L’EDUCAZIONE ALLA SOSTENIBILITÀ AMBIENTALE. LA COSTRUZIONE DI HABITUS “GREEN” IN AMBITO SCOLASTICO

Today’s society is facing a major environmental crisis that not only aggravates the economic and social gap between the world’s populations, making it even more difficult to access resources such as water and food, but also affects the daily experience of most people. In addition to climate change, there are many environmental problems that our society is facing, to name a few: air pollution, noise pollution, soil pollution, water pollution etc. In the face of all these changes and this strong crisis, the concept of sustainability has spread as we have begun to think about the importance of our choices and the possibilities that we have to change the world. Faced with this crisis, it became clear that a balance must be struck between human development and the protection of the natural environment. Young people, much more than the older, feel the weight of the critical environmental situation. These changes take place around contemporary society, an extremely individualistic society, the "here and now" society. A society that must be re-educated. This determines the need to turn our gaze towards future generations, those who will have to become “green”, or must take over a model of life and development respectful of the environment and promoter of sustainability. To be clear, it is necessary to clarify that environmental sustainability refers to the ability to maintain reproducibility and quality of various natural resources. It is a complex and multidimensional concept, one that goes beyond the environment in its broadest sense but also includes economic and social dimensions. Due to this complexity, it is not easy to talk about these issues in school, but it is essential to bring every single nuance of this concept within the school so that tomorrow’s citizens can be trained with an articulated vision of the world around them to actively give life to a sustainable future. The environmental sustainability education that must be promoted in schools, in our specific case we will address primary school and first grade secondary school, must therefore include all these nuances. The following doctoral thesis addresses the problem of Environmental Sustainability Education in a curricular key. The aim of this thesis was to try to build a rigorous instrument supported by a valid scientific statute, that is a curriculum for Environmental Sustainability Education that was formally relevant, consistent with the curricula already existing in schools and applicable, or actually available at school. Once our second level cuirriculum had been built, it was then tested, through focus groups, questionnaires and classroom experiments, and the goal we set ourselves was, according to our survey sample, achieved. The future objective will be to extend this curriculum by focusing on the evaluation aspect.