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**STUDENTS AS RESEARCHERS TO ANALYZE OUR BEHAVIOUR USING ENERGY** ** SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP ** @http://www.las.provincia.venezia.it/old_site/lab_energia/index.html

GENERAL AIMS

 * The projects aims to tackle the issues concerning a sustainable future focusing on the problematics around energy.
 * The way issues are approached wants to motivate students as to make them pay more attention to the issues involved in the matter.. Therefore their interest will be created by taking into consideration their daily life instead of using just theoratical or abstract objictives.

The initial step will be to provide the students with the critical tools they need which will be taught by making use of objective data, afterwards an in-depth study of a large documentation will follow so as to work out either a programme for each student or for a whole group considering their individual interests.

OBJECTVES
A critical attention needs to be developed towards our usual habits concerning "energy consume"
 * 1) to open information, documentation and resarch centres focusing on the problematics of a sustainable future paying particular attention to the energy issue as it is taught in scientific curricula (physics ans science)
 * 2) to teach students the technics of desriptive statistics using IT ( electronic sheet and database)
 * 3) to teach students to work in a team as to decide together on learning tools and research items both in the classroom and in a connaction with students and study groups which work far away
 * 4) to make students aware of a EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP making them participate in the development of a critical approach to the issue in the perpective of their being active to the implementetion of the Chart of Human Rights fundamental for the European Union (art. 37).

METHODOLOGIES
The teaching system which has been chosen refers to those methodologies concerned with collaborative learning. The selected subjects are dealt with particular attention to their current facts and complexity without spending a long time on the theoretical aspects which might not be of interest to the students. Abstractions are the final goal of a process gradually developing, special attention is paid to those aspects that can motivate the students to make an effort to advance in their learning. Time is given to the need of making the students understand the complexity of the subject they are dealing with while making them more and more aware that researching and acquiring new information contribute to a collective knowledge. Reciprocal strategies are followed while working tools (questionnaires and research procedures) are agreed and investigated as well as parallel strategies when carrying out an analysis in depth of specific reseach items on which agreement had been reached beforehand. The items dealt with have a strong interdisciplinary connotation as they include maths, physics, natural science. Nontheless each subject of the school curriculum is taught through the problematics of current facts as to allow a better and deeper understanding of its contents both in conceptual and quantitative terms.

TEACHING MATERIALS[[image:questionario.jpg width="544" height="220" align="right"]]
//The questionaire//. All students have given their contribution to work out the questionnaire through synchronic interactions (chat) or non-synchronic.ones (forum,email). Finding a definition for the questionnaire as a tool to be used in carrying out a survey, has helped to decide and agree on the focus and the important issues of the survey itself.

//Data collection spreadsheet//. By adopting this tool it has been possible to collect data in a codified way thus reducing the use of paper as much as possible and avoiding the input of the data into the computer at the same time - it has to be born in mind that 685 questionnaires were finally carried out. Teachers have used different strategies for the data input assigning the task either to individual students or choosing to give the responsibilty to one or more persons. This procedure has made possible to put all data in one single eletronic sheet which can be easily transferred to any database.



//Data// The data ( 685 questionnaires carried out by the students of the six Institues participating in the project) collected in the surveys are available so as to provide the possibility of comparisons, further analysis and additions.

//Teaching material to prepare the survey and for futher investigation// Study booklets produced by ENEA (Italian National Agency for the economic sustainable development) that can be download in the ENEA website (Sustainable development; Climate and climate changes; Photovoltaic energy; Windmill energy; The coming of the hydrogen era).

OUTCOMES
The data were elaborated to get some statistical information about our behavior using energy resources. For example one of the items was about the students' choice of transport to school. The final analysis is shown in the diagram below where it is possible to see the variety of the means of transport chosen (public transport, motorcar, moped, bycicle, walking). We must consider among the outcomes the artistic interpretations that some students of the Artistic Liceo of Venice gave of their point of view on the problem of the sustainable development after the survey. The logo of the project is production of a student and so another interesting clay creation (@four elements). The activity has been included in a wider project concerning with the theme of the construction of the European citizenship that inserted in the database GOLD of the Italian best practices (>>> see the record).

NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Today it is possible to get the same results through GoogleDocs producing and using particular formats to develop a survey, without any paper. It is possible to get the entries automatically in spreadsheet form and add responses to a spreadsheet that is connected to the survey. It is possible to view the collected information through the automatically generated charts and graphs.