Abstract:

The Biodiversity Park was born from the opportunity to integrate experiences and interests generated by different actors already involved in educational and social activities operating in the Treviso area, in Italy. First of all, the Municipality of Treviso, owner of the 15,000 m2 green area in which the Park is built, is interested in raising awareness about the conscious use of resources and the use of sustainable cultivation techniques. Then the Treviso Academy for the Territory, which had established in this area a scientific botanical garden for dissemination activities. And finally, the "Leonardo da Vinci" State Scientific High School, which promoted the design of the Park in which didactic aspects can be combined with awareness and dissemination aspects. Students, parents and teachers participate in the creation of the Park.

Here we intend to highlight the methodological contribution of a path, based on an interdisciplinary approach and which includes activity both open-air and in educational laboratories, as a model for learning Earth sciences, biological and chemical.

In activities related to the creation of the Biodiversity Park, attempts are made to favor contact with the reality and to observe and study natural phenomena and biological cycles of different living organisms directly in the field, trying to limit our intervention to the end to analyze rules of the game determined as little as possible by us. For this reason, the permaculture technique was used. In fact, this provides that the production of fruit and vegetables takes place with the least possible human intervention and that the plants planted to create a stable and lasting habitat.

The park is open not only to the students of the "Leonardo da Vinci" High School but also, in a vertical vision and territorial collaboration of the formation, to other schools of every order and degree to which specific and age-related activities were proposed. It is also planning to open the area to citizenship.

The authentic task entrusted to high school students was to plan, manage and animate the visits. Furthermore, the analyzes carried out in the laboratory will try to follow the official protocols for the validation of the collected data. In this regard, it was decided to structure moments of direct confrontation with the students on the choices to be implemented using the student voice as a technique of involvement.

Further qualification of the project is the collaboration with the universities to build research paths on the science pedagogy and on the effectiveness of the activities, linked to the realization of the Biodiversity Park, the development of scientific and social competences and the improvement of curricular disciplinary learning.

Keywords:

Biology, didactic garden, chemistry, Earth sciences, laboratory didactics.