A few weeks ago we read some extremely disturbing news in the national and local online media. As a result of heavy rain in Hermoupolis, our city, debris of an old building had fallen on parked cars and also on a car crossing the road. Some of the cars had serious damages but fortunately, no one was hurt. We felt like it was raining rocks!!
The pupils of the fourth grade (9-10 years old) were really upset with this fact and afraid that a major part of our town is going to collapse in the near future. That been said and after a long conversation between the teacher Mr Nektarios Farassopoulos and the students, we decided to look for answers:
Why are the buildings falling down? What can we do to prevent similar events in the future? Which professionals are working in this field?
On Thursday, April 13th, we invited a STEM professional, a Digital Heritage Architect to our online class hoping that he can help us understand more things about that incident. Mr Pavlos Chatzigrigoriou is a Civil Engineer with an MSc in Restoration and Conservation of Monuments, an MSc in Environmental Planning and a PhD in Architecture (Digital Heritage). He is the person who can explain to us what really happened a few weeks ago in our city and what proactive measures can be taken to handle the situation in the future. Also, Mr. Chatzigrigoriou is an excellent role model for the students and his work is a great example of how STEM professionals can help local communities prevent serious problems.
He started his presentation talking about the incident that occurred in our city a few weeks ago.
The project was created as a PCTO (internship) project for third and fourth-grade students of our school (Scientific High School) from the challenge “Art & Science across Italy”, which is a European project of the CREATIONS network (H2020) organized by the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and CERN in Geneva to promote scientific culture among young people. It combines the languages of art and science: two knowledge tools that are among the highest expressions of human creativity.
The first objective of the project is to bring students closer to the world of science and research, regardless of their aptitude for science subjects, using art as the communication language.
The project is structured in successive steps with seminars in schools and universities, visits to museums and scientific laboratories, workshops held by experts from the world of science and art, and tutoring activities during the creation of artistic compositions. In particular, for each of the cities involved, the project is divided into a training and a creative phase, followed by a local exhibition and a final national selection that culminates in the Exhibition “A Journey in Science”, scheduled to take place at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples on May 2022.
SUMMARY
The activity is as an opening towards the teaching of civic education. It aims at connecting the projects present in the school into a unity in order to open paths of citizenship, service learning and dialogue with institutions and the territory, to create dynamics inside / outside the school in synergy with one’s environment and to develop critical awareness and sensitivity.
It should create connections with the Service-Learning projects already present in the schools, with some Institutions in the territory, with Schools of Peace, in harmony with the guidelines for the implementation of civic education. It aims at creating opportunities for awareness and ideation arising from the students: data analysis and their interpretation as a central element for teaching citizenship and the Constitution, scientific research and care of the other, individual responsibility in collective choices, interconnections of knowledge and enhancement of communication skills.
Students will learn the meaning of scientific dissemination and the involvement of the territory through art: starting from the concepts and phenomena they have freely analyzed and deepened, they will create concrete and / or multimedia artifacts, which are an expression of their living the link among science, art and society.
Photograph of the 4N pupil Marzia Grasso of the State High School Calini who ranked 4th in the creativity championship of the PCTO project of Art & Science Across Italy with the photograph entitled atom modELIOlo and a score of 9.7 / 10. His shot represents the atom and in particular the helium atom, combining science and fashion. In the photograph she created a complete outfit consisting of dress, shoes and hairstyle. At the same time, these elements correspond to the components of the atom: the skirt emphasizes the orbit in which the electrons move, the shoes, the hairstyle represents the nucleus formed by protons and neutrons created through the colored ribbons.Continue reading →
