In Emilia Romagna the first phase of the educational path to the discovery of soil and augmented reality has been concluded

Cesena (Italy), November 8, 2024 – Controvento, LOESS’ Italian partner, facilitated an educational path in the Emilia Romagna region, which involved two classes of the “Da Vinci” State Technical Institute for Surveyors in Cesena. The project, divided into three meetings, led the students to discover the soil and the subtle threads that bind it to our daily lives and introduced them to the language of augmented reality. The initiative is part of the LOESS project and aims to stimulate student involvement in the co-construction of an augmented reality application to be used for soil health education. It is a participative process involving secondary school and university students from fifteen European countries, a pedagogical experience in which participants are both recipients and creators of new educational tools. During the first meeting, the activity ‘The Soil Fresco’, developed by the French Ecological Transition Agency ADEME, enabled the students to draw a conceptual map of soil and created the basis for a subsequent reworking of their knowledge. During the second meeting, the concept of augmented reality and the role played by superimposing a narrative layer on the observed reality was introduced. Scientific books illustrated by evocative soil images helped to feed the students’ imaginations and visualise possible stories. The third meeting allowed the students, organised in small groups, to complete their storyboards and interactively connect the different narrative layers of their stories. This resulted in a great wealth of colourful narratives, which restores the students’ knowledge and creative ability. Now the baton passes to the computer science teachers of the ‘Da Vinci’ State Technical Institute for Surveyors who, using the Justinmind app provided by the partner coordinating the task, will support the students as they transform their paper storyboards into augmented reality application prototypes. The experience will end on 1 December, when all European student teams will send their prototypes to the Justinmind developer who will shape the final augmented reality tool, useful to raise European citizens’ awareness of the importance of soil health.