In the context of the YEC project, the class 2H of Istituto Leonardo da Vinci was involved in two educational sessions, one in their classroom and one at the Archives. On both occasions, both members of the HAEU Educational Programme and researchers from the University of Florence and EUI, participating to the YEC project, collaborated to guide the educational activities. In the first meeting in the classroom, held on 14 December 2023, the students were invited to participate in two activities. The first one was devoted to a collective discussion regarding the history of the European integration, the significance of the EU, and their personal opinions and thoughts on the Union. The second, more technical, was focused on the EU institutions. In order to support this activity, members of the Educational Programme and researchers predisposed educational boxes, one per EU institution, which contained a series of documents and objects related to one specific institution. Such boxes contained, for examples, pictures of the buildings hosting the EU institutions, typical documents produced by the institutions, illustrations of the composition of each institution. During the visit at the HAEU, held on 2 February 2024, the class was welcomed back by the same members of the Educational Programme and researchers to continue the activities started in the first meeting. As a preparatory activity for this second meeting, the students were asked to choose some family objects which they deemed significant for their family histories. Accordingly, students described these objects by filling up a dedicated template prepared by the HAEU Educational Programme. During their visit to the HAEU, the students were invited to tell the stories of the chosen objects and, together with their classmates and with the help of educators, find a link between these stories and European history with the aim of obtaining a greater awareness of their belonging to a broader collective history. By way of example, some of the chosen family objects were a Ukrainian and a Chinese flag, the picture of a tractor in Romania, Philippine, Peruvian, and Moroccan currencies, old Romanian currency. Especially considering the multicultural composition of the class, links to broader EU history referred, for example, to EU migration policies and the history of European citizenship, the birth of an EU-distinctive currency, the prospects of EU enlargements. During their visits to the HAEU, the students also had the opportunity to talk with the archivist Andrea Becherucci, to visit the deposits where the historical sources are preserved, and to work in groups on educational dossiers prepared by the Educational Programme. Namely, such dossiers consisted of copies of real sources conserved at the Archives, organised according to subject-matters such as the women's participation in the EU construction, the EU citizenship, the EU Common Agricultural Policy, a European education path, Europe as a peace-building project. Starting from these dossiers, students were asked to critically interpret available sources, reflect on the subject-matter, and report to their classmates. Based on the activities proposed during the two meetings, the discussions held starting from the chosen family objects, and the visit to the deposits of the HAEU, the students, together with the other classes of the same Institute that took part to the YEC project, were invited to set up a final exhibition in the auditorium of their school in order to present to the whole high school the products of their educational experience. Drawing on the materials provided by the HAEU, specifically the panels of the "Europe and Europeans 1950>2020: 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration" exhibition, and on further elaborations guided by their teachers and supervised by the HAEU Educational Programme, the students presented their work in the form of figurative panels, drawings, texts, and oral presentations during a final exhibition in June 2024.

Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Romanian, Spanish

Artifact, Photograph