Developing intercultural consciousness in school children: interaction between schools and Museums

For the International Year of Planet Earth two temporary exhibitions were prepared in a local Museum of Natural History in the context of the Project “To understand how the Earth works: from local situations to global processes”. The exhibits (“To know in order to live with the volcano” and “Treasures and secrets of the coastal environment”) include panels, show windows and interactive devices that were introduced to the public through conferences, practical laboratories and seminars dedicated to in-service teachers. The material (samples, photographs and films) belongs to ample collections of the Museo Civico Craveri di Bra, NW Italy, concerning the natural environment of the Cape Verde Archipelago (Eastern Atlantic). Samples, pictures, maps, books were collected in the last decades during several projects of scientific cooperation with the Cape Verde Republic. The main purpose of the project was to document important sites of great value for they unicity or for their didactic evidence in different aspect of the Earth Sciences. Students were invited through interactive strategies to recognise events, processes, landforms at risk, hazards for the population, and to compare all this with homologous or analogous situations well known in Italy or generally in the Mediterranean area. Different didactic paths were prepared for students of different age, from nursery to high school. For all of them particular attention was paid to integrate cognitive activities with play activities, to stimulate both mental, sensorial and emotional aspects of the experience, to give value and attentive care to the individual participation of the visitors, to their personal way of interpreting the panels and the samples exposed, to propose solutions to the problems posed. It is well known, according to the literature in didactic research, that this strategy is highly effective in producing better attention, personal involvement, long lasting learning. It was appreciated by students and teachers, as demonstrated by the analysis of the evaluation tests and the satisfaction test given to the students.