Abstract:

This paper presents the activities and workshops that are taking place in the UPV summer school during the month of July 2016, in the framework of educational and dissemination activities promoted by the UNESCO Chair on earthen architecture, constructive cultures and sustainable development at its headquarters in the UPV (directed by F. Vegas and C. Mileto).

The main objective of these activities is to bring earthen architecture and its construction to children of different ages and levels, from 6 to 12 years old. This set of activities is carried out in a specific area of the campus of the University which has been called "The corner of the Earth", a large area outdoors where the workshops have been conducted. For each level, we have designed specific activities carried out in different workshops structured sequentially through various levels. Therefore, there is a continuity of learning in the long term, since many of the UPV’s summer school students tend to be the same year after year, and in this way, the student who started the activity in the first level may go doing each one of the activities during the successive summers.

The methodology of the proposed activities is common in all levels. There are workshops that are an educational resource based on active methodologies ("learning by doing") as are students who learn to build the various techniques of land with their own hands, so active and collaborative to achieve a common objective, a small building which all are partakers, encouraging teamwork and collective participation. The practical focus on the activity through the experimentation and the proposed active methodologies, gives the opportunity to the students to know various construction techniques, all of them associated with a humble but valuable material as the Earth. Moreover, they give the opportunity to the students to promote further knowledge of alternative technologies, in all its facets, and favoring aspects that may be useful for the enhancement of non-conventional building systems as potential instruments generators of economic wealth and culture in disadvantaged settings from close to through a sustainable economy.

Keywords:

Workshop, earthen architecture, sustainable development.