A report by the Italian Project Team

REPORT ABOUT THE COMENIUS PROJECT

For the Comenius project we spent some hours to think on the waste of sources in the world and the theory of the “limited growth”. The first day we divided our class into four groups, each of them had to report on a topic which dealt with the project. The following lesson a member of each group had to tell the class what they had worked on before.

The first group especially focused its attention on the differences between an American citizen and an African one. On one hand the average American needs about 9.6 hectares of land for maintaining his lifestyle. On the other hand the average African needs only 0.2 hectares of land to survive: this is a huge difference, considering the fact that every single inhabitant of the Earth should waste just 1.8 hectares.

The second group has worked on the social problems of the exploitation from the developed countries to the third world.

The purpose of the third group was finding a better way to reduce the waste of sources.

The last group has tried to figure out how to divide equally the sources in the world.

Moreover, we have read and commented a text, which explained that the main technological industries usually put into the devices a software programme which after two or three years makes the device totally unuseful. Unfortunately, when it’s broken, nobody can fix it. Let’s make an easy example: sometimes smartphones stop working without a reason and you can’t repair them. That’s because of this factor, which forces the consumer to replace the tool with another new one, making the economy increase.

In another lesson the class, always divided into groups, has tried to define the limited growth considering pros and cons from an economical point of view. Finally we have also drawn up a list of the little things that everyone can do for helping the environment and dwindling the pollution.

In a few days we will share our ideas with the other classes involved in this project. Some of us will explain this issue to other students by showing them a presentation of what we have done up to now.

Finally, we are going to produce a “role play” to explain the players the feeling of using too much or not enough sources and think about a solution to distribute equally the wealth in our planet.

The most of us find this project useful, involving and educational because we have worked on some topics we didn’t know about. Now we have improved our knowledge about the differences between the north and the south of the world and  we can also do something to really help our environment. Someone else in the class finds it repetitive and not really interesting even because fulfilling our purposes  could be difficult.