Abstract:

"My Classroom as the World of CAITPR: discovering the Italian Heavy Rapid Shooting Horse (CAITPR)" is a project born in 2017. It is characterized by an articulated planning aimed at investigating environmental issues, such as pollution, eco-sustainability, organic farming, beekeeping, biodiversity, native birdlife and the enhancement of CAITPR in organic farming, selected in the last century in the Venetian plain for use in war. It is a new form of thought to address the protection of the Earth, in a perspective capable of combining schools, families and local authorities in the acquisition of an environmental, scientific and shared culture.

It allows young people to acquire sustainable behaviours, especially with the aim of considering products not as something that is consumed and dies, but as a "circular value" to be preserved, generated and reused.

Over time, the initial project has been enriched with new paths "We hatch a Bio-bio Dream (educational chicken coop)," One, two, three ... bee, horse, king! " (beekeeping path), and "My school smells of lavender" (washing in the school garden, to produce melliferous flowers and for the extraction of essential oils to produce natural soap), which offer pupils a circle of good practices that open and close in the daily school life.

As many as 15 partners including local authorities, associations and professionals support the mission of the project. Among all, the Veneto Region has financed 50% of the cost of the project and the University of Padua, which contributed to the dissemination of the first results and is evaluating any research on the educational-pedagogical impact on stakeholders.

The planning envisages continuity plans between the various school orders, inclusion and orientation, in particular with the "Duca degli Abruzzi" of Padua, a school of agriculture and environmental protection since 1864.

This article aims to highlight the innovative educational-didactic approach through which indoor and outdoor activities, in synergy, give life to a rich multidisciplinary intertwining, which favours sustainable behaviours, such as the re-use of wet waste from snacks and lunches, for feeding the hens and to produce compost for the lavender substrate.

Permanently hosting hens of native breeds, subject to conservation programs with the BIONET project of Veneto Agricoltura, on a regional and perhaps national level, allows students to develop, with learning by doing, a scientific approach to reality, in a special open-air classroom, where philosophy for children lessons is also offered on collaboration, respect for the role and abilities of each and on the duties of each to others, thus enhancing soft skills. Raising hens starting from the egg, with the presence of an incubator at school, teaches to respect life, to take care of smaller and more fragile living beings, to live the value of waiting and to manage the emotions of possible disappointments. or failures.

The international event Fieracavalli in Verona, for 3 consecutive years, up to the Covid 19 pandemic, hosted the project, in the Kids and Environmental Proposals Area, welcoming over eight thousand participants (mainly primary school) to the laboratory activities stand managed by the Twelfth Comprehensive Institute of Padua.

Keywords:

Biology, biodiversity, chicken breeding, ecosensibility, learning by doing, outdoor education, peer tutoring, philosophy for children.