A Study on Memory Sites Perception in Primary School for Promoting the Urban Sustainability Education: A Learning Module in Calabria (Southern Italy)

Abstract

This paper constitutes a study on representations of Risorgimento sites of memory in Calabria (southern Italy), analyzing the development of the perceptive skills of primary school children through a learning module. The initial hypothesis wants to demonstrate that some factors identified by the geographer Antoine Bailly influence the perception of children in relation to the single research topics that concern: The possibility to reach and to easily access memory sites and any barriers or difficulties encountered; the aesthetic and functional judgment and the most popular aspects of the sites of memory; the orientation skills during the journey from the school to the site of memory; the elaboration of a mental map. The learning module titled “The mental representation of the sites of memory of the Risorgimento” was carried out in the primary schools of three provincial capitals of Calabria (southern Italy): Catanzaro, Cosenza, and Crotone. Children in the direct and indirect observation of the geo-historic pathway of the Risorgimento sites of memory in Calabria show that they fit well in the role of young geographers and investigators of the surrounding reality. Finally, this contribution aims to highlight the important relationship between the geography of perception and education for sustainability in schools starting from the sustainable development goals (SDGs).