The culmination of a whole year’s activity for the planet, the “A Network for the Environment” event in May 2022, welcomed a hall full of students, together with other colleagues linked online around the world. Over 500 youth filled the splendid Aula Magna of Rome’s ‘Sapienza’ University on Friday 13 May 2022, to celebrate the conclusion of this academic year’s (2021-22) action for the “A Network to Protect the Environment” project. 10 institutes of higher education in the Lazio region of Italy sent representatives, with many other students from different parts of Italy and the world participating online, to review the fruits of their combined efforts. Throughout the year no less than 8,000 students from 89 schools in Italy and 12 other countries, accessed formation in energy saving. They were invited to sign a pact and 200 actions of personal energy saving were recorded. These actions were sponsored by relatives (at 0.10 cents per action), through the DPSAR App, raising money for several solidarity projects in areas of poverty and environmental damage due to climate change. A planetary perspective prompted by simple daily life. We spoke to project coordinator Andrea Conte, a specialist in Astrophysics and teacher of Mathematics and Physics at the Liceo Classico of Pescara, Italy. What do you mean by a “network” for the environment? This program of formation in environmental protection was first developed in Rome in 2008 by educationalist Elena Pace, a member of the Nuove Vie per un Mondo Unito (New Ways for a United World) Association. The original name of the project was “Giving to Protect the Environment” The introduction of the word “network” came about in 2019 and helped take the project to the next level. Each individual class continues to organize activities but is no longer on its own. Each pupil, with their classmates and the support of their family members, continues to act in favour of the Earth, but is now part of a network of many schools doing the same thing. We began by linking up schools within Italy and this network is already spreading beyond. Has radical change been brought about by any of these actions? The natural creativity of the students makes itself felt. One school in Rome, Italy, for example, decided to completely exclude the use of plastic bottles. But they opted for a scientific method to achieve this goal by inventing a form of “plasticometer” to weigh all the single-use plastic in the school. And every time someone discarded an empty plastic bottle, they made a commitment to use a re-usable water bottle or flask in future. Almost immediately they noticed a reduction in the weight of plastic waste, and in a remarkably short time it was reduced to zero. A real revolution. Why do you think interest in ecology is growing amongst today’s youth? Ecology is not something new. Climate change has been talked about for decades. But today’s youth are feeling the effects of a society in continual evolution and are noticing the need to act decisively. As well as continual bad news about the worsening situation, there is also increased awareness, as seen in projects run by local administrations, by individual citizens, by schools etc. Through this, our sense of citizenship grows, the desire to be well-informed and active in helping our own planet to become a healthier place. What is your main message to students today? I am lucky enough to teach a subject I am passionate about and in which I believe. This is truly a great gift. When I was at high school, there weren’t the same resourses available as now, and I’m happy to be able to introduce them to my students. I myself only began to realise the challenges our planet is suffering when I was in university studying astronomy and astrophysics. When you’re detached from the earth’s surface and turn your gaze to the universe out there, it’s then you contemplate the fragility of the Earth. So I always make this comparison to my students, telling them it’s when we detach ourselves from ourselves and turn towards the others that we truly realise how much each of us has to give, each one in our diversity.

Maria Grazia Berretta