Pre- and post-participation activities in the Fridays For Future strike
Photo by Gianni Tugnoli
To educate about the environment it is important to give students the opportunity to compare themselves with their peers, perhaps in a global event, such as the environmental march of the Fridays For Future organized in the main streets of their city, but first it is equally important to equip those same students with cognitive tools and explore with them data and materials that allow them to fully appreciate the value of their presence at the march. For this reason, before participating in the global protest it can be a lot effective reflect and discuss the environmental situation and jointly hypothesize possible creative solutions . As in other colleges in previous years, also at the Aldini Technical Institute I tried to bring students closer to a new relationship with the environment, for example with Systemic English open-air lessons funded by the 'Open Schools 2021' project.
The week before the strike, the boys created the posters in English with the help of the art teacher and head of the institute's art laboratory Prof. Francesco Pellegrini. The backyard of the school warehouse allowed for much more creativity and movement in the classroom. The cardboard materials used were mostly recovered by recycling materials from the adjacent school warehouse.
Some posters drawn during the artistic workshop
Creation of the front poster to participate in the march, recovered from an unused box supplied by the managers of the Aldini-Valeriani warehouse.
To get to the center of Bologna we have chosen to walk along the path that runs along the Navile river and crosses the park of Villa Angeletti. Direct contact with nature and attention to the activity of walking and breathing, allowed the group to observe this environmental education activity from a perspective that goes beyond the political message of support for the environmental cause. For an existential investigation into the relationship between us and our planet and a reflection on the interconnection with the earth, during the walk in nature, before throwing ourselves into the fray of the city event, we listened to the rhythm of our steps on the path and read some passages from the song "Walking just to walk" by Thick Nhath Hahn.
Leaving the river path behind us and arriving in the center of Bologna, we joined the city parade.
Picture of Gianni Tugnoli
Picture of Gianni Tugnoli
When we returned to school, at the end of the morning, we were exhausted, and before returning home we sat in a circle under the most leafy spruce of our school garden to do one last reading of short passages, in the original language, of great inspiration. for contemporary environmentalism, written by Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, comment on them, and discuss their meaning for us.
After the didactic output, from the following lesson the class prepared an interview in English in pairs, to tell their experience at the march of 24 September 2021 and to test themselves as radio speakers, to eventually verify the possibility of activating a radio broadcast. on an environmental theme in our school radio. The activity in pairs was structured and evaluated as follows: student A journalist, student B participating in the FFF parade. Linguistic objective: to formulate and answer questions on the environmental issue by talking about one's own experience. Five main aspects of the radio dialogue simulation carried out were evaluated: 1. CONTENT: the relevance, variety and depth of the ecological topics discussed. 2. LEXICON: the appropriate use of specific vocabulary 3. FLUENCY: the ability to express oneself casually without referring too much to a trace 4. PRAGMATICS: knowing how to manage conversation consistent with the context. 5. CORRECTNESS: linguistic correctness. A maximum of two points were awarded for each descriptor. Each couple had to prepare two interviews on different topics in order to switch roles. The final grade was calculated from the sum of each interviewer's and interviewee's performance.