The role of secondary schools in an urban local agenda 21

After the introduction of LA21 in the last 10 years within the Italian national political priorities and the subsequent implementation of the program by several local administrations, the weakness of the environmental policy towards sustainability emerged - among the other reasons - as a possible consequence of the difficult to switch old environmental education procedures to a sustainable oriented educative as permanent path within the compulsory school system. This paper will introduce the first phase results of a program of LA21 on the field - started in 2005 - promoted by the Municipality of Adria, the Province of Rovigo and the University IUAV of Venice with the grant of European Union program specifically supporting the local development of Objective 2 areas in the country. The research defined a strong relationship with local secondary schools in an area environmentally characterized by some important elements as The River Po Delta Regional Park, the position of Adria as the “west door” of the park and the general environmental relevance of the Province of Rovigo, situated at the very south of Veneto Region. In fact geographically the province is also known as The Polesine, because of the presence as territorial borders of the two longest Italian rivers, the Po and the Adige. Since the starting of the project 300 students have been directly involved in the participatory scheme and the different kind of schools oriented their curricula to prepare a chapter of the Environmental Survey Report for their city with the guide of their teachers and university researchers