Learning by doing design: educational experiences to pass down local traditions to young people

The main objective of this research is to make children aware about the importance of local tradition and culture identities and to teach them these values in an informal way, through their involvement in different kind of learning experiences. The research has the intention to reach these goals communicating with children using their natural ways of expression, attitudes and generation cultures. The final aim intends to give children a basic knowledge about these traditional and local items to be used as starting point for future developments. Nowadays, this aim has a particular relevance as the cultural heritage of local territories is more and more becoming cultural asset to save in order to valorize the peculiarities of different cultures. At the same time young people are even more recognized by the society as the main actors of the future in preserving the cultural legacy. The project covers many aspects of the local habits from traditional street games to local and oral tales. The starting point of the research is the raise of consciousness that children need to play all days as long time as possible; by playing they learn and experiment about their abilities and competences. According to these processes the research proposes a new collaborative approach in learning and sharing traditional values of territory using games, ludic experiences as educational tools for their cultural grow. Indeed, by playing with ad hoc designed games children become able to know traditions and values of their own territory, and also those one of the others. Besides, the present work has developed a series of innovative games design, with friendly graphic user interfaces (both material and digital) to exemplify the research meaning. This approach allows future generations to know local traditions of the past that otherwise risk to disappear. Thanks to these experiences children become also able to evaluate strengths and witnesses about the direction of development of habits and traditions and consequently able to propose in future new ones.