Schools Activate Resources. Mending the dispersed heritage of the peripheries (ScAR)
Schools Activate Resources (ScAR) is an experimental and innovative action delivered within the fragile context of the urban peripheries. This participatory process involved schools, universities, cultural institutions, administrations, and private actors in interpreting and enhancing the “hidden” cultural heritage in Milan’s fringe neighborhoods.
Local
Italy
Milan
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies Type of organisation: University or another research institution First name of representative: Massimo Last name of representative: Bricocoli Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Head of the Department Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Bonardi 3 Town: Milan Postal code: 20133 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 335 823 8040 E-mail:ricerca.dastu@polimi.it Website:https://www.dastu.polimi.it/en/department/
The project ‘Schools Activate Resources. Mending the dispersed heritage of the peripheries (ScAR)’ is a multidisciplinary research, winner of the 2017 Polisocial Award funded by the social responsibility program of Politecnico di Milano (the largest technical Italian university). The project proposed an experimental and methodologically innovative action in the peripheries of south Milan. The core idea was to recognize peripheral schools as a driving force for the knowledge and sharing of local heritage, considered as a resource for landscape enhancement, social cohesion, inclusion and quality of life. Following the European Landscape Convention and Recommendation N5(98) of the Council of Europe, the project considers cultural heritage education as an approach rather than as a subject and assumes heritage and landscape in a broad sense, as a system of values in continuous evolution identified by populations.
From 2018 to 2021 a series of educational programs, co-designed between researchers, teachers and public, private and third-sector partners, accompanied students to discover the beauty and the cultural and social values embodied in the landscape of their daily lives. The young participants have shared new interpretations of the cultural landscape of the urban peripheries, developing knowledge and skills to become active citizens in the public debate about places, and to become bearers of a broader demand for public space and landscape quality. The main objectives were:
to increase students’ sense of belonging, participation, sense of citizenship, and responsibility for the commons;
to enhance the local landscape as a source of dialogue across generations and cultures;
to provide schools with tools for innovative teaching, inclusion, and technological updates;
to promote the desire to improve the aesthetics of their places and generate demand for high-quality public space;
to promote digital citizenship and responsible use of technology.
Cultural heritage and Landscape education
Urban Peripheries
Co-design Methodology
Participation
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
ScAR was attentive to focus activities and educational paths on sustainability topics, in its social, cultural, and environmental dimensions. Through innovative and inclusive educational programs, ScAR promoted:
• the care of public spaces and landscape as a collective resource;
• access to cultural heritage that means consciousness, knowledge, and creativity for kids in vulnerable situations and schools in fragile areas;
• appreciating little-known cultural expressions and multicultural environments;
• active citizenship, and fostering participation among young citizens as a fundamental principle of democracy;
• teachers and administrators empowerment, making them more aware of their political and social role in building equitable and sustainable cities;
• inclusivity, a culture of peace to contribute to sustainable development;
• education on sustainable tourism practices.
To reach such goals, ScAR co-designed with teachers, students, and partners several activities, for example:
• participatory design of new public spaces and plans for the regeneration of neglected ones;
• an open mapping platform called Digital Atlas of Memories to map the young citizens' perspectives on the local landscape and share their ideas for future configurations (shorturl.at/lVY89);
• learning tours to valorize the multicultural social and economic capital of the peripheries.
• co-creation of mobile tourist guides in English and Italian to attract visitors to places far from massive destinations in the urban peripheries (shorturl.at/egJU5).
• co-creation of two geo games apps, interactive treasure hunts to discover and promote their neighborhoods (shorturl.at/egpqS shorturl.at/twFGR);
For all these reasons, within the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, ScAR contributed to the following goals:
• Goal 4 "Quality Education";
• Goal 10 "Reduced Inequalities";
• Goal 11 "Sustainable Cities and Communities".
Improving the image of the peripheries by re-discovering their heritage and overcoming the idea urban peripheries lack aesthetic and cultural values were two of the main focuses. ScAR trained students to become key figures in knowledge and appreciation of the local cultural landscape and increase awareness of the importance of themselves and others as bearers of knowledge and points of view. The educational activities comprehended learning tours to discover the neighborhoods, conceptual participatory and individual mapping, interviews with locals, and visits to the iconic places around the schools. ScAR worked on individual and collective perceptions, pushing students to recognize their everyday landscape's aesthetic, social and cultural values, imagine new scenarios and share their visions with citizens.
The project built a broad network to co-design and perform bottom-up activities. It involved different local public, private and third-sector partners, and resulted in the development of urban regeneration proposals, such as:
- the design of playgrounds around one school (age 6-7);
- creative solutions to improve the social capacity of the neighborhoods like new paths to discover the area, gardens, fountains, illumination solutions, and equipped areas for leisure and landscape contemplation (age 12-13);
- the design of mural paintings on the boundary wall of a local power plant to regenerate its neglected spaces (ongoing realization funded by the local power company, the municipality, an energy company); the topic was a series of metamorphoses between artificial and natural, mineral and organic, city and landscape (age 11-14);
- the creation of visions and possible scenarios to rethink public spaces in the peripheries through collage and digital images inspired by street art (age 16-17);
- the creation of a video documentary that compares urban peripheries with poems from the Italian literature of the 19th century (age 16-19).
ScAR aimed at reinforcing the link between students and neighborhoods, including those of foreign origin and their families. Thanks to the activities students from different cultural and social backgrounds experienced a dialogue across generations and cultures. The activities aimed to build a sense of belonging and develop their sense of citizenship and responsibility, which are at the base of intending landscape and heritage as a collective resource for the communities well-being.
The educational path also was an innovative approach to mitigate the difficulties of public education in the area, where demotivation, isolation, and early school leaving are relevant issues. The opportunity to work in groups, within and across classes, organize activities in various ways and divide tasks drove the improvement of different skills, including students with no motivation, specific learning disorders, disabilities, or linguistic-cultural difficulties.
Inclusion and cultural exchange were the focus of specific actions, e.g.:
- a primary school class, composed mainly of first and second-generation immigrants (age 6-7), worked on traditional and new artisans of the neighborhood. They visited ateliers and interviewed artisans, including those natives of different countries who narrated their traditional products and crafted some with the students;
- a class for students with autism spectrum disorder (age 11-14) created digital storytelling of how they experience the spaces inside and around the school.
- a student with a mobility disability created a video telling his perception of the landscape while traveling on public transport.
Some activities were performed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering innovative approaches to support inclusivity. The team and a bachelor's degree student developed a digital experience that allows primary students to narrate their place of origin with interactive maps and immersive images.
The primary beneficiaries were students and teachers who were involved in all the steps of the project. They participated in activities design and achievement, impact evaluation, dissemination, and elaboration of methodologies. The research team supported teachers in their role as creators and facilitators of innovative educational programs, providing training courses, tools, replicable formats, and experimental approaches. Students were the protagonists in the activities and the dissemination events, making presentations and creating digital communication tools. Teachers reported several benefits for students, especially in proactivity and improvements in organisational, design, and digital skills. They also recognised transversal improvements in inclusion, civic skills, and better relationships with places and institutions.
Further beneficiaries were families, local communities, and public and cultural entities. Parents, associations, artisans, shopkeepers, and individuals were involved in interviews, workshops, and dissemination events in collaboration with students. This participation built a bridge between school and local society, learning the perspectives of new generations on the everyday landscape, and strengthening the relationships among cultures and generations.
Several examples of products for a wider audience are:
- The development of two interactive tourist mobile guides to discover the heritage of the neighbourhood (age 16-18);
- The creation of two mobile geogames, interactive treasure hunts to discover and promote their neighbourhoods;
- The development in collaboration with the local ecomuseum of the open mapping platform Digital Atlas of Memories, an interactive map where students could upload texts and media to narrate their perspectives on the local landscape. The digital tool is today available for all the schools in the southern peripheries of Milan that want to participate.
ScAR was developed with numerous partners who, with different functions, responsibilities, and timeframes, played a fundamental role in defining methodologies and tools.
The project leader was Politecnico di Milano involving 3 departments with different disciplinary approaches: Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering and Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering. Role: process design, activities co-design, management, dissemination at national and international levels.
At the heart of the ScAR project were 5 public schools from primary to upper secondary school level: primary and lower secondary schools Arcadia, Filzi, and Palmieri; upper secondary schools Kandinsky (professional institute for graphics and communication) and Varalli (technical institute for tourism and language-oriented high school). Role: activities co-designing and leading.
Other partners and roles were:
- Milan Municipality (education department) and local town municipality (Municipio 4 and 5). Co-design, connections with municipal education policies (open schools project), and local dissemination.
- The school administration at the regional and local level (Ufficio Territoriale di Milano, Ufficio Scolastico Regionale-Lombardia). Consulting and co-design in the start-up phase.
- Cultural entities, museums, foundations and local associations: Fondazione Prada, Ecomuseo Milano Sud (MUMI), Puppets theatre Carlo Colla e Figli, SIR Consortium, Bei Navigli association. Consulting, activities co-designing and co-leading, facilitation, digital tools for participatory mapping co-creation, recruiting schools, and providing knowledge on local heritage.
- Other universities: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Engenharia of Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso for the methodology analysis and replication in a new context (follow-up in Brazil).
Within the research group, different disciplinary approaches were compared. The processes took place within an educational context that required the deployment of innovative teaching strategies. Moreover, if cultural heritage was the catalyst, and protection and enhancement were the key competencies, their role must be seen as part of a more general reflection on cities, communities, and place-making. The processes of knowledge of the cultural landscape and the opportunity to develop an effective communication of its values were based on bottom-up survey systems and on advanced communication methods and techniques. This framework of interconnected requirements explains the different disciplinary skills of the academic team: Pedagogy, Cultural Heritage, Representation, Design, Urban Planning, and Anthropology.
Teachers brought their skills and experiences in the subjects (Italian and Foreign Languages, History, Geography, Art and Art history, and Informatics are just a few of the disciplines involved). However, working in groups built didactical experiences beyond traditional disciplines; learning became complex and transdisciplinary. In the methodology co-designing with academics and external partners, teachers also imported other core competencies: educational skills, knowledge of the target audience (age of the students, social composition of the classes, special educational needs), operational planning skills, and conducting activities.
The contribution of expertise of the different partners was:
• school offices and headmasters provided knowledge of the needs of schools;
• local ecomuseum provided expertise in participation, digital participation, and new museology;
• Fondazione Prada provided expertise in communication and didactics of contemporary art;
• Puppet theatre Colla provided knowledge of tangible and intangible heritage, craft skills;
• local associations provided knowledge of the territory and local history.
The ‘ScAR model’ is innovative according to several aspects as it:
• combines landscape education, heritage education, and sustainability education, providing a replicable and scalable model based on using advanced technologies, co-design, and co-creation between schools, universities, institutions and private entities;
• applies heritage education to the landscape of everyday life in order to build a sense of belonging to neighbourhoods, activate bottom-up urban regeneration processes, and educate to participation and active citizenship;
• promotes 'landscape culture', which means considering everyday landscape relevant for the communities well-being and the responsibility of inhabitants in managing and bolstering its quality and aesthetics, especially in vulnerable areas;
• creates synergies and connects schools and universities, then it acts on different educational levels, proposing examples and good practices for a wide range of ages and educational contexts;
• empowers students as bearers of knowledge and desires concerning places and improves the design capacity of teachers by involving them in all phases of the process;
• prioritizes places and people most in need, working with suburban public schools where the social and economic hardships of families are highest and multicultural education is a major challenge;
• fully grasps the meaning of heritage education as an approach and not as a subject, involving numerous disciplines and fields of knowledge in the construction of the educational process;
• builds an effective link between school, community, and landscape, taking educational activities out of school environments and transforming neighborhoods into new learning environments;
• promotes the use of ICTs in schools, developing digital tools with (and not for) students who were the protagonists of the creation of the products in every step, from the design, content production, development, testing, and dissemination.
ScAR suggested a scalable and replicable model for teachers and facilitators and results were disseminated on the project website, in publications (shorturl.at/jsKWY), and in several international conferences in a variety of disciplinary contexts ranging from education, cultural heritage, geomatics, and sustainable tourism. The digital products co-created with the students are free and available for a real audience. In addition, most of the products are free and developed with open-source tools, which allows teachers to replicate the model and the experiences adapting to their contexts.
The schools involved in the project showed that they embraced the push for an approach to heritage and landscape education that is experimental, innovative, technologically up-to-date, and open to external inputs. Teachers worked together with experts to overcome the difficulties involved in reconciling their traditional organizational structure and consolidated operating methods with the demands of an approach that is strongly oriented towards design, transdisciplinarity, and learning about the local area in the field.
Universities, public administrations, museums and other education agencies can reproduce the ScAR modus operandi, the co-design methodology, the approaches, and the activities. ScAR attracted external resources and interested other scholars and institutions. For example, two delegates from a Brazilian university came to Milan to learn from the project and experiment with it in their country. A school from the province of Cremona applied the methodology to a local toponym mapping project, and the ongoing Erasmus+ project (KA220-SCH - Cooperation partnerships in school education) “EduLANDS for transitions: Exploring collaborative learning tools to connect school and landscape” took ScAR as a best practice replicating the processes and activities, like co-design, conceptual and sensorial mapping, public space analysis and involving local communities.
ScAR considered heritage education a holistic process with an interdisciplinary nature based on active and participative methodologies. Heritage education was performed in formal and informal settings, in which heritage is an objective and an educational tool.
The complex configuration of classes in terms of demographic, social, and territorial aspects required fine-tuning the interventions and designing differentiated activities. The process had a vital participatory component. The four main operational steps (design, consultation, field-work, and dissemination) were divided into a series of back-and-forth micro-processes between design, action, consultation and re-design. The activities were carried out in the form of workshops, initially involving experts, educators, and teachers, then the students and later local social and cultural actors, to continuously enrich and refine the project actions. The effort allows the project to co-design the actions and to test methodologies in different contexts.
Concerning teaching paradigms, the project is based on several methodological assumptions: project-based learning, peer education, authentic learning, multiculturalism, and inclusion. The process was based on the planning capacity of all parties at all scales, from partners to teachers to young learners, committed to pursuing objectives collaboratively and efficiently. Due to its bottom-up structure of knowledge construction and methodological development, the project aimed at valuing everyone’s contribution and encouraging the exchange of knowledge, the synergy of skills, and sharing results. Working in groups, within and across classes, and dividing up tasks enhanced different abilities which were set in specific contexts that put the school in contact with the outside world, with families, administrative and cultural institutions, and the community, leading to the creation of products that could be used by the public, in the spirit of authentic learning.
The scale and speed of global urbanization have no precedent in human history. Urban peripheries are areas where degradation, inequalities, and social segregation are increasingly concentrated, and schools in vulnerable areas are where multiculturalism, education for inclusion, and building a sense of belonging are strategic tasks. Besides protection and transmission to future generations of cultural and natural heritage are a shared challenge and duty to guarantee the local and global communities' well-being (World Heritage Convention). Additionally, the right to benefit from cultural heritage and to participate in its identification, study, interpretation, and presentation are crucial to take one of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the free participation in cultural life (Faro Convention).
The COVID-19 Pandemic highlighted that education and schools are crucial to face one of the most significant challenges of urban peripheries: the growth of spatial inequalities in its social, economic, and cultural dimensions.
The ‘ScAR model’, based on some incredibly dynamic interactions between the schools and the local society, recognized the richness of the landscape of peripheries and their potential for sustainable tourism (shorturl.at/lpDYZ) and offered tools and methodologies suitable for various contexts. Additionally, the project revealed the most vulnerable areas of a contemporary city as complex landscapes with relevant cultural, social, and aesthetic values.
The combination of experimental teaching, the use of innovative technologies, and co-design offers to deal with the marginalization and stigmatization processes that weigh on fragile peripheral areas of the cities already suffering deterioration. Recognizing the value and beauty of our daily life place is – especially for kids – an opportunity to learn, aspire and concretely think about how to improve their surroundings, inside and outside the school borders.
ScAR gathered 22 classes from the 5 partner schools, which should be added 27 classes from other cities (participating in a digital storytelling contest promoted by ScAR) distributed in 7 Italian regions, reaching over 750 students and more than 50 teachers on three levels from primary to upper secondary school. In addition, more than 400 university students were involved in specific design studios and internships. ScAR also offered 3 training courses addressed to teachers that gathered about 100 participants and a MOOC.
School teachers designed 37 different didactical paths, carrying out at least 20 different kinds of activities, of which about half involved the use of communication technologies applications (2 mobile tourist guides, 2 geogame applications, 1 Digital Atlas of Memories, and 1 virtual reality tour of the neighborhood) were co-created with teachers and students and are today available for free. Furthermore, students created 25 new collections for the digital museum of the Ecomuseo Milano Sud and over 30 between digital storytelling and map storytelling.
The research had 5 spin-off projects with different partners in Italy and abroad. The dissemination of the project and methodologies counts 8 local public events, 8 international conferences, 11 scientific publications, and 1 open-access ebook in English.
Teachers reported benefits on their students in terms of inclusion, digital skills, sense of belonging, connection to the local community, critical thinking, and organization skills(attached e-book pp. 183-205).
The project's target audience is not only the students directly involved. A fundamental role is played by the teachers, those who participated, and those potentially interested in further developments and the replication of methodologies. Thanks to the collaboration with other projects that have expanded the range of action, some of the proposed activities have been tested in dozens of other schools in Italy and abroad since 2019.
The civic and democratic participation of kids is a crucial aspect of dealing with complex challenges across all sustainability dimensions: environmental, cultural, political, and social. The ScAR project strengthened the idea that learning and being aware of the local cultural heritage are fundamental for future sustainable scenarios.
Scar provides teachers with a model of good practices and tools based on multidisciplinary co-design that shows how:
• different disciplines can contribute to cultural heritage education and education for sustainable development based on hands-on, engaging, and action-based learning, critical thinking, boosting practical skills, and driving creativity;
• to involve students in understanding the inter-connectedness of cultural, social, and natural systems and help them to be aware of individual and collective actions;
• to foster democratic (digital) participation among kids;
• to mobilize local communities through schools and local actors to promote learning for sustainability in urban (degraded) areas where people easily lose connection with nature.
• to promote the preservation and restoration of the urban environment as a common task for the whole community;
• to make young citizens and local institutions aware that transformation should bring the quality of experience and benefits for communities, also considering local traditions and heritage;
• to foster a sense of belonging and celebrating diversity
• to make propositions for sustainable tourism https://img-journal.unibo.it/article/view/13745
Moreover, ScAR provided digital tools co-designed and co-created with teachers and students that can inspire similar activities.
