ImMENSAmente is a training and educational project of food education aimed at children and young people, between 0 and 13 years old, of infant-toddler centers and kindergartens, primary and lower secondary schools of Municipality of Rome, but also to their teachers and their families, whose structure supports the didactic path of science lessons, food and environmental education and civic education, also involving the artistic aspect.
ImMENSAmente’s goal is to provide students and their parents with the information necessary for a correct, healthy and responsible diet that avoids food waste, promotes environmental sustainability, social agriculture and multiculturalism through food, but is also able to develop particular attention to hygiene and good habits at the table. All in a playful way through the totally free distribution of paper and digital teaching materials, participation in meetings organized in schools and the organization of culinary workshops in school canteens.
The project aims to introduce children to the world of healthy and sustainable food in a playful way and provides for each participating class to send a paper kit for face-to-face lessons and a digital kit version to support the training course of the reference teacher.
The project constitutes a valid didactic support to deepen the topics related to:
-The importance of hygiene and correct eating habits
-The meals of the day and the correct eating habits
-Environmental sustainability and social agriculture, with particular attention to the characteristics and territorial origin of foods (for example from the areas of central Italy affected by the 2016 earthquake)
-Food and multiculturalism
-The measures to encourage the consumption of the meal also in order to reduce food waste
The project provides interesting playful pedagogical activities with which to create interest in the younger population while engaging their parents and teachers. In this sense, we believe that the variety of proposed activities covers a wide range of possibilities. Likewise, the possibility of downloading the kits available online, and of carrying out and seeing some virtual activities, increases the potential of its impact.
The biggest obstacle to its replicability is the fact that all the materials are only available in Italian, so any non-Italian-speaking teacher/youth worker will need the support of an Italian-speaker for translation and implementation.
