Education on landscape for children

In the frame of the European Landscape Convention, the present Report aims to present requirements, objectives and methodologies concerning Education on Landscape, in its general aspects and in particular in the applications in primary and secondary schools, at European level. The first part of the Report contains the main reference points to insert Education on Landscape in the perspective of the European Landscape Convention, finding in the concept of the Convention itself the basis for the implementation of the specific educational targets. These targets are further developed as specific aspects of Education for Sustainable Development (particularly important in the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014) in a wider pedagogical perspective. Considering landscape as heritage, the spreading of a wider knowledge on landscapes and on landscape change processes, as well as improving landscape reading abilities, represents some of the necessary requirements in order to make people more aware about the value of the places in which they live, more open towards other places and other cultures and more responsible towards landscape management. In the second part of the Report more practical and operational aspects are developed. Nevertheless, in order to avoid confusion arising from the polysemic meanings of “landscape”, the definition of the term and its implications need to be first presented. A general grid for landscape reading is further proposed, not as a didactic tool in itself, but as the starting point to put into practice school activities, since it contains all the “ingredients” that Education on Landscape should have: landscape elements identification and description; non-material features of landscape (emotions, significances, symbols,…); natural and human factors that are “building” the landscape; landscape change from the past to the future. In the following, specific aspects of Education on Landscape are presented, both in a general and in a practical way: firstly the focus is on landscape in all its facets, then on the different roles of the people involved. Each methodological issue has its roots in a theoretical frame and in a pedagogical target, and at the same time is presented along with practical provisions. Examples of activities concerning Education on Landscape implemented in the European panorama are further offered.