Good morning Nicola, Arslan, Benedetta, Luca, Lorenzo, Tommaso, Fabio, Diego, Diego, Davide, Tommaso, Jamil, Diego, Giulia, Christian, Badr, Irene, Nicola, Filippo, Kevin, Matteo, Nicola, Alessio, Luigi, Chiara, Gioele,  
 
I do hope you enjoyed the visit to the Botanical Garden in Livorno last Thursday, and you found it useful to broaden our horizons about the conservation of biodiversity. I wrote several questions for you to reply. 

Take your time and think of this course as an opportunity to find out as much as you want to know about the subject.

There will be several activities, all of them guided by experts who love what they do and are willing to share their knowledge with us. The only way to contribute to the protction of the environment is to act both individually and as groups to educate young people to respect the complexity and beauty we are in, that is yours for the time ahead of you and you will leave to the others to come. 

Start answering, we will continue together accompanied by the photographs taken at the botanical garden. 

Enjoy your English,  Anna 

Teacher and Coordinator 

ISTITUTO TECNICO INDUSTRIALE STATALE “G. GALILEI” Livorno

Attività POC 33956 “Apprendimento e Socialità” - ENGLISH for Life - Mod.1 

English Labs

Environmental Education - Conservation of Biodiversity 

In collaboration with

Museo di Storia Naturale del Mediterraneo, Livorno – Centro Interuniversitario di Biologia Marina ed Ecologia Applicata, Livorno - Centro Recupero e Riabilitazione Tartarughe Marine Acquario di Livorno, WWF Livorno, CRUMA Livorno   

Worksheet N° 2

Questions to reply after visiting the Botanical Garden at the Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean in Livorno

1. What is the role played by the Botanical Garden and the Seed Bank in Livorno referring to the natural environment?
2. What do they do in order to preserve biodiversity?
3. Referring to animals and plants, what is an endangered species?
4. What does the phenomenon of plant blindness consist of?
5. Why is it defined this way?
6. What is the natural environment in which we live called? Why?
7. How do they preserve biodiversity at the Natural History Musesum of the Mediterranean in Livorno?
8. What is the reason why species are endangered?
9. What is the Mediterranean scrub?
10. How do plants adapt to the environment?
11. Do you remember the name of an invasive and quite common tree in our area?
12. Do you remember the origin of the olive tree?
13. What is the meaning of endemic referring to plants?
14. Why is it important to know the scientific names of the plants?
15. What language do scientific names come from?
16. Do you know any common expression coming from Latin?
17. Do you remember where the volcanic rocks of the Botanical Garden come from?
18. How many steps are there to recreate the natural environment for plants to grow?
19. Do you remember why trees are grown on terraces?
20. Why do the Mediterranean trees have developed the cork as a layer of wood?
21. What is the function played by the Mediterranean scrub in the climate change?
22. What happens due to it diffderently from what happens in the cities?
23. What is a wetland?
24. What do you remember of the artificial pond at the botanical garden?
25. What is a hotspot referring to biodiversity?
26. What does the presence of the liana Periploca Graeca in Tuscany signify?
27. What happens when you import in an environment invasive species, either animals or plants?
28. What is the Etnobotanical Garden at the Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean and why is it called so?
29. What is the plant at the Etnobotanical Garden coming from China that nowadays is very common in Italy too?
30. Why is it called so?
31. Why do plants have essential oils?
32. Where is the mustic tree/lentisco from?
33. What used to be made with the mustic from its trunk?
34. Do you remember the Latin name of the strawberry tree?
35. Why such a name?
36. What is the Hortus at the botanical garden?
37. What are the fundamental steps to process the seeds for preserving biodiversity at the Museum Seed Bank in Livorno?
38. Is the process similar to that of all the other seed banks in the world?
39. Do you remember what the procedure to establish the right humidity to be kept with seeds and put them into dormiency is?
40. How are the seeds made apt to germinate?
41. Do you remember the procedure?
42. What happened with the Fiordaliso di Capraia at the Museum Seed Bank?
43. What is the information gathered about germination useful for?

Good morning, afternoon, evening 

Nicola, Denise, Giulia, Alberto, Samuele, Luca, Lorenzo, Elisa, Giorgio, Luca, Tommaso, Francesco, Federico, Manuel, Federico, Andrea, Matteo, Giacomo, Fabrizio and Diego , 

so much of an experience this entire course, wasn't it?

Once more at the Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean where we started designing our path that became rich of encounters, with Dr. Aisyah Faruk at the end, of the Millennium Seed Bank, in Kew, Sussex, to consolidate with her what we learned and practiced class by class.  

Biodiversity, how important it is to preserve it in order to guarantee a future to next generations. 

Thanks to the deep motivation perceived by everybody to pursue personal and professional objectives by Dr. Faruk, students participated willingly asking questions about the Seed Bank of Kew Sussex and biodiversity.

Conservation of biodiversity there is pursued depending so much on scientific data but also very strong individual beliefs.  A driving force to become pro-active all the time a problem can become an opportunity for a change, for everybody's benefit.

There would be no possibility to be operative as a complex community working the world over with no personal competence, determination and decision taken every single day by people who in the same way give quality to their profession and their lives in everyone's interest for the future. 

Thank you Dr. Aisyah Faruk, thank you students for partecipating enriching everybody's and its results. 

Anna - Coordinator  

Good morning, afternoon, evening 

Nicola, Denise, Giulia, Alberto, Samuele, Luca, Lorenzo, Elisa, Giorgio, Luca, Tommaso, Francesco, Federico, Manuel, Federico, Andrea, Matteo, Giacomo, Fabrizio and Diego , 

following our path to learn about the protection and conservation of seeds and plants, we visited the Botanical Garden/Museum of the University of Pisa. A magnificent garden surrounded by walls in the city centre, where you wouldn't expect to find trees whose trunk needs several people to be embraced. 

You have also here the worksheet uploaded on Google Classroom, questions to reply to after the visit to the Botanicl Garden/Museum in Pisa. 

The oldest one in the world, founded in 1543 near the river Arno, then moved in 1563 near the Court House  and again to the place where we can see it today in 1591. 

A century, the 16th, when botanists had a multidisciplinary approach to science and felt committed to find cures for the human mankind, whose active ingredients where, and still are, in plants. 

Centennial trees, waiting there for visitors to come living their solitude as a proof of tenacity and resilience to be mirrored by humans, coping with the menace to today's environment. Offering life, shelter, knowledge and solemnity, to make us comprehend what living beings they are, brothers to us all, the way we should feel.  

Greenhouses with different environments and climates, an invitation to see how the world has diversified to welcome and spread life, a "scientific miracle" that wants to continue today too if only we accept to be part of it, equal to any other. 

Amiable yet rigorous museum didactic operators of educational services capable of making their expertise flow from them to the students while interacting with them, so to keep all of us engaged and focused on listening and marvelling about nature, our common origin whose laws we all should re-establish starting on a day by day basis.

I remember a journalist, a unique one, Tiziano Terzani, who used to put eyes on the trunks of trees to make his grandchildren understand what marvellous, intelligent living beings they are, capable of communication if only we want to listen to them. There is so much to learn due to this communication, starting from the roots and expanding our canopy to be nourished by light, water and air. The more we go deep with our roots, the more we are stable, we can resist to storms and offer long branches, our arms, to protect the others together with ourselves. 

Time to start or to continue, up to you. 

I think I'll put eyes on the trees in the wood next to where I live, this charming Tuscan countryside, as soon as the renovation works inside the house and in the land will be finished. A park for encountering nature is being designed. Not only for children, but for all those who want to understand how precious this brotherhood with nature and its plants can be. 

Keep posted, I'll let you know. 

Anna - Coordinator 

The “Open Education for Young Europeans through History, Art and Cultural Learning” project (Open EYE) focuses on creating an open learning methodology based on History, Arts and Cultural Learning, as well as the necessary implementation tools, that will enable teachers of primary education in Europe (formal and non-formal) to support their students in language learning and integration in their school and community.

Livorno, our city, in Tuscany, Italy, hosts the final international conference at the Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean on September 28 - 29/2022. 

Partners of the project

Our association, Eurocontact Plus APS, contributes to the final international conference  with a speech on Multilingualism and Lessons of Vitality, how any child either refugee or immigrant and their mother tongue, can enrich our communities offering opportunities to rewire our designing of methodologies, methods, techniques, approaches to learning and teaching learning.    

Anna . Coordinator 

Good morning, afternoon, evening, 

this is an invitation to visit the site of the FestivalFilosofia, so rich in keynotes lectures like this one we chose delivered by Prof. Sini, for he spoke about language. mentioning Hegel, " knowledge makes us lose life, but with no words there is no life". Language is a direct connection with forms of life. Wittgenstein, "It is the context that brings the words to life". We too are forms of life like words, fundamental for the community, we experience figures of truth, conneted to how we are.

Let's continue thinking, that's what philosophy is for, and that's why we love it. 

Anna - Coordinator 

Good morning, afternoon, evening

Nicola, Denise, Giulia, Alberto, Samuele, Luca, Lorenzo, Elisa, Giorgio, Luca, Tommaso, Francesco, Federico, Manuel, Federico, Andrea, Matteo, Giacomo, Fabrizio and Diego , 

this is a page for you to work on. 

First, form groups of three and among the so many pictures you have on this page,  choose a minimum of three to tell your mates and the guests we’ll have very soon what happened with this English for Life.

You have papers onto the easels in the park to write on your names, a name for the group and both the answers to the questions and your narration linking the protographs chosen. Before speaking, you’ll have appointed a student per group as the speaker.

The students of the other groups will have to ask a minimum of one question each one to the mates of the speaker, who will be able to help.  

You will be recorded as a podcast will be edited with all the material of these laboratories, to be broadcasted by Radio Uni Pop, partner of Media Literacy Network.

Those who want to partecipate in this and other podcasts and want to offer their help, will be very, very welcome.

You have worksheets with precise instructions to follow in order to partecipate in the competition "English for Life", that will be rewarded with prizes. 

Start with worksheet n° 1, questions to answer, then go to worksheet n° 2, paragraphs to put in the right order, and after doing this latter, compare the result with the original text, worksheet n° 3. Then there is worksheet n° 4, with missing words, to consolidate what done before. If you need to consult the points of reference given at the very beginnning of our course, go to worksheet n° 0.

In order to describe photos, you might find useful these expressions:

at the top, in the background, in the distance, in the middle, in the foreground next to me, in the bottom right-hand corner, in the top left-hand corner, on the right, on the left. 

But more than that, enjoy your English and be creative with your group (and the others)!

Anna - Coordinator  Source: our own photos - I will upload your written productions, while you can diretly do it with your comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody,

it's three tales, written after listening to stories about experiencing the pandemic. Very soon they will be podcasts, with Radio Uni Pop, one of the partners of Media Literacy Network. 

 When wondering about a title to give to the three tales together, I thought of this marvelous novel, by Amos Oz, because it is love that made the protagonists of the three tales join life again after experiencing death. The same for Amoz Oz, the child in the photograph.  

I had the chance to listen to three doctors, each one chief of different departments at the first European hospital completely devoted to Covid 19 patients, in Castel San Giovanni, Piacenza Italy. I wrote about the day when one of them had the intuition of using heparine at high dosage to treat the pulmonary inflammation because of covid and it was the beginning of a new perspective for so many patients who, thanks to these courageous doctors, could have their life saved. Determined professionals, they understood that acting looking for solutions was the only hope when they had none left. Love for their profession and for all their patients. Thank you Daniela, Cristina, Marco. 

Then it was a patient who found in the lucid strong desire to rejoin his wife and son the strenght to survive long intensive care. A wife whose voice is what he misses most, since the only possibility to talk with her is via computer, due to her illness. A young son who became an adult helping both parents. Again love from darkness. Thank you Piero and family. 

The last tale is the story of a doctor who became a patient experiencing solitude and death next to him. He thought it was time to reunite with his late wife after three years, with no fear, just a renovated deep feeling that he brought back to his patients when he recovered and went back to work. Again love from darkness. Thank you Doctor X because I don't know his first name. 

These tales are stories to listen to and see what happens thanks to the generosity of those who accepted to share their experience and encourage us to think a little more about what and life can be when and after being on the verge of loosing it, Love from Darkness.  

Thank you, Amos. 

Anna - Coordinator

Photo of my copy of the novel by Amos Oz, whose picture with his parents is one of the mesmerizing pages the book is made of. 

Good morning, afternoon, evening, 

we would like to thank you Brenda, Francesco, Claudio, Simone and the entire Essere Animali Italian Association, for your efforts to claim animal rights, showing us what the reality is, because animals are a part of us, and what happens to them will soon happen to us too. 

We are all given this great opportunity: to understand that only by living in mutual respect as sentient beings we can save the planet. Whenever suffering is caused, we must stop, think and change what we do. We may stop this war towards animals, as a first step to avoid any other.

Humans and humans, humans and animals are the same family, all things are connected. Anything can work as a starting point for a change, better each one of us first.     

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Essere Animali's and our own photographs

A friend to me 

Freedom is  a friend to me.

She gave me fairy tales

to get to know her,

the conscience to understand her,

the sentiment for loving her,

the truth to look for her,

the will to create her,

the generosity to offer her.

You are dear to me deep down, freedom.

Think of freedom

Think of freedom, the oceans,

the heavens, the vast estuaries,

the immense snowfields

that make you feel 

sick of nostalgia, the wings

of those who fly, the love for life.

Think of freedom, the universes,

the  journey of the man who carries them 

within himself, the suns, the words

that like the exstinguished stars

continue their light

with life within us.

Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody, 

we thought that our way to "fight" war from here, is to make feelings of freedom grow within us, share and offer them. 

Anna - Coordinator - Own source

¤ The Lakota Sioux meet Florence. ¤

On October 4th, 2021, Wolakota started in Florence, an annual meeting event between Italian institutions and the official delegates of the Lakota Sicangu Nation of Rosebud, South Dakota. It lasted one month, with meetings, conferences, events and an exhibition at Palazzo Medici Riccardi. Organized by the cultural association Wambli Gleska, Wolakota is an event of peace and spirituality, in the name of friendship with Native Americans. The city of Florence welcomed an official delegation of the Lakota Sioux to renew the friendship protocol that binds them. An opportunity to get to know the profound spirituality of the people of Turtle Island, to share moments of cultural exchange, traditional ceremonies and conviviality. The delegation and the city celebrated also be an unprecedented moment: the Remembrance Day, a march by foot and horseback on Sunday, October 10th, to commemorate the victims of the extermination of Native Americans. This gesture definitively breaks the taboo of another American story, different from the one recounted by the West for over 500 years.

¤ SIGNATURE OF THE PROTOCOL ¤

The Regione Toscana has enjoyed an official relationship with Native Americans since 1998, particularly with the Lakota. Together they have developed educational, cultural, scientific and anthropological projects. The University of Florence and the University of Pisa have also been involved in collaborations. On Monday, October 4th, 2021, the Friendship Protocol between the city of Florence and the Lakota Sicangu Nation of Rosebud was renewed. This opening event took place in Giordano Hall of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, in via Cavour 1. Among those present there was Letizia Perini, municipal Councillor for Culture in Florence, the Italian representative of UNESCO Vittorio Gasparrini, the Lakota Sioux delegation and the cultural association Wambli Gleska, which represents the Lakota Sioux Nation in Italy and promoted this event.

¤ REMEMBRANCE DAY ¤

The Lakota delegation, together with the City, officially celebrated Remembrance Day in Florence for all Native American peoples and the Lakota, on Sunday, October 10th at 9am. The Lakota, on horseback, escorted by Tuscan knights and the Knights of the Ordine di Parte Guelfa of Florence, accompanied by the Florentine Falconers, marched from Cascine Park to Piazza della Signoria where they were received by the Mayor for the final celebration of the Day of Remembrance, with traditional Lakota songs. After the horseback march, the equestrian center La Baita hosted a Lakota ceremony with traditional prayer and a memory plaque was placed for the Native people of Turtle’s Island. The ceremony was followed by a lunch at the equestrian center. 

¤ THE VISITING DELEGATION ¤

Among the delegates visiting Florence during the celebrations we would like to mention RoYal Yellow Hawk, Presidents’ delegate; Marla Bull Bear, Charles Bull Bear and Wayne Weston from the Lakota Youth Development in Rosebud; then Moses Brings Plenty, one of the most important spokespersons of the American Indian Nation of the Lakota Sioux, as well as very famous Hollywood celebrity, together with his wife Sara Ann. Finally, Steve Laravie jr will represent the Nation Santee Dakota. The person who works as a bridge between the Italian culture and the Native one is Alessandro Martire, honorary member of the Nation Lakota Sicangu in Rosebud. He’s their representative in Italy, president of Wabmli Gleska and international lawyer at the High Commission of Human Rights in Geneva for the Lakota Sicangu Nation of Sicangu.

¤ WAMBLI GLESKA ¤

Wambli Gleska is a non-profit cultural association, officially recognized by the UN as an NGO (International Non-Governmental Organization) officially established by the express will of the Lakota Tribal Council of Rosebud (South Dakota), the President and the Council of Elders. The purpose of the association is to bring the traditional testimony of the Lakota Sioux to Italy and to spread, in our country and in Europe, the traditional culture of the Lakota people, as well as to promote international recognition and relations with the various local governments and with the Italian central government, for the human rights of the Lakota Sioux Nation.

Source: Wolakota, Città Metropolitana di Firenze Press Release 20 September 2021

Photographs. own source

Anna - web site, Eurocontact Plus APS coordinator, Radio UNI POP Editorial Staff member