Promoting and enhancing green spaces for children and young people in Italian schools, educating new generations to respect the environment: the WWF Aule Natura project is taking root throughout the country, supported since 2021 by Procter & Gamble – the company that markets brands such as Dash, Gillette, Oral-B, Pantene, Swiffer, ZzzQuil – as part of the corporate citizenship program “P&G for Italy”, with which the company is carrying out concrete environmental and social sustainability actions throughout the territory national. The aim of the partnership is to create, by 2024, over 60 Nature Classrooms in schools throughout Italy.
A project that allows schoolyards to be transformed into real open-air classrooms and which today has landed in Bari, at the Istituto Comprensivo Falcone e Borsellino – Plesso Petrignani, where the Nature Room created by WWF and donated was inaugurated from Procter & Gamble.
After the welcome from the Headmaster Prof. Fiorenza Uncino, the Environmental Educator Maria Panza, for the WWF Levante Adriatico, intervened to present the Nature Room project in the presence of the students and teachers of the IC Falcone Borsellino School. Also present were Paola Romano, Councilor for Education, Pietro Petruzzelli, Councilor for the Environment, Dr. Schingaro, President of Municipality 3 of the Municipality of Bari, Dr. Carella, Major Local Police, the Carabinieri of the San Paolo district, the John Paul II Foundation, the Children of Truffaut, the House of Cultures and the Alberotanza Institute.
The Nature Room of Bari is spread over an area of approximately 150 m2 in the shade of some large trees within the school garden, and includes a small pond surrounded by dry stone borders, shrubs and aromatic plants, which attract butterflies, an educational vegetable garden, a composter, feeders and nest boxes for birds. A photovoltaic pump that moves the water in the pond and the camera trap also enrich the classroom with innovative and sustainable technologies. The 200 young primary school students will thus have the opportunity to learn about, see and touch flowers, fruits and animals, to observe the changing of the seasons, to experience the concept of biodiversity and also to become custodians of all this.
In addition to being a green treasure chest in which to learn about nature and learn to respect the environment, the Nature Room will also represent a new place of social gathering in a neighborhood like that of San Paolo which suffers from a lack of cultural and aggregation centers, such as theaters , libraries, sports facilities, and which in recent years has gone through a profound transformation which has led to greater social isolation, especially of minors and people with disabilities. The Nature Room will therefore be not only an educational and didactic space, but also a tool for greater aggregation, and will contribute to further strengthening the school’s commitment to environmental issues: the Istituto Comprensivo Falcone e Borsellino has in fact created, in the past, various initiatives, such as the “Biodiversity on the Net” projects, dedicated to the themes of biodiversity, organic agriculture, 0 km products and green strategies, “For a respectable future” on respect for human rights and the environment, “Biology and ecosystem services” on sea issues for correct and sustainable management of resources, as well as projects against food waste.
«In 2021 we started a great partnership with WWF Italy, giving us the initial objective of contributing to the creation of 50 Nature Classrooms by 2024. An objective that this year we have decided to relaunch, allocating further resources to donate 60 Nature Classrooms to Italian schools and thus give thousands of children the opportunity to experience nature, learning to know and respect it – explained Riccardo Calvi, communications director of P&G Italia. For this reason we are really happy to donate a Nature Classroom to the young students of the Falcone e Borsellino Comprehensive Institute of Bari, continuing with this project which represents a fundamental piece of the “P&G” corporate citizenship program for Italy”, with which we are carrying out concrete actions for people and the environment throughout the national territory.”
«Nature represents the fundamental “school” for the young generations: as WWF we have always been committed to promoting knowledge of nature and the awareness of being part of a system of complex relationships, which links us to natural systems. In this integrated vision, education is crucial – Martina Alemanno, WWF Italy Education Manager. By favoring direct experience, entering into a relationship with Nature and complexity, you learn to take care of it and act to defend it. The Nature Classrooms, a project supported and promoted for years by Procter & Gamble Italia, offer precisely this educational contact with nature, redeveloping places in schools where young people can experience the complexity that belongs to the real world in which they live and exercise active citizenship” .
The AulaNatura project
Launched by the WWF in September 2020, after the first lockdown, the traditional school courtyard becomes a small oasis of nature, a real outdoor classroom. The Nature Room is a space with walls made of hedges, flowering borders, vegetable boxes, insect cages and a pond. A “green” surface of at least 80m2 which guarantees optimal distancing between the little students. It reproduces different microhabitats in which to directly observe not only the different forms of living beings, but also the relationship that connects them to each other and to us.
For the choice of the Nature Classrooms, the WWF followed, among others, criteria linked to schools particularly in need of recovering outdoor spaces, located in degraded or peripheral areas. The Nature Classrooms enjoy the patronage of the Cultural Association of Pediatricians (ACP).
Since the launch of the project, 48 Nature Classrooms have been built and inaugurated throughout Italy, for a total of approximately 9,000 m2 of redeveloped school gardens (previously abandoned or in degraded conditions) and almost 22,500 children involved.
The WWF – P&G Partnership
The collaboration between P&G Italia and WWF includes four strategic areas of intervention: education of the new generations, within which P&G will support the WWF in the creation of over 60 Nature Classrooms by 2024; support for environmental redevelopment projects, through which P&G together with the WWF will redevelop more than one million square meters of forests in Italy by supporting the ReNature project; education programs for a more conscious and responsible use of products at home; training of tomorrow’s managers through study courses created together with the European Institute for Sustainable Development.
