Ecomuseum: telling Earth Sciences through the territory

Abstract

The ecomuseum is a revolutionary concept compared to traditional museum because it adds to the traditional museum the social dimension. The environment is described through history, culture, landscapes, activities, society putting in relation to aspects of life, material and spiritual, and tying them to the places, territories and the culture that created them. The experience described refers to the realization of the pilot project "Towards an Eco Museum of the Castelli Romani". The project, proposed and implemented by a group of researchers of the Laboratory of Education and Science Communication of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in collaboration with the Regional Park of the Castelli Romani, involved students of the Classic and Socio-Psycho-Pedagogical High School of the Mancinelli Falcone Institute of Velletri (RM). The work here proposed is an example of how to promote knowledge, awareness and appreciation of its territory by use of innovative and multidisciplinary educational programs; paths that allow young people to redraw the places to returning them to the communities that live there as a common heritage to be lived and protect. Educational activities carried out in the academic year 2009-2010, were structured on multidisciplinary training programs designed to create ecomuseum routes. These training programs have been grouped into three main areas (historical, archaeological and literary, geological and town planning, ecological and naturalistic) that are particularly representative of the complexity of geological and anthropological territory of the Nemi Lake. Very often the age of globalization takes us to lose sight of the concept of place in favour of the non-place, an environment free of characteristics and boundaries. This trend, if on one hand helps to share problems and solutions related to environmental protection, other hand risks producing a variety of effects that lead communities to disown the values of their territory. Instead the experience realized takes us in an opposite direction. The active techniques used in the project (dramatization, creative writing, music, etc.) favoured boys in the acquisition of knowledge and skills that allow enhance of territorial resources and sharing it with the community. Another innovative element of the project is the setting methodology on which it was built, which places the school world not as the final recipient of knowledge but as a viewer and at the same time a partner who takes an active role in the dissemination of knowledge .