REM – vol. 3, no. 1, June 2011
introduction to a healthy nutrition and the early writing stages: drawing up of the story and script/storyboard. In the first year, 2008/2009, the workshops were aimed at both teachers and students, and were both carried out by experts in media education, with the participation of nutrition and health experts. In the second year, 2009/2010, only teachers were involved in the workshop directly conducted by the experts of media education, with the participation of nutrition and health experts. However, upon conclusion of the workshops, the teachers carried on with the activities in class, helped in some sections by the experts using the on-line platform that had been set up for this purpose14 and where media products could be deposited.15 Altogether a total of 130 products designed for healthy nutrition promotion (see Table 1) were created by teachers and students, using different techniques and formats: cartoon, animated power point, short film, animated fable, photograph book, video report, commercial, documentary fiction, video interview. The products were then assessed by a jury of experts and young people, with the award of a monetary prize to the schools where the best products were made, in keeping with three criteria: relevance with regard to the problem of healthy nutrition, innovation, and communicative efficacy.16 Each time, the activities of the two projects (2008/2009 – 2009/2010) were completed by staging two great events (Vicenza, May 2009 – Padua, June 2010) which hosted about 1500 primary and lower secondary school children, together with their teachers, coming from all over Veneto. During these events, the school products were awarded prizes. All the media works were collected in two CDs (Cibo intelligente I – Cibo intelligente II) and distributed to all the schools involved in the project. Moreover, the overall training action was monitored using two questionnaires, one to discover the eating habits of participants, the other to check if the primary objective of the action had been achieved — to understand the importance of healthy eating and of a healthy lifestyle. This questionnaire 14
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This activity has not produced satisfactory results, because the teachers were reluctant to use the platform, and preferred interacting with experts through e-mail, leading us to revise the project and include specific training for the use of the platform. a specific section was created within “alimentinsalute”. This section contains all the media products made by the school teachers and students of the Region of Veneto for the project “cibo intelligente” (http://www.alimentinsalute.it/scuola/progetti-realizzati; http://www.alimentinsalute.it/scuola/progetti). Two prizes were awarded for teachers and students of primary and lower secondary school: the amount for the first prize was € 500.00, the second prize was € 300.00. it was also awarded a special prize of € 500.00 for the best product realized by the classes, whose teachers participated to the training workshops.
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