Opening to the public with services of fruition and education

The farms of Hortus Gymnasium open to the public offering booked guided tours and educational activities. The guided tours are prepared with interactive components. We want to testify and disclose how, through “smart”agricultural practices, we can affect the maintenance of the territory and the quality of life of local populations. Agricultural practice has always played a key role in the preservation and care of natural heritage, directly affecting the protection of the environment. The use of educational services offered by the farm is, however, aimed at all age groups. Various educational workshops, particularly suitable for children and young people, were designed so that they can take part in the activities carried out by the operators, soiling their hands to understand, through practical experience, what characterizes life in the countryside and thus establishes a direct relationship with the environment. The cultivation plan in the estates called “Vigna di valle”, Latium, and “Via in Rose”, Calabria, covers essentially productive plants, which are used for the sample collections destined for food, aromatic or medicinal production. The educational entertainment activities proposed by Hortus Gymnasium aim to explain the value of the “secrets” cultivation of useful plants, orally passed from generation to generation. Since the beginning of time, man has resorted to spontaneous fruits, herbs, roots and tubers to procure daily food, then he learned to cultivate plants to use them. In support of the scientific and didactic value of the contents, the tour was coordinated with the Botanical Pharmacy Chair of the University of Salerno and with the Primary school system of the town of Rose. It is significant to remember that “Via in Rose” agricultural estate hosted, immediately after World War II, the elementary school of the area of which remains a ruin, safeguarded and embedded in the “green garden”, which represents the evocative backdrop.