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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 have interaction instantly 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 world challenges to native realities whereas growing sensible abilities, cultural consciousness, and a deeper sense of accountability as world residents.
Studying by Doing in Florence
Service-learning for UNESCO is designed round experiential pedagogy. Fairly than relying totally on lectures, the course blends a collection 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 Targets (SDGs), addressing points equivalent to sustainability, equality, schooling, and accountable consumption. These targets present a sensible framework that helps college students perceive how world challenges seem on the native stage.
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 robust case examine in each alternative and complexity. College students encounter questions of cultural preservation, mass tourism, environmental affect, and overconsumption every day. The course encourages them to look at these dynamics critically and mirror on their very own function as short-term 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 steadiness. Fairly than merely discussing these points in concept, college students work alongside native companions to develop instructional initiatives aimed toward elevating consciousness and inspiring dialogue. The main target is on understanding how change occurs on the group stage—via collaboration, communication, and knowledgeable motion.
All through the semester, college students are guided via 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 usually occurs outdoors the classroom.
Scholar Accomplishments: Spring 2025
College students within the Spring 2025 cohort demonstrated the affect 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 Schooling Middle, the convention introduced collectively college students, school, and members of the local people for a night of dialogue and alternate. For a lot of members, it was their first expertise organizing a public occasion—a chance 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. Fairly than specializing in Florence’s most well-known landmarks, the tour highlighted lesser-known streets, workshops, and inventive traditions. College students guided members via the neighborhood whereas discussing artwork, craftsmanship, and sustainable cultural consumption, providing a extra considerate strategy to interact with the town.
Initiatives 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 develop into new areas of engagement tied to internationally acknowledged consciousness days.
College students will work on two essential tasks:
Worldwide Ladies’s Day (March 8)
- College students will design an initiative centered on gender equality and girls’s roles in tradition and society. Via instructional occasions or community-based actions, college students will discover how world 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 study how sports activities can foster dialogue, well-being, and group 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 steerage from school and native companions.
Shifting 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 have interaction deeply with the place they’re residing in. It challenges the thought of examine overseas as passive consumption and reframes it as participation, accountability, and connection.
For college students who need their time overseas to have goal—who need to be taught whereas contributing to the group round them—this course presents a robust mannequin. It exhibits how world concepts like sustainability and citizenship take form on the native stage, and the way college students themselves may be energetic members in that course of.
Ultimately, Florence turns into greater than a metropolis to go to. It turns into a classroom—one the place studying occurs via expertise, collaboration, and repair.
