Abstract:

The following work is aimed at investigating the proposals offered to schools by organisations in the Veneto region concerning the promotion of the environment of the Venetian lagoon and the northern Adriatic.

According to the first section of the 2012 Italian National Guidelines, school has the task of guiding pupils into learning “how to live in this world”, a concept that inevitably implies “knowing the world”, starting from the context that surrounds children in their daily life. The aim of this knowledge must be to make young learners feel attached to their environment and their territory and to make them recognise it as part of their identity.

This positive feeling that is generated through knowledge of the environment and the territory can and must inevitably lead children to adopt responsible and sustainable behaviours.

After presenting the major historical milestones that have led to the concept of sustainability, the research moves on to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Italian Guidelines for Civic Education, to briefly investigate the objectives and paths that schools should adopt to promote respect for the environment and the territory in their students.

The examined contexts, as previously noted, are the Venetian lagoon and the northern Adriatic Sea: both are extremely diverse in terms of biodiversity and resources available.

The presented organisations are the Olivi Museum of Adriatic Zoology in Chioggia (VE), the Venice Natural History Museum, and the Averto Valley Oasis in Campagna Lupia (VE). For the collection of sources, it was preferred to adopt field research, with visiting days, in order to find materials and direct evidence.

After having described the history and the collection of each museum, the analysis continues by presenting the museum didactic itineraries structured for schools, aimed at accompanying children to discover and preserve the environment of the Venice lagoon and the northern Adriatic. For the Valle Averto Oasis, on the other hand, the presentation of the itineraries for schools is preceded by a description of the morphology and biodiversity of the area.

The research has been then extended with the planning of some possible activities to be carried out in the classroom as a link between the school and the local authorities.

Keywords:

Environment, museum didactic itineraries, northern Adriatic Sea, primary school, sustainability, Venice lagoon.