2018 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
XII Edition 2018
Environmental Interpretation Center - Living Laboratory of Bussaco
1) Who’s presenting the candidacy?
- The Environmental Interpretation Center, which is part of the Mealhada City Council, was established in October 7th 2015 and is managed in cooperation with the National Forest of Bussaco Foundation.
- The Alive Laboratory of Bussaco is implemented in two different locations: the Environmental Interpretation Center, located in the City Park of Mealhada, which has a green surface of 14 hectares and in the 105 hectares of the National Forest of Bussaco, a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage.
- The Environmental Interpretation Center, is equipped with high-end technology (ex: microscopes, augmented reality…), which enables the implementation of different pedagogical activities and is therefore considered a scientific laboratory.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6LpPSUjt5I
City Council website: http://www.cm-mealhada.pt/
FMB website: http://www.fmb.pt/v2/pt/
The Environmental Interpretation Center (EIC) is framed under the municipal strategy and has the mission to “sensitize citizens regarding environmental issues and promoting behavioral changes in the community in order to face sustainability challenges”.
Goals: to awaken the curiosity for knowledge, understanding, valorization and preservation of the natural environment of the Bussaco Forest and the species which inhabit it; to contribute to the development of an environmentally conscious and informed society; to expand the cooperation between students and teachers, building the bases for an ecologically healthy society; to democratize the community’s access to science and technology; and to create opportunities and spaces for public discussion and participation.
EIC activities are meant to be educational tools for citizenship, heritage, environment and non-formal science, all gathered in a living laboratory. These are identified based in a participatory methodology (bottom-up) where session participants, school community and associations are heard in order to adjust the activities to the main curricular topics. They are grouped the following way: campaigns of awareness; educational activities; workshops; trails to explore the City Park and the Forest; laboratory workshops; recycling workshops; commemoration of environmental ephemeris (for example, Earth Day); temporary expositions; and reusage competitions.
It’s considered a Living Lab despite the fact that it is not yet formally established. Its goal is to turn the community and the forest into an experimentation laboratory for ecological solutions and environmental preservation (for example, attracting auxiliaries for the plants through insect and bird nests).
The group methodology is assumed as reflective of life conditions, based in an adaptation of The Experiential Learning Cycle of the American psychologist David Kolb (1990), who starts from an individual and group experiment and goes on to reflect on it.
- The Mealhada City Council has the co-responsibility of preserving and valuing Bussaco, therefore creating the Interpretation Center to develop an educational tool towards environmental citizenship and cultural identity that is close to the population and aiming its active participation.
- Association/Partnership with the Foundation’s educational services - through the implementation of environmental workshops, such as “The Forest goes to School” and by invigorating family oriented experimental activities.
- Methodology: The experimental activities provide what David Kolb called “The Experiential Learning Cycle”. Through these, participants think about different practices and enhance their perception about what they can improve and preserve. It’s a process which fosters learning and behavioral changes of the participants of the Living Laboratory of Bussaco: it enables to link theory and practice; it promotes group integration; it develops self-awareness; it searches for creative team solutions; and it helps people experience feelings and sensations which a specific situation may create.
- Participatory Framing of the Activity Plan: To meet students’ and teachers’ interests, by adjusting and adapting the content of the programme; and through the municipal strategy to promote and value Bussaco.
- Education for Science: Promotion of the democratization and inclusion in the access to science and technology.
Web del Ayuntamiento: http://www.cm-mealhada.pt/
Web de la FMB: http://www.fmb.pt/v2/pt/
Site du conseil Municipal: http://www.cm-mealhada.pt/
Site de la Fondation nationale des forêts de Bussaco : http://www.fmb.pt/v2/pt/
This proposal has been accepted because:
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