize a complex phenomenon, but also a topic for effective cross-disciplinary teaching. At the beginning of the last century, Milankovitch computed the incoming solar radiation on the top of the atmosphere as a function of the latitude and from the retrieved cyclical patterns he hypothesized the astronomical control of the Earth's long term climate. Milankovitch's theory could found empirical quantitative support only after Emiliani's and later studies, which established variations in oxygen isotope ratios in the shells found in deep-sea sediments as effective proxies for changes in global ice volume. Hence, only from the second half of last century, variations in the Earth’s orbit have been definitely recognized as “pacemaker of the ice ages” (Hays et al., 1976). In the proposed learning environment, characteristic frequencies retrieved from astronomical and paleoclimate time series over last six millions of years have been converted into audio frequencies and the image of a tuning fork is proposed as a music analogue for the forcing role of Earth's orbital motions. Moreover, the dominant astronomical frequencies are converted into orchestral sounds and compared with those obtained from published isotopic records. The same set of data are used to generate amplitude modulated signals, which allows visualizing and listening to the complex natural climate variability. One of the most strong and effective outcomes produced by the musical representations is the clear identification of the sharp change in the dominant frequencies of the isotopic records around 800 ky, which marks the so-called Middle Pleistocene transition. Thus, music analogies are suggested tools not only to facilitate understanding of long term climate evolution, but also for offering a perceptible insight into the complexity of Earth's response, which appears not completely determined by astronomical parameters changes.
1 INGV, Portovenere. 2 CNR-IBE, Firenze. 3 CNR-ISMAR, Lerici. 4 CNR-IFC, Pisa.
Corresponding email: silvia.merlino@sp.ismar.cnr.it
Citizen science, Marine Litter, virtual survey, aerial drone monitoring, environmental education.
This project aims to make students understand what the problem of marine litter (anthropogenic waste dispersed in the sea) is, and what the possible environmental consequences, thanks to their direct involvement in the analysis of data acquired on our beaches, using aerial drones. The images are real, acquired during the monitoring campaigns carried out by the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the CNR, in collaboration with the Institute of Marine Science and the Institute of Bioeconomy, both CNR, and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). By analyzing aerial images of the monitored beaches, students collect useful information for research on the quantity, type, and spatial/temporal distribution of anthropogenic objects. This activity, designed to replace the classic manual monitoring on site that, this year, were impossible to carry out due to the COVID emergency, offered students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with tools for managing geographical data, such as QGIS, which are essential for the spatial analysis of information such as that produced by drones. Following introductory lectures on the topic addressed, on the use of drones for environmental monitoring also supported by audio-visual material, students were instructed in the use of the functions necessary to perform data collection on photos using QGIS. At the end of the course, students reported some of the data collected by means of short and simple PowerPoint presentations, together with their consideration about this experience. The project, being a didactic and educational experience, goes beyond the collection of data and the use of tools and protocols used in scientific research and aims to expand the knowledge of this serious problem by the new generations, and to predispose them towards more virtuous behaviors that include a reduction in the use of plastic, a better strategy for its disposal, the search for substitutive materials both compostable and biodegradable, and the move towards an economy that provides for recycling as a predominant action and that leads to a real decrease in pollution of our environment and our seas. To this end, it was provided, within the project, also an assessment of how many and what changes in knowledge and attitude have occurred in the students involved, through the administration of a short questionnaire pre and post activity. Results of this assessment will be presented in the communication. The "Adopt a beach" educational path, which involved in 2021 up to 11 secondary school classes of 6 different scholastic institutions, have been ideated by the involved researchers after their attending, as experts, to the “course for teachers” held by the Museum of the University of Pisa in September 2020, as well as in connection with the exhibition "La Plastica e Noi" (Plastic and Us) held in the same museum from July 2020 to May 2021.
1Earth Science Department, University of Turin. 2Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Turin.
Corresponding email: francesca.lozar@unito.it
Geoscience education, field work, Likert type.
Teaching the Geosciences in the high school is often a complex tasks and teachers tend to minimize the time dedicated to the Geosciences and/or fail to aruse passion in their students and their aprecciation of the importance of the Geosciences for our everyday life. Geoscience teaching is hard also because the basic understanding of the processes active on the planet involve temporal and spatial scales often not perceptible from human experience. In the frame of the PLS project, we designed a field activity to overcome these difficulties and to show the students how, acting like an explorer, may prove fascinating and how the collected data can inform on the main geodynamic processes involved in mountain building and on the time elapsing during these events. The activity is designed on the app TourinStone, created by the Earth Sciences Dep. of Turin with the aim of enhancing the ornamental stone heritage of the city of Turin and consisting of several itineraries through the city centre linking the ornamental stones and their provenance from different units of the Alpine chain, and describing the geological history of the Piemonte region. The itineraries were proposed to students from the last three years of the secondary school. Students were asked to describe and identify the main lithotypes occurring in the city centre with the help of a flowchart, a hand lens, and tutors dedicated to the project. A short introduction on how to describe and classify rocks preceded the activity; at the end of the day the students were also invited to hypothesize rock-forming geological processes starting from the basic knowledge gathered from rock observations (e.g. marine fossil content: sedimentary rock originating from the lithification of marine sediments of known age). Moreover, basic discussion on the exploitation of lithic row material and their sustainability was also addressed during the final part of the activity. We designed simple questionnaires with 5 Likert-type items to be administered to pupils and teachers before and after the field laboratory. The questionnaires were designed to assess the success of the educational field activity and its effectiveness in stimulating emotional engagement and cognitive improvement in geoscience literacy of the pupils and, their satisfaction with this geoscience activity. Teachers’ questionnaires were designed to evaluate the quality and the achievement of the field laboratories, in term of pupils’ disciplinary and soft skill improvement. The data obtained highlighted how the experience in the field had a positive influence on the perception and interest that students have for the Geoscience and that several misconceptions were solved. Furthermore, the results showed that the students developed soft skills such as observation and judgment as a result of experience. They were able to apply the knowledge and personal skills developed during the activities to respond at the questions in the ex-post questionnaire.
1Liceo Scientifico N. Copernico, Prato. 2Università di Camerino, Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie, Sezione di Geologia.
Corresponding email: maddalena.macario@copernicoprato.edu.it
teaching Earth Sciences, distance learning, Earth’s modeling, model of rotation ellipsoid, model of geoid.
The very long period of pandemic has heavily influenced education all around the world. Distance learning (DL) solved the problem in part, ensuring the continuity of the past school years. However, this new kind of schooling was extremely new for most teachers who, for the first time, had to face online platforms as well as streaming for class lectures. Moreover, teachers had to manage shortage of time, even though the topics (school programs) were the same as in normal time. In fact, DL opened a sort of educational new era, including completely new scenarios that forced teachers and more in general educators to renew and adapt most parts of their teaching style in order to grasp the attention of pupils, who stayed at home. At the same time DL had to guarantee a correct information flow to give pupils the opportunity to reach precise knowledge. In this work we propose some teaching strategies and activities for Earth Science teaching, in particular some distance laboratories that we proposed in the class 1 of Upper Secondary Level (e.g. Italian Prima Liceo scientifico, 14 years old students), during the school year 2020/21. It should be stressed that the first year is a key year in terms of acquisition of a suitable scientific method and often it is the only year in which basic Earth Science topics are learnt.
The activities included building models of rotation ellipsoid and geoid as well and are based on the inquiry approach. In particular, these activities allowed students to focus on and engage in some particularly struggling concepts such as the Earth shape, represented with rotation ellipsoid and geoid, concepts that usually remain obscure also in the following school years. The activities were organized in learning chunks to avoid overloading students' attention and at the same time to let them better metabolize the scientific contents, with links to other disciplines (physics, maths, art). A final project work assignment involved video recordings made by the students, which was also carried out as formative assessment. Final results were encouraging: at the end of the unit all students could lead meaningful reasoning about both models and easily distinguish between them to describe the shape of Earth.
Bybee R.W., Taylor J.A., Gardner A., VanScotter P. , Powell J.C., Westbrook A. & Landes N. (2006) The BSCS 5E Instructional Model: Origins and Effectiveness. Office of Science Education National Institutes of Health, BSCS.
Corresponding email: michelina.occhioni@unicam.it
Sustainability, Georesources, Virtual Worlds, Opensimulator.
In spite of being often neglected in school teaching, Geosciences are the best link to approach Sustainability and Civic/Environmental Education, being at the basis of most topics of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), like Georesources (water, energy, minerals, soil) Climate Change, Responsible consumption, Pollution (water, seas, soil). Agenda 2030 highlights the importance of education to support sustainability and also to acquire the “Basic skills and competencies needed in the 21st century”. In this framework, ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) can accelerate the approach to the SDGs, through formal, non-formal and informal learning. In this frame, Virtual Worlds (VW) offer great potential as an effective platform for structured paths and collaborative activities to foster learning, improving also students’ involvement. A virtual island called “Sustainability Hub”, hosted in the VW Techland (Occhioni, 2021) has been created, where students and teachers can access the VW as avatars, communicating and interacting with other avatars and interactive learning objects/external resources/games. “Sustainability Hub” is the starting point for teachers and students to approach Agenda 2030 and SDGs topics. In the island various topics related to sustainability are presented: the importance of georesources and the consequence of their over-exploitation, circular economy, environmental sustainability indicators, an introduction to the Agenda 2030 SDGs. Concepts as water footprint, carbon footprint, ecological footprint, ecological rucksack make students aware of the amount of consumption of natural resources behind the daily products consumed by each person. A preliminary trial was carried out on a sample of 48 teachers (primary, middle and high Italian schools), which evidenced the effectiveness of this tool to set up educational paths about sustainability. An experimentation was carried on remotely, during the COVID-19 lockdown, with K6-K8 students from 4 schools and a total of 600 students divided between control and experimental group. In a first 2hours meeting the students mastered the island map, the project aims and tasks to accomplish. In the next meeting, supervised by their teacher and the researchers, they were free to explore the sections, interacting with objects and getting information. The control groups were involved in the same topics but only experimenting the island by screen-sharing in a typical 2 hours lecture. A questionnaire and final test showed that the experimental group got better scores than the control group, showing involvement and interest in the topics proposed, learning about georesources and waste. They activity was a tool to socialize with their classmate during the pandemic.
1ANISN. 2ISIT Manzetti - Aosta. 3EGU-IGEO European Chapter.
Corresponding email: susocchip@gmail.com
maps, tools, skills.
An analysis carried out on first (11-14) and second grade (14-18) Italian secondary school students and an in-depth analysis carried out in recent years, during the in the different stages of regional and national selections of the Earth Sciences Olympics, and particularly with the students participating in the learning week organized for who will make up the Italian team of the IESO -International Olympiad of Earth Science, highlighted widespread difficulties in the analysis of topographic maps. The decreasing diffusion of geography teaching in Italian schools, the increasing use of digital tools, apps and software, such as Google Earth and navigators, free and easy to use, has made the use of the topographic maps, and of the various thematic ones, among the students, substantially obsolete. If the use of digital tools has promoted digital skills, ease of orientation, even greater security in discovering new places, it is leading meanwhile to the loss of skills of observation, analysis and understanding of the context, that only the view of a large area included in a map and not in a few inches of a screen, can give. In reality, both resources constitute a formidable tool, not only for the discovery and knowledge of the territory, but for the growth of specific skills, which are crucial for the knowledge of a territory, but also indispensable in scientific research. In this research we analyse tools, models and pathways, which foresee the integration of the two resources, and which skills their integrated use can implement.
1Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia - Sezione Roma 2, Sede di Portovenere. 2Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia - Sezione Roma 1. 3Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia - AC.
Corresponding email: giovanna.piangiamore@ingv.it
Experimental online EAS, Active Learning, Participatory approach, Awareness increasing, Natural hazard.
The need to design engaging and educational distance activities in occasion of special events during the emergency caused by COVID19, has led to experiment the online use of innovative digital teaching methods, previously used in presence for science outreach educational activities for schools. On the occasion of the European Research Night 2020 and on both the World Water and Earth Days 2021, the distance lab activities "Earthquakes: history teaches us the future" and "Tsunamis: history teaches us the future" were thus performed. The activities were carried out by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia within the European Interreg Italy-Croatia project called PMO-GATE, and within the project FUTURI CITTADINI RESPONSABILI - Cammini Educativi di Responsabilità civile ed ambientale in collaboration with the Italian Associazione per lo Sviluppo SOstenibile e Centro di Educazione Ambientale (ASSOCEA Messina APS). Following the EAS (Episodes of Situated Learning) methodology, complex scientific concepts have been "broken" into small fundamental knowledge that students have acquired in order to be able to transfer these concepts, as a communication product, by means of digital posters, encouraging creativity and the ability of personal processing. EAS was introduced in Italy by Prof. Rivoltella in 2014 and it is structured in 3 phases: preparatory, operative and debrifing, performing the principles of flipped lesson. The researchers were not mere "dispensers of knowledge", but they were tutors in an assisted laboratory to come up with significant observations and considerations through shared research and reworking of learning by doing activity. More than 3200 students of the third classes of Middle Schools (ISCDE 2) and of all classes of High Schools (ISCDE 3) took part to our events. After an explanatory lesson on past earthquakes and tsunamis, they have become "researchers for a day" and have prepared, independently, 150 creative digital artifacts on some of the most important historical events of their region. Researchers’ knowledge was at service of School using curiosity-driven approaches in order to help homebound teachers and students, adapting the reality of the last year to the difficulties linked to the pandemic. The aim of the activities was to increase the awareness of the risks related to earthquakes and tsunamis through the study of past events, bringing students closer to the world of research and encouraging the personal development of
the contents discussed with the experts, to understand how the past is an important key to reduce the impact of future events. Some students have reported their experience with texts they have created on "Noi Magazine", the insert of Gazzetta del Sud dedicated to education.
1University of Camerino, UNICAMearth group. 2 Centre for Earth and Space Research of the University of Coimbra (CITEUC), Portugal. 3 Collège L. Nucéra, Académie de Nice, Education nationale française, France. 4 Spanish Earth Science Teachers Association (AEPECT), Spain. 5 Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology Hisar, Haryana, India. 6 Département des Sciences de la Terre - Laboratoire Géosciences et Environnement, FST Marrakech - UCA, Morocco. 7 Education Department, Keele University, UK..
Corresponding email: giulia.realdon@unicam.it
Geoscience education, EGU-IUGS/IGEO, EGU Field Officer programme, Earthlearningidea.
Responding to a widely perceived need for enhancing geoscience education, in 2018 the European Geosciences Union (EGU) launched the EGU and IUGS-IGEO Geoscience Field Officer (FO) programme. Six FOs were selected from Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Morocco, and India, and trained to run professional development activities based on practical labs following the CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education) methodology (Adey et al., 1995). These activities, originally developed by the Earth Science Education Unit at Keele University in the 1990s, are published on the Earthlearningidea website (ELI), a continuously growing repository of teaching resources aimed at geoscience teachers without an academic background in this field or needing training in practical geology. FOs began running teachers’ workshops in their respective countries in May 2019, providing 21 workshops for about 400 attending from all school levels until April 2020, when the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic precluded the performance of any ‘in person’ activities. Also, the training of seven new FOs already appointed was postponed for the same reason. After a suspension during the first pandemic wave, FOs resumed their activity by switching to distance training and adapting the format of the workshops with the use of ad hoc presentations and videos autonomously recorded or provided by the Earthlearningidea team. Up at May 2021, 19 on-line workshops were performed in Spain, Portugal, Italy and India, for nearly 600 participants. The outcome of the workshops was assessed by means of a questionnaire administered during the workshops. General interest, professional interest, and interest in attending other similar workshops were rated at the highest level by more of 80% of the respondents. Teachers’ comments and requests also evidenced high appreciation for the proposed methodology, specifically for the practical knowledge, and for the trainers. Critical remarks were few, and generally focused on external constraints (Realdon et al., 2020). In addition to the workshops, four teachers’ conferences were presented by the FOs and two papers on EGU workshops were published, with one more in press. Geoscience plays an important role in the operation of society and in protecting the future for all humans. Moreover, geoscience underpins key areas of the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The FOs’ dissemination activities are helping to fill the gap in the professional development support available to geoscience teachers across Europe and beyond and will result in promoting the adoption of sustainable development models in a growing number of countries.
University of Camerino, UNICAMearth group. 2EMSEA - European Marine Science Educators Association.
Corresponding email: giulia.realdon@unicam.it
Ocean Literacy, sustainability, Italian schools, Ocean Decade.
Ocean Literacy, that is “an understanding the ocean’s influence on you and of your influence on the ocean” is at the base of a worldwide movement, born in the US at the beginning of the century and diffusing in Europe since the 2010s by initiative of some NGOs, as EMSEA (European Marine Science Educators Association) and OLI (Ocean Literacy Italia) in this country. Within EMSEA, a guide to the Mediterranean Sea Literacy has been published (Mokos et al., 2020) to adapt the principles of OL at this regional context. In Italy the status of OL in schools has been only recently addressed by education research, evidencing a complex scenario: sea-related topics are absent in the science curriculum of the 1st instruction cycle (grades 1-8) and appear only in high school guidelines, while textbooks include marine issues, with different deepening depending on the school grades. Primary and middle school students’ literacy, though, assessed by regional and multicentric investigations, appears to be moderate on average, with some misconceptions, in accordance with the findings in other European Mediterranean countries (Mogias et al., 2019). This scenario could be positively influenced by the launch of the UN Ocean Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). This global initiative has two distinctive features: it addresses science considering the UN Agenda 2030 as a central framework and focuses on the impact of ocean sciences on societies of both less developed and developed countries. OL is recognised as having an important role in spreading the knowledge and in triggering a behavioural change since the early school grades, thus promoting a general improvement of teaching also in Italian schools. Some other favourable circumstances make this achievable: the introduction of the teaching of civics education in all school grades, with emphasis on environmental education and sustainability, and the launch of large-scale ocean-related education projects, as the EU4Ocean Blue Schools initiative. The European Blue Schools initiative, grounded on existing successful OL programmes as Escola Azul in Portugal, aims at involving as many schools as possible in education projects focused on the environment and developed with local partners. Public communication and involvement of the local communities make Blue Schools projects interdisciplinary and competences promoting. As every school innovation, also the diffusion of OL requires the availability of professional development for teachers. EU4Ocean initiative has already run workshops for all school grades, other training opportunities are being offered by OLI and the University of Camerino.
1Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova. 2 Biblioteca di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova. 3 Biblioteche di Economia e Geografia "Ca' Borin", Università degli Studi di Padova. 4 Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità, Università degli Studi di Padova. 5 Libero professionista.
Corresponding email: cecilia.furlani@unipd.it
maps, GIS.
The University of Padova claims an impressive cartographic heritage, dated from 1668 to the present day, distributed in various Libraries and Departments and not yet known as it deserves. In particular, the Geography and Geosciences Libraries preserve over 40,000 maps of various types, from topographic and geographical maps to geological, geothematic and historical maps. Thanks to the "Mapfly" project, funded by “Infrastrutture Immateriali di Ricerca” (Intangible Research Infrastructures), this cartographic heritage, now difficult to access, will be available to the public (autumn 2021) through the creation of a WebGIS portal. The portal will allow, by searching the basemap, to verify the presence in the catalog of maps of the area of interest and, with regard to the historical cartography in the public domain, also view the georeferenced digital reproduction on the web and proceed with the download of the same in the form of a file (GeoTIF), to be used locally on user’s GIS device. The new Web App will be previewed at the congress. The Mapfly project has been carried out by the University of Padova and started in November 2020. The portal has been developed according to the model of prestigious international agencies, in particular this one: http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/ (http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/), and involved transversal skills: three expert GIS technicians for georeferencing, to set up an additional Web App for data entry and for the development of the web interface, students who collaborated for the description of the encumbrance polygons of the cartography, and librarians that helped with cataloging, the analysis of descriptive metadata and to organize links to both the catalog and the University repository of digital collections. A technological partner supported the development of the Web App and its installation on the server. The acquisition of the digital maps has been carried out on a scanner developed for this service. The study of geosciences will therefore be able to rely on a tool for research and analysis of cartographic documentation that is easy to access and potentially of great interest for research, degree theses and practical classes. The Web App will make it possible to enhance and make fully usable the extraordinary cartographic resources of the University, that are so far difficult to consult and search through traditional catalogs. In fact, thanks to the WebApp it will be possible to get to know the availability of all the cartographic heritage of the area of interest, filter it by type of map or on the basis of a time period, and (as far as a digital copy is available) proceed with the diachronic study of a territory using the techniques of representations (transparencies) offered by the App or by downloading and superimposing the cartography of interest on GIS. The latter techniques appear to be particularly effective for applications in the fields of geomorphology and landscape study.
1Dipartimento di Matematica e Geoscienze, Università di Trieste. 2 Centro Interdipartimentale per la Ricerca Didattica, CIRD, Università di Trieste. 3Dipartimento di Matematica e Geoscienze, Università di Trieste. 4 Laboratorio permanente P.I.D.D.AM., CIRD, Università di Trieste.
Corresponding email: mstoppa@units.it
Educational Research, Teacher Training, Science Education, School, University, University of Trieste, Journal, QuaderniCIRD.
Founded in 2010 and published online by the Publishing House EUT - Edizioni University of Trieste, QuaderniCIRD is the multidisciplinary semi-annual magazine of CIRD. Characterized by an ethical-social mission aimed at improving the training systems and the consequent effects on the social systems of reference, the magazine aims to disseminate, at national and international level, research, proposals and innovative teaching experiences for schools of every order and degree and for the University and to develop new forms of collaboration with other similar Centers. Qualifying objectives pursued by the magazine consist in improving the initial and lifelong learning processes of teachers of schools of all levels and of the University, also through comparison with what happens in the training systems of other countries and promoting the national and international diffusion of subsidies useful for improving, supporting and updating teaching / learning processes, also favoring the systematic synergy between School and University. The magazine also intends to encourage the design of innovative vertical and interdisciplinary educational paths, establishing a fruitful comparison and seeking a common language among the various disciplinary education.
1Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra di Torino. 2Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze dell'Educazione di Torino.
Corresponding email: marco.tonon@unito.it
Arte, Estetica, Ecologia, Didattica emozionale, Didattica trasformativa, Educazione sostenibile.
Per realizzare un'educazione scientifica che porti ad uno spontaneo rispetto dell'ambiente è necessario sviluppare negli studenti un senso di appartenenza e di relazione interdipendente con l’ambiente naturale circostante. Il senso di consapevolezza e di responsabilità è essenziale per riuscire ad attuare un cambiamento duraturo nei nostri comportamenti tesi a una maggiore sostenibilità. A livello educativo è, quindi, indispensabile agire sull’integrazione delle sfere cognitive ed emotive: le emozioni vissute durante attività didattiche coinvolgenti sono strettamente connesse con l'apprendimento significativo di concetti scientifici e con la sensibilizzazione alle tematiche ecologiche. La nostra ricerca didattica si concentra sulla sperimentazione di nuovi modelli di apprendimento integrati e atti a sviluppare una profonda consapevolezza delle relazioni che collegano l'uomo all'ambiente. Attraverso pratiche di espressione artistica e di condivisione emotiva delle esperienze pensiamo di realizzare un insegnamento transdisciplinare, che fornisca diversi punti di vista sul mondo e che stimoli un apprendimento a “tutto tondo”, integrando tra loro gli aspetti cognitivi, percettivo-motori ed emotivo-relazionali.
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell’Ambiente e delle Risorse, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.
Corresponding email: federica.totaro@unina.it
school, entrepreneurship, communication and managerial skills.
Geological phenomena have always attracted young people: events such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and landslides, with their unpredictability and impact, interest and worry the communities in which they occur. In particular, in the city of Naples (southern Italy), hundreds of thousands of people live close to Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei volcanic areas. The communities that populate these areas should be aware of the dangers associated to volcanoes as well as they should know that effusive and explosive products accumulated in the past have been used as materials to pave roads and decorate edifices, and may be still used for building purposes. The population should be also informed of the likely benefits derived from geothermal energy. To Earth Sciences researchers and students, the entire Neapolitan area appears an open-air laboratory for risk assessment and resources exploitation, while to many citizens, including new generations, the social, cultural and energetic impact of the geological scenarios over the daily life is still quite unfamiliar. In order to reduce such gap and to promote geoscientific disciplines, during 2021 many initiatives for the dissemination and orientation of school students have been organized by the Department of Earth, Environment and Resources Sciences at the University of Naples Federico II (Naples, Italy). During the winter term, many seminars devoted to secondary school students have been held to disseminate a wide range of geological topics. All the questionnaires of customer satisfaction proposed to the involved students highlighted a very high degree of interest on the dealt themes, but a general low inclination to choose the degree in Geological Sciences. In order to increase their awareness on the territorial context and to possibly widen the number of students enrolled for a geological academic course, in the spring term, we proposed several programs integrating the seminars with field camp training. Among these initiatives the “Neapolitan Volcanic Project” has been targeted to secondary schools and entirely managed by university students, most of which had previously attended a course on scientific communication and popularization, organized at the Polytechnic and Basic Sciences School of Federico II University. These students chose the scientific contents and suitably selected the field-trip itineraries. We present such experiences and the key elements of the adopted strategies: student-to-student and teacher-to-teacher communications, field camp preceding Earth Science classes, training on scientific communication. We also highlight how managerial skills of university students, gained in other contexts (e.g. congress organization, management of student associations) are pooled as best practices for activities targeted at schools.
1University of Milan, Earth Sciences Department A. Desio. 2University of Milan. Corresponding email: fedeverzaro94@gmail.com
Geoclimbing, Geoeducation, Gamification, 3GEO IGCP UNESCO.
Geoclimbing consists of connecting the free climbing activity with the observation of geological and geomorphological sites of interest. It is addressed to scholars that hence have the opportunity of getting closer to Earth Sciences while experiencing a multidisciplinary outdoor activity. This has been the aim of the UNESCO-IGCP Project “3GEO”, which focuses on the creation of a global network of iconic geoheritage sites equipped for climbing, also suitable for educational activities with schools. In fact, geoclimbing revealed to be very important as a teaching strategy, as it enhances students’ curiosity and makes them participate actively in the learning process (García-Rodríguez & Fernandez-Escalante, 2017). In Italy, this practice has already been experimented in schools, especially in 1st level secondary schools with a project called “Gekologia” conducted in northern Italy, in the Central Italian Alps (Pelfini et al., 2019). Several activities have been proposed such as the practice of geoclimbing on the field and the use of multimedia tools to get to know better geological concepts that normally can be less interesting for the students. The results show an improvement in the students’ knowledge, enhancing the idea that these activities really help scholars to better understand and memorize difficult but important notions (Bollati et al., 2018; Pelfini et al., 2019). Moreover, in 2020 a board game was prepared as an additional part. This choice derives from some studies that show how the use of board games in teaching has many advantages in engaging and motivating to learn in a new and unusual way for students, enabling students to apply critical thinking skills and to learn the scientific concepts. The proposed game is represented by a four-sided pyramid-shaped board (which recalls a mountain) with 15 cells for each side from the bottom to the top. The players are divided into 4 teams that try to win getting to the top as fast as possible answering correctly to some questions about geological, geomorphological and climbing concepts. According to the results obtained by testing it, the board game and the whole geoclimbing project are expected to provide social benefits to local communities, hopefully becoming part of the school programme.
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell’Ambiente e delle Risorse, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.
Corresponding email: eleonora.vitagliano@unina.it
Earth Sciences, student orientation, school student engagement
Over the past three decades, the online setting in high school student education and orientation programs has increased, becoming widely adopted during and after the COVID-19 block. Regarding student orientation, the University's websites now offer easy access to study programs, facilitate exploration of course structures and subjects, and provide extensive information on admission assessment, fees, location of laboratories and classrooms (Miller & Pope, 2003). However, this information does not engage students in experiences that enhance their knowledge, motivations and choices. These issues are crucial to remedy the problem of student retention and to favour the correct selection of the academic career (Bolliger & Martin, 2018; Groccia, 2018). Concerning the involvement of students, we present here an orientation experience carried out in February 2021 by the Department of Earth, Environment and Resources Sciences at the University of Naples Federico II (Naples, Italy), in order to promote the degree in Geological Sciences. The proposed event, aimed at high school students, was developed in an online environment using various technical and communicative expedients: dynamic presentation schemes, massive participation of university staff, young speakers, geology students with basic communication skills, direct contact with school students and description of the social or environmental effects in relation to geo-scientific disciplines. In addition, several key actions were carried out both in the preparation phase of the event, such as writing the texts of the speakers and rehearsing the storytelling related to the laboratories (labs) presentation, and during the orientation meeting. In relation to the latter issue, the dynamic face-to-face interaction has been achieved restricting in five-minute intervals the labs presentation, activating dialogue between speakers and changing webcam capture views. Finally, this work not only revisits the orientation strategy by describing the scientific, digital and communication tasks aimed at the high school student engagement, but also shows the benefits of training a scientific communication course for the staff involved in such an event.