Venice, 06 December – Established by the North Adriatic Sea Port Authority with the support of the Municipalities of Venice and Chioggia, the Harbour Master’s Office and the Venice Port Community, Port Educational is an educational project that resorts to simple and playful storytelling techniques to talk of the centuries-old relationship between the cities of Venice and Chioggia and their port, and has gained increasing success amongst the local area’s primary schools. In 2024, the activities of the Port Educational workshops featuring Faro de Faris, the original mascot of the Ports of Venice and Chioggia, reached out to 570 primary school children through 19 workshops, 6 new educational games itineraries and a new section dedicated to Marco Polo and the great navigators.
“We are proud,” commented Fulvio Lino Di Blasio, president of AdSPMAS, “that this original educational opportunity is very much appreciated and sought after by schools within the framework of the educational opportunities offered by the Municipality of Venice; in Chioggia alone we have registered numerous applications from schools. In 2025 we expect to replicate these figures, but we are already preparing something new for our project so as to increase the children’s interest in the how ports work, and the activities and the professional figures that rotate around the world of the ports.”.
After last year’s positive reactions and the project’s inclusion the educational options offered to schools by the Municipality of Venice, this year’s edition of Port Educational was further boosted by the involvement of professional educators and the definition of 6 educational themes that the schools could choose from: Young Explorers, Salt Fish at the Fishermen’s Market, The Safe Harbour, The Salt Voyage, The Food Route and The Harbour Watchman: for each theme, the explanations provided to the students were flanked by creative workshops and role-playing games.
“It is a very different learning opportunity and life experience,” says the Venice Municipality’s Commissioner for Educational Policies Laura Besio, “that has been immensely successful, confirming our expectations. Water as a theme is so important for its inextricable links to Venice’s natural calling and history. I am grateful to the North Adriatic Sea Port System Authority for supporting the Municipality’s actions on specific educational themes, and for providing to this and the future generations such in-depth information on our cultural heritage.”
The Authority’s educational projects are not limited to working inside schools: this year’s edition of Port Days (the yearly event during which ports ‘open’ their doors to citizens, families, children, teenagers and enthusiasts of all ages) saw the participation of over 200 pupils from schools in the city centre and on the Lido. In the framework of Arterminal, the youngsters were engaged in sports and recreational activities, and also-educational games and workshops guided by the Port Educational multimedia tool, with a special focus on the section dedicated to Marco Polo, specifically in 2024 created by AdSPMAS to celebrate the 700th anniversary of his death.
The 2024 programme comes to a close today in the Municipality of Chioggia with the last workshop for fifth grade pupils, focusing on the ‘Guardian of the Port’, but will resume in early 2025 with new classes and new contents.
“In Chioggia, as many as nine primary school classes were involved in the multimedia and workshop course,” says Deputy Mayor and Commissioner for Culture in the Municipality of Chioggia Elena Zennaro,“ It was a pleasure to observe how enthusiastically our little ones welcomed the initiative: they were given the opportunity to learn in depth about the ‘port system’ and about the many professional figures and activities that rotate around it. This was achieved using a teaching tool designed specifically for them and which – as far as we know – has no precedents in Italy or in Europe. I am therefore delighted with the results of our collaboration with the Port System Authority and look forward to improving them in 2025.”