Successful joint contact for schools in Milano and San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, with Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA

Wednesday, 15 November, 2017 at 11:36 UTC, 12:36 local time, students at Carmelita Manara, Milano and I.C. “Pascoli Forgione”, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy established a combined ARISS contacts with ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli IZØJPA, onboard the International Space Station.

This was a telebridge contact performed by Amateur radio ground station K6DUE located Silver Spring, MD, USA.

The “Carmelita Manara” School owns to bigger comprehensive institute Morosini- Savoia.
Here is a very rich social contest, different cultures that can be found in the school itself.
The school is in a green zone and is quite near to the center. The children and teenagers and their needs are what we care for most. What we would like to do is:
-develop their curiosity and their interests for subjects;
-help them transfer what they know from one field to another;
-develop their commitments, their sense of responsibility and their self-confidence;
-teach them how to cooperate accepting different points of view;
-make them aware school is a place where they can be they are and where they will be listened to.
The first commitment of the school is to give students a friendly environment and to help them to overcame difficulties and enhance their capacities and individual skills. Our institute organizes supporting activity and courses. There are two coucellors in order to help guys, if needed, to stay better at school. We have a new fully equipped gym, a library with also a book crossing station, a recently restructured science laboratory, an auditorium in wich we can do many activities as the tare, choir and conventions to form teacher and parents. We also have a vegetable-botanic garden where we teach our student rihtms of year and we take care of the important contact with earth. It is a very important didactic activity. In the garden is also possible to organize observation of sky by using telescopes (12-14).

I.C. “Pascoli Forgione”, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy
Istituto Comprensivo "Pascoli Forgione” was born in the school year 2009/2010 as part of a sizing operation that created new Comprehensive Schools, aggregating schools of different orders of the same municipal territory. It is situated in San Giovanni Rotondo, a Southern Italian town in the province of Foggia and it is used to work in a context which is typical of small towns. The Institute that includes about 800 students from the Kindergarten, and the Primary School to the Low Secondary school pursues the aim of a better and more consistent training process aimed to children from 3 to 13. Our students belong to different social, cultural and economic backgrounds.
On the pedagogical level, the Istituto Comprensivo "Pascoli Forgione”, for its structures, carries out the didactic educational continuity between the three types of schools. Teachers have the possibility to know and follow the educational process from the entrance of the Kindergarten up to the final examination of middle school; they exchange important information on the characteristics of learning and the evaluation of pupils. They have also experienced forms of collaboration among the three grade levels, with constitution of "open teams" and the launching of integrated projects with particular reference to Physical Education, Music Education, Maths and Science and Foreign Languages. In fact the school is a Trinity Centre for language assessment, a Sports Centre in collaboration with the different Sports Societies of the province, we collaborate with Kangourou for English Competition, with Bocconi University for Maths competitions and with the ANISN (National Association of Natural Science Teachers) for Science Competitions. Moreover for its various projects and involvement Istituto Comprensivo “Pascoli Forgione” can be classified as a “school of the territory”, because it interacts intensively with local authorities, associations, families, volunteers and cultural institutions.

Mentors Francesco De Paolis IKØWGF and Gianpietro Ferraio IZØGOJ proposed to the Radio Contact coordinators a joint contact and proposed both schools to share the event, alternating questions from both sites. Mr. Marco Bruno IK1ODO / AI4YF and Mr. Michele Mallardi, IZ7EVR, coordinating the events, agreed and set up a joint contact. The questions were read by students, alternatively, by Carmelita Manara, Milano and I.C. “Pascoli Forgione”, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.

Contact was established at 11:36 UTC, 12:36 local time, with NA1SS. Astronaut Paolo Nespoli answered 23 questions. Before LOS exchanged the greetings with both schools. Signals from the ISS was loud and clear during whole pass.
More than 300 students, parents, visitors and media attended to both schools.

Regional Television, local media and newspapers covered the event.

73 de Francesco - IKØWGF & Gianpietro - IZ2GOJ

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