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Echoes Project
ECHOES – Educating Adolescents to an Ecosystemic Vision is a training program realized by Sineglossa in collaboration with Legambiente Marche, Circolo Naturalistico Il Pungitopo, supported by Fondazione Cariverona.
The project also involved the association Impronta Animale, with volunteers trained by Sineglossa to conduct workshops in schools, and the cultural association Jassart, a non-profit organization that promotes and protects the cultural-artistic movement of Graffiti Writing and Street Art.
The project was born to promote sustainability in second-degree secondary schools through an interdisciplinary educational approach that combines design thinking, artificial intelligence and ecosystem mapping. Activated in the school year 2024/2025, the project has involved more than 200 students of 4 high schools in the province of Ancona, articulated in workshops, talks, urban regeneration interventions and outdoor experiential activities.
Echoes is part of the educational offer of sustainability projects for schools by Sineglossa, with a replicable model focused on active participation and building skills to face the challenges of the 2030 Agenda.
Workshops at school
The Echoes Lab, the very heart of the project, are training courses which aim to transform the school space into an experiential learning environment, overcoming the traditional approach to environmental education. The Echoes laboratories offer practical tools to help students move from an anthropocentric, human-centred approach to an ecosystem approach where man and nature, technology and culture, all coexist in harmony and cooperate for the well-being of ecosystems themselves.
The Echoes Labs provide:
- Participatory introduction on what an ecosystem is and what it means to adopt an ecosystemic approach.
- Space exploration and mapping: The class actively observes its own environment (school or neighborhood) through sensory perception, active listening to spaces, and attention to all elements, living and non-living, that interact within the ecosystem.
- Project work ideation (phase 1): Representation of the observed ecosystem (present ecosystem), highlighting the connections between human, natural, material, and immaterial elements.
- Sharing of present ecosystems: Each group presents its work to the class.
- Gamified and interactive activity on the meaning of sustainability. Sharing of personal reflections and opinions, with an informal and guided discussion.
- Project work ideation (phase 2): Groups design an idea for the regeneration of the explored space, proposing solutions that consider the thresholds of environmental and social sustainability.
- Final project work sharing: Collective presentation of the regeneration ideas to the rest of the class.
The workshops provide students with an opportunity to develop cross-cutting skills and hard skills, including:
- systemic thinking and ecosystem vision;
- group work, public speaking and effective communication;
- active citizenship and environmental awareness.
In 2024/2025 year, the Echoes project involved 8 classes for a total of 200 students. The results of the questionnaires administered at the end of the activity speak for themselves. On a sample of about 190 students:
- 95% felt involved during the workshop.
- 87% perceived an improvement in their ability to work in group.
- 79% said they had changed their perspective on the concept of sustainability.
What impact do the Echoes Labs have?
In order to find it out, we administered an anonymous questionnaire to the 190 participants of the pilot edition of the Echoes project, from 4 secondary schools in the province of Ancona.
What impact do the Echoes Labs have?
In order to find it out, we administered an anonymous questionnaire to the 190 participants of the pilot edition of the Echoes project, from 4 secondary schools in the province of Ancona.
Would you like to hear more about sustainability at school?
Yes, to enhance the environment outside of school and enable students to express their choices.
Would you like to hear more about the multidisciplinary approach?
Yes, to help introvert people.
Regeneration of the school garden
One of the concrete outputs of the project was the regeneration of the school garden of IIS Volterra Elia in Ancona. During the Echoes Lab, the classes of Informatics and Telecommunications explored the outside of the school building and devised proposals for the restoration of spaces, based on the sustainability criteria learned during the training.
The activities included:
• site inspection and analysis of outer space;
• group design and presentation to the class;
• selection of ideas by Legambiente Marche and Circolo Il Pungitopo Ancona;
• restoration of a green area with planting of shrubs, aromatic herbs that attract pollinating insects and birds, and wall installations with the collective Jassart.
The result is the birth of Space Echoes, a place that welcomes biodiversity and promotes the well-being of human and non-human beings who inhabit it. A concrete example of how sustainability projects in schools can produce tangible changes.
The talks “Think like a plant”
Within the framework of the Echoes project, 4 informative talks were produced by Stella Saladino, actress and author of the book “Think like a plant” (“Pensa come una pianta”). The talks, addressed to about 400 students, introduced the idea of vegetal intelligence as a metaphor and tool for generating innovative and sustainable solutions and ideas.
Starting from the cognitive models of the plant system and through examples taken from the world of plants, the talks stimulated in students a reflection on:
- collaboration and underground networks (mycorrhizae);
- resilience and adaptation to environmental change;
- decentralization of intelligence and co-evolution.
The ecosystemic walks
The Echoes project has proposed, in addition to workshops and talks, the Echoes walkscapes: ecosystemic walks open to the public, realized in collaboration with Legambiente Marche and Il Pungitopo.
These are walking trails, both urban and naturalistic, designed to increase ecological awareness and facilitate direct contact with ecosystems, stimulating a sense of belonging and responsibility towards inhabited places. During the Echoes walkscapes, those who participate:
• look at the landscape in a systemic way;
• develop empathy towards living and non-living elements;
• participate in concrete actions of environmental volunteering.
