The project “Making informed choices – orientation and reorientation” carried out by the “Lombardo Radice – Pappalardo” Comprehensive Institute of Castelvetrano (TP) has just ended. Over 100 students from the first grades of middle school and their parents were engaged in heritage pedagogy activities and in the enhancement of the protohistoric site of Marcita in Castelvetrano.
Guided by a team of archaeological experts and tour guides of the Phoenicians’ Route – Cultural Route of the Council of Europe, they attended meetings to learn more about Prehistory and the sites of the area. Characteristics, lifestyles, info on prehistoric man, and woman were narrated to the children who interacted with experts, parents, and teachers. Finally, on Saturday, February 4th, a game was proposed to discover the site of Marcita, in the State Forestry area: a cultural deposit of international value, largely unknown to the participants. The students, divided into teams, went on a treasure hunt with orienteering, clues, and pieces of a puzzle to solve, always guided by the experts who also asked questions about the individual tombs and about what was found.
The Phoenicians’ Route – Cultural Route of the Council of Europe – in 2005 adopted the methodology of Heritage Pedagogy, which, through communicative interpretation, gives participants and especially students a direct approach to heritage as an attractor of interest. It facilitates the collection of messages coming from the heritage and that future citizens can learn to interpret and make their own.
On this occasion, copies of the publication produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) for the Italian Presidency of the Council of Europe were also distributed to the students. Through the voice of Geronimo Stilton, it allows the students to discover the functioning, tasks and founding values of the Council of Europe, a guiding institution on the theme of European education and culture, also through Cultural Routes.
The Phoenicians’ Route has thus launched its own activities to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Route (2003-2023), one of the oldest (sixth in chronological order) Cultural Routes recognized by the Council of Europe. More than 180 organizations adhere to it (over half of them are local public institutions) representing 16 Euro-Mediterranean countries from 3 continents, and its headquarters are in Castelvetrano. Further activities are planned in the historic centre and in the Archaeological Park of Selinunte, Cave di Cusa and Pantelleria.
