Florence as a Classroom: Service Studying with UNESCO
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What if finding out overseas wasn’t nearly exploring a brand new metropolis—however about making a significant contribution to it?
That query sits on the coronary heart of Service-Studying for UNESCO in Florence, a particular AIFS Overseas course that invitations college students to maneuver past the standard classroom and interact straight with the local people. On this program, Florence is greater than a vacation spot. It turns into a shared area for studying, reflection, and motion.
Supplied every spring semester in partnership with the Membership for UNESCO Florence, the course encourages college students to attach international challenges to native realities whereas creating sensible abilities, cultural consciousness, and a deeper sense of duty as international residents.
Studying by Doing in Florence
Service-learning for UNESCO is designed round experiential pedagogy. Somewhat than relying totally on lectures, the course blends a sequence of centered seminars with hands-on work locally. College students collaborate with native companions, participate in guided reflection, and contribute to tasks that align with UNESCO’s mission and values.
Early within the semester, college students are launched to the U.N. Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs), addressing points resembling sustainability, equality, schooling, and accountable consumption. These targets present a sensible framework that helps college students perceive how international challenges seem on the native degree.
Florence is a perfect setting for this method. As a UNESCO World Heritage metropolis and one of many world’s most visited locations, it presents a strong case examine in each alternative and complexity. College students encounter questions of cultural preservation, mass tourism, environmental impression, and overconsumption every day. The course encourages them to look at these dynamics critically and replicate on their very own function as momentary residents within the metropolis.
Exploring Sustainability and Overconsumption
Understandably, overconsumption is a key theme—of sources, public areas, and cultural experiences. Florence’s recognition brings financial vitality, but it surely additionally raises vital questions on sustainability and long-term stability. Somewhat than merely discussing these points in principle, college students work alongside native companions to develop instructional initiatives aimed toward elevating consciousness and inspiring dialogue. The main focus is on understanding how change occurs on the neighborhood degree—by way of collaboration, communication, and knowledgeable motion.
All through the semester, college students are guided by way of structured reflection utilizing studying journals, group discussions, and one-on-one conferences. These moments assist college students join what they’re doing locally with what they’re studying academically, reinforcing the concept that significant studying typically occurs exterior the classroom.
Pupil Accomplishments: Spring 2025
College students within the Spring 2025 cohort demonstrated the impression of this learning-by-doing method in a number of methods, together with:
- A public convention organized for World Water Day. College students labored collectively to plan and ship a Florence occasion centered on water sustainability and environmental consciousness. Hosted on the AIFS Overseas World Training Heart, the convention introduced collectively college students, school, and members of the local people for a night of debate and change. For a lot of individuals, it was their first expertise organizing a public occasion—a possibility to construct confidence, management, and teamwork abilities.
- An academic strolling tour within the Oltrarno neighborhood—designed and led by college students—in celebration of World Artwork Day. Somewhat than specializing in Florence’s most well-known landmarks, the tour highlighted lesser-known streets, workshops, and creative traditions. College students guided individuals by way of the neighborhood whereas discussing artwork, craftsmanship, and sustainable cultural consumption, providing a extra considerate technique to interact with the town.
Tasks like these prompted college students to show tutorial ideas into real-world motion whereas making a significant contribution to the local people.
What’s Deliberate for Spring 2026
Constructing on the success of earlier semesters, the Spring 2026 course will increase into new areas of engagement tied to internationally acknowledged consciousness days.
College students will work on two major tasks:
Worldwide Ladies’s Day (March 8)
- College students will design an initiative centered on gender equality and ladies’s roles in tradition and society. Via instructional occasions or community-based actions, college students will discover how international conversations about equality hook up with native Italian contexts.
Worldwide Day of Sport for Growth and Peace (April 6)
- College students will deal with sports activities as a device for inclusion, schooling, and social change. College students will look at how sports activities can foster dialogue, well-being, and neighborhood connection, linking native experiences to UNESCO’s broader values.
As in earlier editions, college students will take an energetic function in planning, organizing, and presenting these initiatives, with steering from school and native companions.
Transferring Away from Consumptive Examine Overseas
Service-Studying for UNESCO presents college students one thing many don’t anticipate from examine overseas: the prospect to decelerate and interact deeply with the place they’re residing in. It challenges the thought of examine overseas as passive consumption and reframes it as participation, duty, and connection.
For college kids who need their time overseas to have objective—who wish to study whereas contributing to the neighborhood round them—this course presents a strong mannequin. It reveals how international concepts like sustainability and citizenship take form on the native degree, and the way college students themselves will be energetic individuals in that course of.
In the long run, Florence turns into greater than a metropolis to go to. It turns into a classroom—one the place studying occurs by way of expertise, collaboration, and repair.
