GeoDidaLab: a laboratory for environmental education and research within the Ivrea Morainic Amphitheatre (Turin, NW Italy)

Alessandra Magagna (a), Mauro Palomba (a), Adriana Bovio (b), Elena Ferrero (c,d), Franco Gianotti (a), Marco Giardino (a), Lino Judica (b), Luigi Perotti (a) & Marco Davide Tonon (a,d)
(a) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Valperga Caluso, 35, 10125, Torino, Italy. (b) GeoDidaLab, Via Lago San Michele, 13, 10015, Ivrea (TO), Italy. (c) CISAO, Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca e Cooperazione Tecnico Scientifica con l'Africa, Via Valperga Caluso, 35, 10125, Torino, Italy. (d) IRIS, Istituto interuniversitario per la Ricerca Interdisciplinare sulla Sostenibilità, Via Accademia Albertina, 13, 10123, Torino, Italy. Corresponding author e-mail: alessandra.magagna@unito.it

Research and practical activities concerning environmental education are the main goals of the GeoDidaLab, a laboratory founded in the ‘90s by a couple of school teachers, since 2012 led by the Earth Science Department of the Torino University (Italy). It is located at the core of the Ivrea Morainic Amphitheatre (IMA), whose glacial landforms and deposits constitute an extraordinary landscape and a geoheritage site of international value. Over the years, schools from more than 50 municipalities of the Piemonte and Valle d’Aosta Regions adhered to the activities proposed by the laboratory. Today, its educational offer includes more than 20 interdisciplinary workshops, suitable for students from kindergarten to university level. Particular attention is also devoted in training preand in-service teachers. Thanks to agreements with local communities and schools, new strategies for spreading Earth Science knowledge and environmental education are constantly developed and tested.

Earth Science, Laboratory, Ivrea Morainic Amphitheatre, Environmental Education, Training Teachers.