Present in Ticino's report cards since the 1980s, the Environment Study was born with an ambitious goal: to help children explore and understand the world around them, interweaving time, space and phenomena. Today, faced with an increasingly complex reality, its role is renewed with new tools and approaches, capable of making pupils active protagonists of knowledge.
Recently, the Dipartimento dell’educazione, della cultura e dello sport (DECS), in the process of refining the Piano di studio della scuola dell’obbligo ticinese, has provided for a renewal and updating that, to varying degrees, is involving all teachers of the first two cycles of compulsory school teaching. The idea is that we are confronted with a transdisciplinary approach to the investigation of reality. In short, it is no longer enough to explain the life cycle of the frog or the history of one's municipality as separate topics, but to approach a subject as part of a complex system in which nature, society and history are intertwined. This is a direction that aligns with the findings of recent research: situations involving the reality surrounding classrooms turn out to be more effective and meaningful than those involving hypothetical scenarios perceived to be too far removed from one's everyday life.
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Foto di Sara Calabresi