The Edu-Geo Project

The EDU-GEO Project have this name as an acronym of Education and Geology. The project goal is link together High School with public Institutions and Boards involved in geological researches and operating on the Italian territory. The first-class testimonials are the University Departments and Institutes of Earth and Environmental Sciences among other qualified partners such other public subjects are welcome, as the Natural History Museums, Apat, CNR, Enea, and so on. The EDU-GEO Project has born some years ago from an idea of G.G. Zuffa (University of Bologna) and is sponsored by the FIST (Federazione Italiana Scienze della Terra). Project leader is C. Venturini and L. Cantelli (University of Bologna). The aim of this project is to organize a set of geological excursions covering the complete national area. When EDU-GEO Project will be set up each High-School teacher will can found a web site presenting a varied offer of excursions well distributed in the national area, with a varied choice of geological themes, frequently offering also the choice between one or two day excursion on the same theme. In the web site each excursion is well explained and the teacher can download scientific material to better understand scientific and logistic information The web site “www.edugeo.it” will be soon created at this intent, to maintain online the complete set of material concerning the excursions (educational texts, photos and drafts with captions, topographic maps with detailed routes and stops, suggestions for High School teachers, …). In the first time the web site will show only the six excursions used as paradigm to realize the complete set. Key point of the project is the excursion developed directly on the territory, which is interpreted and utilized as live geological laboratory. Geology, Geomorphology, Speleology, Mining, and so on, are the topics especially discussed by this group of excursions. The EDU-GEO Project is based on experience and on educational capability of people expert in the geological knowledge of the territory they investigate. Each excursion is conceived and organized in detail by one to several researchers coming from university, public institutions, boards and enterprises. The same researchers who plan the excursions must also guarantee their presence to guide the classes and their teachers on the territory, at least one time a year during the first two-three years to guarantee the maximum quality during excursion development. Each excursion must be suitable for the last-classes students of the High School and to their Teachers, mainly of Natural History. Of course the students best enjoy the excursions in case these are planned during or at the end of the course of Geology. At this purpose it is to remark the different types of High School in Italy provide the course of Geology (and -Astronomy) either for the first-year students (Professional and Technical Schools) or for the last-year students, that is mainly in the Scientific Lyceums. The Project EDU-GEO is mainly devoted to the latter (last-year student) as the only ones able to benefit the excursion contents in synergy with hard geologic basic knowledge (pre-requisiti) acquainted during the course of Geology. The result of this work are excursions which take into account the high level guide realized by specialists, the scientific content as much as the logistic instructions and advise. Each excursion will be equipped with scientific and detailed logistics information.