Within the Ecological ReGeneration: Citizenship and Participation programme, after an initial phase of classroom work focused on listening and co-design, students from the “Ignazio Vian” Scientific High School in Bracciano stepped out into the field to engage directly with the landscapes and ecosystems at the heart of their research.
The Caldara di Manziana Natural Monument—with its volcanic lake, steaming fumaroles, and oak woodlands—offered an ideal setting to turn questions and reflections into lived experience. On site, working groups observed plant species, ecosystem dynamics, and traces of human presence in the landscape, learning to interpret a natural environment with fresh eyes and with the questions they had developed over the preceding months.
The morning unfolded through two parallel activities, both designed by the students during earlier sessions. One group focused on assessing the accessibility and usability of the reserve: divided into smaller teams, they walked the circular trail starting from opposite directions, using the entrance map as a reference while identifying critical points and potential improvements. What emerged was a compelling picture: the area appears well preserved from an ecological standpoint, with little evidence of litter or degradation.
The second group concentrated on the site’s plant biodiversity, collecting samples along the route and classifying them into trees, shrubs, and herbaceous species. This marked the first step toward building a catalogue of local flora, to be further developed in the months ahead.
The field visit was not a standalone moment, but a point of connection: between the themes explored in the classroom and the real places where those themes take shape, between scientific knowledge and direct experience, between emotional engagement and the ability to inhabit an ecosystem with care and attention. In the field, essential cross-cutting skills came to the fore—critical observation, collaboration, analytical thinking, and the capacity to develop proposals—alongside a growing autonomy in interpreting environmental contexts. The work then returned to the classroom, becoming a living resource for the months ahead.
Ecological ReGeneration: Citizenship and Participation is a project by Navdanya International, co-funded by the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security within the framework of the SNSvS6 call for proposals, supporting initiatives that contribute to the implementation of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development—Sustainability Vectors.