Arezzo, 7 June 2024 – The journey of “Go Where the Bus Takes You” has now come to an end: the regional educational project promoted by Autolinee Toscane saw the participation of 76 classes, among these there are the V of the Consolatrice primary school and the VA of the “Leonardo Bruni” primary school of Arezzo.
The project involved the creation of an educational path lasting 6 hours per class, aimed at encouraging the use of public transport by young people, providing the basic tools to move around the city independently and with awareness, developing a sense of belonging to its territory, promoting the image of the bus, not only as a means of transport, but also as a means of meeting and socialising, highlighting the concept of “public good” for the community. There were a total of three meetings that each class attended with the support of qualified teaching operators.
The 5A class of the Consolatrice primary school was among the first classes to work on the project and – after the urban service of the city and the organization of the company were presented to the students in the classroom, underlining the importance of respecting the rules and advantages of using public transport which also guarantee safety and respect for the environment – the students and teachers, accompanied by the teaching operator, had the opportunity to put the rules learned into practice, discovering the places of interest which thanks it is possible to meet the urban lines by getting on a bus.
In fact, the students got on a bus on line E, from Porta Trento and Trieste to Guido Monaco, starting from the square, with the operator Arianna who acted as “Cicerone”; they visited some monuments and places in Arezzo: Piazza San Francesco, the Duomo, the Prato, Piazza Grande, Corso Italia, Piazza Sant’Agostino.
In the third meeting the children worked on producing illustrations, accompanied by short descriptions, of the places they had the opportunity to photograph during the bus tour.
This is what teacher Francesca Mattesini said: “Extremely interesting project, the children were very enthusiastic; making them more autonomous and independent in using the city bus as a means of transport made them “feel grown up”.
By taking the bus, the children also learned to be more conscientious in preferring this means of transport to the car: they understood that public transport is more ecological. For them (and for me too) they were truly very interesting meetings. An experience definitely worth repeating.”
The material produced by the students will then be used to create paper maps of Arezzo’s urban services: drawings and texts developed by the children will, in fact, be used to decorate the back of the maps that will be distributed in the city.
