Pedagogy for the Ecological Transition

2021 - in progress

With: INDIRE (Instituto Nationale Documentatione Inovazione Ricerca Educativa)

Objective: To create a new, positive and concrete relationship with nature in education to support the ecological transition.

Description: This activity aims to train Italian teachers from INDIRE and European teachers from the ERASMUS network in the benefits of direct contact with nature, with a view to integrating this approach into education. In collaboration with the Amerigo Vespucci school in Florence, located in an underprivileged area, we have developed a Restoring the Nature Experience program for 2021.

Together with Isabel de Maurissens (a certified guide and educational researcher), we trained the teachers at this primary and secondary school in a new approach to nature, focusing on a positive discourse and the use of the senses.

Impact: Two years later, we evaluated the results of this teaching and published a scientific article in the journal Formare. According to the data collected, 100% of the teachers surveyed said they had changed their relationship with nature (33.3% “yes, very much”, 33.3% “yes, very much”, 33.3% “yes, quite a lot”). This transformation in turn impacts hundreds of students.

These results are very encouraging, but there are still thousands of teachers to be convinced that nature is not a problem, but a solution.