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.