Earth sciences on the field: educational applications for the comprehension of landscape evolution

The aim of this paper is to collect and present some educational applications dedicated to the observation and comprehension of the relief and physical landscape evolution at different temporal and spatial scales. The activities were based on the direct contact with the geological-geomorphological contexts. The presented proposals, some of which have been already tested on students of the secondary school of first level, concern: i) the realization of open-air laboratory activities in the alpine environment; in particular simplified dendrochronological procedures were used on scanned wood samples of trees located on deposits and landforms from different origin, to achieve a better comprehension of the modelling process and evolution during time of the physical landscape; ii) the analysis of the fluvial landforms and deposits in educational valued sites to highlight concepts of structural control on fluvial landscape and paleogeography; iii) the observation of sport-climbing walls and of the dependence of progression on the geological and geomorphological structures in order to approach lithotypes and glacial erosion landforms. The link with the concept of geomorphological hazard represented finally an occasion for education to risk. The educational activities herein illustrated represent pilot proposals where fieldwork demonstrated to be essential to fix geological and geomorphological concepts.