Institution
University of Perugia - Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences

Web Site
http://dsa3.unipg.it/en/

Factual description
The workshops were carried out in an Italian case study (Perugia) involving 288 children of an elementary school. The children, aged 5–10 years, were the participants, 37 university students (studying urban planning, urban green design, and participatory processes) were the moderators of the workshops and the experts on sustainable retrofitting of urban green areas, on design principles of playgrounds’ equipment and participatory processes (with the assistance of two university teachers). The elementary and university students were the designers of the regeneration of the school playground.
The participatory process was organized in 7 workshops distributed in six months in the logic of a continuous process during and between workshops to obtain a slow but solid learning, supported by the elementary school teachers. The method plans three class-by-class workshops, two workshops between parallel classes (children of the same age), and two workshops in plenary sessions. The method uses selected university students as experts to transfer knowledge and to evaluate the technical feasibility of the proposals, and other university students as moderators to help the children "to produce knowledge about themselves”.

Relevance in complex systems
To thoroughly understand complexity is pivotal to experience it first-hand. Often, university students lack in problem-solving competencies necessary to address complex issues because they are not directly exposed to the variety and heterogeneity of a community's needs interacting with its working and living spaces.

Strong points
Working on a real-life case study really helped the students in understanding the inherent complexity of planning and design a school playground. The fact that the students have directly experienced such a space in their childhood and the necessity to operate not only as students but also as experts and facilitators truly helped in keeping them always engaged. Another strong point is the involvement of heterogeneous groups of participants spanning from school children, school teachers, university students, university teachers. This approach can help in creating stimulating and emergent processes.

Transferability potential
The paper in which the experience is fully explained (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871187118300786?via%3Dihub) offers many practical suggestions to replicate the methodology, which is highly transferrable, even to different thematic areas.