Ecopals European classroom lesson in Spain

1. European classroom lesson in Spain
Teachers: Anna Maria Caldarelli
Gabriella Adani
Fiorenza Maria Miranda
Topic:
Coloured diurnal and nocturnal butterflies in The Vesuvius National Park
Aims:
to teach to Spanish students about Italy
to teach about Italian natural environment
to start a discussion about endangered species in the Vesuvius National Park
and especially butterflies.
Methods:
individual and work group, discussion
Activities:

2. We presented a Ppt about Italy, the Vesuvius National Park and animals that live in
this area, especially butterflies. We showed to students different pictures about
butterflies and the cicle of life of a butterfly. We discussed about endangered animals
and what we can do to preserve them. Spanish students coloured some butterflies,
they cut them and they made a beautiful wall cardboard

3. The Vesuvius National Park was founded on the 5 of June, 1995. It was founded in order to
preserve animal and vegetable species, vegetable and forest associations, geological peculiarities,
palaeontological formations, biological communities, biotopes, scenic and panoramic values,
natural processes, ecological balances. Its purposes are, moreover, the application of ways of
management or environmental restoration suitable to realize an integration between man and the
natural habitat, also through the protection anthropological, archaeological, historical and
architectural values and the protection of traditional and pastoral activities; the promotion of
educational and formative activities of scientifis research, that can be interdisciplinary too, the
promotion of compatible recreational activities as well; another purpose is the defence and the
reconstitution of hydraulic and hydrogeological balances. The task and the values concerning the
Vesuvius National Park are even wider because we have to defend the most famous volcano in the
world, and at the same time one of the five most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the
high urban conurbation that ahs recently grown up around it, disrespectful of the laws forbidding
the construction of buildings. So the Vesuvius National Park represents an anomaly among the
European National Parks, a sort of challenge aimed to rescue the wild and enchanting beauty of
Vesuvius and Monte Somma (Somma Mountain), pulling them away from the incredible
deterioration and giving them back to the pleasure of the old and the new generations they
belong to.
The fauna of the Park is particularly rich and interesting. Among mammals, there is the "oaken
mouse", the presence of whiwh is rare in other parts of Italy, but there is also a presence of the
dormouse, the beech-marten, the fox, the wild rabbit, and of the hare. More than 100 species of
birds live there, which can be classified as resisents, migrants, wintering and breeding. Interesting
is the contruction of nests by the various birds, the buzzars, kestrel, hoopoe, turtle-dove,
woodpidgeon, great spotter woodpecker, rock thrush, raven, coal tit. Recently there have been
more frequent observations of the sparrowhawk, a very elegant and woody predatory bird. During
the winter the woodcock, the black redstart, the wryneck, the song thrush, the siskin remain in the
Park. During the period of mogrations garden warblers, subalpine warblers, pied flycatchers,
redstarts, black eared wheater, woodwarblers, golden orioles, nightjars, bee eaters and many
other species fly over the Park, many of which coming from sub-saharian quarters where they
spend the winter. Among the reptiles we have to mention the coloured green-lizard, the
inoffensive western whyp snake and the Turkish Gecko.
Among the invertebrates we can notice the most coloured diurnal and nocturnal butterflies that
remain during the flowering of the Mediterranean Vesuvian soil.