Italy - Bosco Chiesanuova - 25th November to 1st December 2018

Photography Club 

Goal: Motivating students’ awareness of self-esteem and safety

Monday

The morning started with all partners meeting again at the hotel. Bosco is a mountain city and we walked down to school. It was about 400m and it was a pleasant morning stroll. At school the headmaster and some teachers were waiting for us and we had quite a nice presentation about Bosco and the surrounding area. It is located in a national park, just like Gerês, but the geological origin of it is quite different because Lessinia is of limestone and marble, whereas Gerês is of sandstone. 

Anyway, after a tour around school and a lunch break, we walked through the park to visit a house where cheese was made in the past and learn about all the process. From this day onwards, the students had dinner at home with the hosting families.

Tuesday

This day started  at school and students attended a photo workshop. They were given a picture of themselves and they had to cut it in half, stick it to an A3 paper and complete the missing half by drawing or any other type of graphic representation. The purpose was to rise their sense of self esteem and awareness. This was a funny exercise that was lead by an Italian arts teacher. The Portuguese arts teacher Antonina also helped all the students around.

In the afternoon we were learning photographic techniques to put in practice on the following day in the open air photo landscape of Venice. Geometric values and aesthetic parameters were taught to be used accordingly during the following day, but before going home we could still visit the stop motion laboratory to which we will go back to on Thursday.

Wednesday 

Venice was ready to fill in the empty pages of our sketchbook, but this time we didn’t use a pencil. We had our cellphones ready to capture the nicest frames of the city, and that’s what we did. This is one of the most photogenic cities in the world and we were so fortunate to put in practice all the details that we learned the day before. Symmetrical buildings coming from colourful reflections in the water. Clear perspectives coming from the long canals as if they are infinite lines and the three third rules that are so important in photo composition were all so easy to perceive. This was great to share with all the partners all the knowledge we had.

Thursday

We spent this day in a different school. Roverè is a mountain village and it was pretty cold when we arrived there. On the way, on shady places the frost covered the hills with ice crystals, that later were glittering in the sun. 

The students from this school were waiting for us and were very proud of all the things they did at school. The robotics LEGO league competition in which they are involved, their regular classrooms and also the school facilities. The morning ended up with the final rehearsal of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. A moving simple adaptation of this amazing book. But before lunch it was still time to use photo techniques on the mountain. The hiking tour lead us through a winter wood full of art! I mean, real paintings were hanging on the trees! The afternoon was under the surface. This time it was a forest of stone. Stalactites and stalagmites are formed in the Cave of Monte Capriollo. It is a funny place with limestone formations, bats and an imported cave creature from the Dolomites caves called Protheus. It is white, blind, has red ears and eats live worms. But the mountains still had something special for us: an amazing red sunset!

Friday

Verona seen from the top of the hill is amazing on this Friday morning. Downhill we ended up in the oldest bridge in the world - UNESCO of course - Ponte Pietra, not before visiting the Roman theatre. This is an open air museum and the whole day we had an history class going on with the Italian teachers in the morning and a specialized tourist guide for the Arena in the afternoon. 

English Literature was obviously focused on the way, wouldn’t it be the city of Romeo and Juliet. We visited the house of Shakespeare’s heroine, touched her breast for luck and gazed at the balcony where she would supposedly be.

The Roman Empire can be seen all over the city but the Arena is the best preserved one in Italy and nowadays it is still a place for shows - gladiators were substituted by opera or pop concerts. The acoustics is outstanding! 

But the day was far from being over because after “reality lessons” the hosting families of the Italian students took everybody to school for a farewell party with local food prepared by themselves.

It was an amazing experience. Teachers and students have learned so much from this experience and the purpose of the project was accomplished.