At the core of the Aurora Universities lays the voices of the students

Photo Credits: UNINA BioBeauty project students team.

1st workshop in Co-creation & Service Learning: in Teaching Innovation “BIObeauty lab

On 26th September 2022 at the Federico II di Napoli was held the first workshop in “Cocreation and Service learning. BioBeauty lab: Building Transdisciplinary Competences” organized by Barbara Majello (Full Professor of Genetics at the Department of Biology -DIP- Federico II di Napoli) and Wolfgang Stark (Prof. Dr. Universities for Social Responsibility, University of Duisburg-Essen).

The workshop represents the result of a continuous interaction between the students’ team at the DIP and Prof. Majello, responsible for the co-creative Service-learning project within the DIP in collaboration with the TAN (Theater in the North area of Naples) and other local organizations active on the urban territory.

As students from the DIP we have already taken actively part in several projects impacting the environment in collaboration with the TAN, such as the Legambiente project, “The corridor of the Butterflies”. We have been involved in an intense period of internship, working hard and passionately, firmly believing that the Biobeauty project is an important opportunity for us to interact not only with the academic staff but with the territory.

In our experience, co-creation in teaching increases student engagement and improves student-teacher relationships.

For all these reasons, we wanted to reinforce our connection with the TAN and contribute to the organization of this workshop.

As students, we have been designing a small booklet collecting the activities already undertaken over the years in this field. We have also been involved in designing and developing a flowerbed at the Department dedicated to Biobeauty, which we showed for the first time in the workshop to all participants attending. We were protagonists of the workshop as we had the opportunity to share with the audience (other students and teachers, educators and academics) the competencies we achieved during the internship experience. Moreover, we had the chance to enact on the TAN stage performances of aerial dance, music and poetry executed by some student team members Erica, Sabrina, and Mario, together with the TAN director Lello Serao. Co-creating ecxperiences are the key for our personal and professional development: we do not just wake up and become the butterfly, as growth is a process!

During the workshop, we appreciated the service-Learning Game directed by prof. Stark and prof. Majello, we had a great chance to raise awareness of our strong efforts in planning a service learning project and our personal development in terms of service. 

We strongly believe that the BIObeauty flowerbed at the Department of Biology will be a “bridge” of biodiversity for beneficial insects that are often mistreated without appreciating the importance of their function in our environment. This place will be a working place in the future!

Above insects such as butterflies that help humans pollinate our artificial cultures, we think that what attracts these insects is not the crops but the spontaneous species often considered harmful weeds.

One of the messages we would like to express is “How caring for very small things like this can affect much bigger things by causing a Butterfly effect”.

What each of us can do for the environment in which we live will leave traces of our presence in the territory and the world.

We stronlgy believe in the pedagogical proposal of this Service-Learning project providing internship and experiential work opportunities for us students that can act in real contexts on the territory and develop the skills and competencies foreseen by the curriculum of studies in Biology, linking us to the concept of citizenship. Among the purposes of the experience: integrate learning and service, and adopt important values such as social justice, legality, equality, respect, and care for the environment. We are the project’s protagonists, from need analysis to action planning, implementation, and evaluation of results!

For more info please visit:

http://www.majellolab.unina.it/?page_id=2453

http://www.dipartimentodibiologia.unina.it/dib-e-service-learning/