Tutti giù per terra (all fall down) – An active course to discover earthquakes topics

Abstract

Teaching topics involving risk and safety, and earthquake, requires a full involvement. Otherwise, it can be useless. A full involvement means an experience rewarding the person in his/her integrity, starting from practice to go beyond it, understanding phaenomena not using science as a form of rational believe, working on the different ingenuous idea that everyone has of the earthquake, staying related to the social connections of the learning group. ConUnGioco developed, starting from these objectives, "Tutti giù per terra", an active course for discover, for the Italian INGV: the course, whose title is inspired to the last line ("All fall down", in italian, "Tutti giù per terra") of the child singing game "Ring a ring'o roses" (in Italian: girotondo), is based on an interactive and participative approach. Following the active course, partecipants can experiment feeling and emotions related to the experience of an earthquake (through simulation tools). Therefore, starting from the questions that the simulated experience raised in everyone, the group will search its own answers, investigating theorical knowledges with scientific experiments and games, staying in touch with explanations coming from legends, history and religion. The course will end in the area of concrete actions and possible reactions to an earthquake, talking about preventions and solutions, individually and as a community.