Lesson number one: reduction!

by Valentina Tibaldi

The bell is ringing, it’s time for waste reduction. In the Comprehensive School G.B. Monteggia in Laveno Mombello, the reflection on waste reduction includes concrete actions aiming to educate young people to have a more reasoned relationship with… their garbage!

Along with the EWWR (European Week for Waste Reduction) style, the underlying belief is that preventing an overproduction of waste is easier than we think: we just need common sense and the right amount of creativity. 

Which snack generates less waste? The school managed to create a well-structured educational project starting from daily experience and ordinary questions like this. First of all, the project is based on a competition, where students have to use their skills to find the best way of approaching the issue of waste reduction. In order to win an award made of papier-mâché and other recycled materials, they are going to become: skilled communicators thinking up effective claims and coordinate graphic for the message they want to deliver; wise strategists drawing up a list of useful actions to reduce waste production; practiced craftsman designing different containers in order to make a proper separate collection of rubbish; estrous artists finding innovative usages to potential garbage.

But this is not the end. In fact, if reducing our own waste is easy, finding new ways of reducing it can be even funny: from November, 19th to 23rd, severe guardians of trashcans will be controlling their classmates’ behaviors, while artistic and informative exhibitions about environment sustainability will be filling the halls of the school.
In these terms, the event crosses scholastic borders, aiming to become a permanent project, extended to pupils’ families. With a unique purpose: transmitting to adults that same consciousness young people learn and experience at school.

Manuela Trevisan, teacher and promoter of the project together with Alessandra Annoni and Paola Zarini, claims that: “this project makes students feel real protagonists and part of a bigger system. United we stand: if all of us take even a small step in the right direction, then we can do many great things”.

In this way, European Week for Waste Reduction becomes what it has always meant to be: a Month, a Year, a Lifestyle.

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Trade School Milan: to share knowledge without spending 1 cent!!

by Valeria Rocca

 “The School of Barter", as we define the Trade School Milan, is a school where the slogan is to share knowledge to make education accessible to all. The distinctive elements of this reality is the duplicity of the figure teacher / student, who now is teaching, tomorrow may be a student, and to the opposite, the timing, that is to say that classes are limited in time and the proposal of a different economic paradigm, that of barter on a small scale. You do not pay, but you exchange something: an object, an idea, an experience. Easy, isn’t it? The project was born in New York in 2010 and has spread in many world cities, including Milan. In 2011, three guys that have in common, besides enterprise, a job in the world of design, have created the first edition of the Italian Trade School. 
They are Danila Pelicans, product designer, Schimd Serena, interior designer and Alessandro Contini , interaction designer. After the first edition of the project, Elèna Beatriz, from Olavarria, joint the team. She is a student designer and a project manager. Following the success, in May, just concluded, there was the II edition of the Milan Trade School. 

The premises of a former tailor shop, guests of the agency ACCURAT / 3, was born a co-working space in which, for 3 weeks, have followed all kinds of lessons. Themes are varied: from writing, the Japanese sewing, electronic music, to continue with the vegan food, yoga and much more. In short, a babel of appointments. 

To know how it went, we contacted the founders of the Milan Trade School, where we asked some questions. 

">First, what were the news of this second edition? 
«During the first edition of the Milan Trade School, we have experienced almost by accident a few lessons off-site, directly in the studios of two artists. Students are entered in the laboratories, in private spaces (usually inaccessible) of teachers and this has meant that it would create a nice atmosphere, almost intimate, all much more relaxed and at ease. This thing really loved so much to us as participants, so this year we decided to revive the initiative for two Saturdays in special classes, hosted by prominent Milanese reality in various fields artistic / cultural directly into their spaces. The first Saturday we were guests of writing lessons with Rockit themed music, the Saturday after the boys Vectorealism taught us how to design an object and cut with a laser. ›› 

Are you happy with the achievements? 
«We are very happy with the results achieved in this second edition, we were prepared to the enthusiasm of students and teachers, who have already had swept past us, but we did not expect a participation as active and intense. The classes were filled in a few hours and word of mouth has meant that the number of people involved grew a lot.›› 

What's new for the future? When is a new initiative? 
«The second edition has just ended and we are already working to understand how the project can evolve. For the moment we do not want to reveal anything, we know for sure that we really want to, how and where you will find out soon.›› 

Are you interest? Then follow them on the site where, as we have promised, we will soon be news. And if you share the values of the Trade School and are interested to open and operate, voluntarily, a home in your town, visit the American Site, click on "Trade School everywhere" and you will find all useful information. The future goal is to open new offices around the world. Find the Milan Trade School on Facebook and Twitter. Keep in touch!

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School of reduction

by Silvia Musso

Again this year the schools have not been denied. For the third year, in fact, the percentage of participation of schools at EWWR has been very high.

As already shown by the action of the Pozzuoli School (Naples province), which in 2009 had won the European Award for schools category, the strengths that make effective the initiatives proposed by schools are the involvement of the community and the will to extend their duration at the whole school year. From all over Italy the enthusiasm and interest of students, teachers and headmasters on environmental issues of waste prevention widespread beyond the narrow boundaries of school walls to involve different actors: households, neighborhoods, people, shops.

Thanks to EWWR environmental education activities from few hours cut throughout the school year hve become true programming to be integrated to traditional programs.

This is what the three schools, among many others, demonstrated.

The “Istituto Comprensivo of Fiano” (Turin province, north Italy) with “Lo Zero Rifiuto!!! …. Buone pratiche sul territorio” (Zero waste!...Good pratctises on territory) conducted a brainstorming session on ways to reduce waste at school and organized a visit to a site that deals with the problems of waste and its reduction (composting site, company repair shop, second hand ...). It also began to network different local actors - municipalities, mountain communities, industries - for a project to be realized in the future and aimed at waste reduction, with the realization of a conference or a projection of films followed by discussion and an exhibition on the activities and achievements of students adressed to parents and inhabitants.

The “Istituto Comprensivo Galileo Chini – Scarperia” (Florence province, centre Italy) November 21st with "Rifiutili" (Useful waste) has sparked a number of initiatives that will continue throughout the school year. Students and teachers will dedicate to the creation of a laboratory of recycled paper, visit the store "Mercatopoli" that sells second hand items, to read passages about the restoration, reuse and recycle, reuse for the snack food not consumed during the lunch, etc. The parents of the students will also be involved in workshops as well as work of restoration of old objects in the school, to be sold during the year in the flea markets of the city centre, in the exchange of used textbooks, maintenance and renovation of school buildings and restoration and sale of used games.

The “Primo Circolo Solofra” (Avellino province, South Italy) instead made a real ecological week where the most important element was the involvment not only of students, engaged in "Operation Empty Garbage Bin", but also of their families. Parents had to agree to accompany their children to school on foot throughout the Week and to organize at home information meetings with relatives and friends to spread some good waste prevention practises to play in the week.

The schools have become a source of prevention messages addressed to the whole community through not extemporaneous actions, but integrated in educational activities, in continuity with previous years and with the cooperation of families and other local actors. The academic world has shown that the EWWR in these three years has succeeded in its main communication objective: to make the waste reduction a common practice, a lifestyle and not only a sporadically activity as teacher Anna Maria Dreoni of Scarperia claim: «The school has always had an eye for environmental education, adhering to initiatives and projects that, broadly speaking, had the intent to educate pupils to feel good in their environment. We think that in the first cycle is the fundamental task of the school teachers to educate children to the economical use of objects and their affairs and hence resources. EWWR offers us the opportunity to tell our children that we are in a broader horizon, which at the same time in which they reflect and carry of the laboratories, there are millions of children and young people across Europe who think the same problems and perform activities similar to theirs».

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