European Holidays (Geo)

This Geography project was realized by the 5L in the Scientifical Lyceum Tarantino in Gravina. The class has been divided into groups, which subsequently chose a European capital city as a destination for a trip. Through the computers of the medialab, they were asked to find the flights (or the trains or whatever they chose to travel with) and their prices, book hotels and collect information about the interesting thing to do, to see and also to eat in town (and surroundings). Their budget was 80 euros per day (including the allowance for shopping). Finally they pretended to have done the trip, and they wrote down a report of their "virtually real" trip.

This approach gave my students the chance to discover the big European capital cities in a lively and effective way: history, culture, social activities and even food traditions have been taken into consideration by the students, whose interest was always kept alive thanks to the "excitement" and the fun of organizing a trip by themselves.

The first work I present here (Destinazione Tirana) is particularly interesting as one the students of the group, L., was actually from Albania, and took a pride at showing her country to the class. Many of the documents they used, therefore, were in Albanian and required a thourough translation.

Of the second work I present here the table with the "virtually real" expenses the students sustained. The group had chosen London and their schedule and cost statement is particularly precise.

The project, which also implied some homework, took two weeks (with two hours a week for Geography lessons altogether).