Service Learning & STEAM: Art e Opera Lirica, un’attivita innovativa nel Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Scienze della Formazione Primaria

In the last few years, the University of Palermo has been trying to explore to what extent the Service Learning (SL) pedagogical approach can contribute to enhance lifelong, meaningful and meaningful learning in students, to increase and develop in them an adequate and deep awareness towards themselves, their community and their own education. The intention of this initiative is to investigate and test the effect of SL initiatives on enhancing learning in STEAM disciplines. This contribution, in continuum with other initiatives we have launched (‘Nobody Stays Behind’; ‘[PR]A.S.S.I. Learning Serves, Serving Teaches’), describes the design of a SL activity that combines the world of ‘service’ and that of learning STEAM disciplines, with a focus on ‘ART’. The initiative combines service with and for the community with the world of opera. It is planned to train students of the degree course in Primary Education in the listening and understanding of Opera, to provide them with the relevant tools to then transmit and collaborate with members of the community with whom the partnership will take place, with the aim of bringing knowledge of our immense cultural heritage to more socioculturally disadvantaged neighbourhoods of the city of Palermo. The final product will consist of the performance of a chosen Opera, with the members of the community and our students as protagonists. This collaboration will enrich not only everyone's cultural heritage, but above all their values and human heritage. At the core of this activity persists the conviction that culture is a fundamental requirement, an atavistic necessity to educate man in life and values, caring for the global formation of the individual, from an early age. Solidarity, collaboration and active participation are just some of the dimensions that this authentic exchange activity will promote. Service Learning represents the intersection between theory and practice, between research and experimentation, between culture, values and life, between learning individual skills and active citizenship skills.