Project "The Library is our House" by IIS "Alberto Castigliano" in Asti, coordinated by Prof. Stella Perrone, will participate in the 8th edition of the Global Junior Challenge to promote the principles of active citizenship thanks to the national experience of “OpenCohesion School” (ASOC) during school year 2015-16.
The first project protagonists were 17 young women selected from classes 3 and 4 who decided to attend a course amongst the European-funded construction yards in Asti and compile reports on the works. The students learned about public administration proceedings and used open data and a range of computer tools. In particular, the students worked on the Civic Library in Asti.
The Open Cohesion School promotes active citizenship, developing civic monitoring activities for public funds via ICT and open data, to help students learn and communicate innovatively and understand how cohesion policy and public investments affect their local areas.
This is an innovative and experimental interdisciplinary course that has involved 122 Italian schools and ca. 2500 students with the collaboration of 28 Europe Direct Information Centres and 63 associations of volunteers, the so-called “Friends of OpenCohesion Schools.”
The students developed a blog, integrating the official ASOC Blog, produced multimedia content (using video, photos, text, etc.), contributed reports based on their observations and data gathering activities on the Monithon.it Platform, as well as developed innovative communication content through storytelling techniques.