Nature-Culture, Link Educational Design, Integrated Learning Process, Landscapes

Abstract

Framed within the ideal horizon of an integrated research system, the research project FIR “Nature-Culture. Educational Design, Integrated Learning Process, Landscapes” aims at giving value to the many, variously articulated, educational, didactic, re-educational, socially inclusive experiences brought about on the Sicilian territory through land cultivation and farming practices, promoting a network of various organizations involved in teaching, education, rehabilitative therapy, urban regeneration. Looking mainly (but not exclusively) at the school context (and other “intentionally” educational contexts, such as penitentiary institutions or rehabilitation centers), the land becomes the place of educational care, the ground for a contact between nature and nurture, the space of a possible dialogue between different cultures, a privileged experience of intercultural education. The vegetable garden, and more extensively the “garden”, represents the ideal place for a series of exchanges between the subject and nature, the environment and the community, offering a great metaphor for the respectful and balanced cooperation which characterizes the relationship between mankind and other existances.