The SELECT project aims to enhance the study of ancient history and geography by means of the multidisciplinary, multilayered, interactive and user-friendly self-learning ATLAS of the cultures of old Europe before Romanisation. The ancient peoples outside the Greek-Roman world are the "minorities of the past", whose heritage is often neglected in the school system. The ATLAS will provide the European citizens with an overall view of the most ancient European heritage, which will be objectified on a map, a powerful visual tool in learning the past. The map refers to a territory which, in the present as well as in the past, continuously develops and changes its borders. Two are the main OBJECTIVES of SELECT: - increasing in European citizenship a deeper awareness of the common European cultural outside the Greek-Latin world. The SELECT project assumes as most relevant to reconstruct the overall historical geography of peoples settled in ancient Europe, which have let a written sign of their presence. A chronological range from the oldest written documents in the 8th century BC up to the Romanization era (2nd-1st c BC) is set. The geographical area covered includes all the European countries where written documents are known in the chronological framework set above: Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Greece (excluding the Greek dialects) and European Turkey. - providing the European educational systems with a self-learning tool for the study of the ancient world, boosting at the same time their digital competence. As suggested by the European guidelines "New Skills Agenda for Europe" (2016), in a continuously changing digital society the educational system is strongly encouraged to develop autonomous learning and self-guidance competences. The importance of the digital cultural heritage in building the competences of the 21st century has been recently highlighted by Europeana and by the European Schoolnet Academy. In this framework, the development of a comprehensive ATLAS of the languages, writings and cultures of ancient Europe will support the autonomous learning of younger citizens on these topics. The Project partnership consists of high profile research and educational institutions and technological SME, with validated expertise in the fields required for the project. The partners are the three Universities of Genoa (IT), Zaragoza (SP) and Poznan (PL), two research centres, Ausonius-CNRS (FR) and Alteritas (IT), two High Schools, in Świdnik (PL) and El Pont de Suert (SP) and two technological partners, F|E|F (FI) and NCLOUD (IT). The project will take advantage of three Associated Partners: the Musée Champollion de l'Écriture of Figeac (FR), the University Library system of Liguria Region (I) and the French Association of teachers of classical humanities CNARELA. The University of Genoa, with expertise on Sociology, Educational Sciences, Didactics and Cultural Geography and thanks to its large experience in leading European projects, is the best candidate to lead SELECT, whose targets are in the first place the students and the teachers of the High School system. Additionally, four of the partners have already been involved in a COST Action dealing with the "Ancient European Languages and Writings" (2015-2019). DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES and METHODOLOGY The project is spread over three years and consists of three main phases. In the first phase, all the partners will be called to scouting the best strategies to develop the 'core' of the project, the ATLAS, accordingly to different target groups (students, teachers and citizens). In the second phase, the multidisciplinary teams of the scientific institutions will supply the Geographic Information System Platform created by the two technological partners with linguistics, epigraphic, religious, mythological, archaeological features and with aspects of Romanization/Hellenisation of the geographical areas covered. The last project phase will be devoted to testing activities and improvement of the ATLAS. The School teachers and the students will be called to test the ATLAS by means of a hackathon and a qualitative questionnaire, finding out all possible bugs and malfunctioning of the provisional ATLAS release. RESULTS AND IMPACT Three Intellectual Outputs are envisaged for the project: the web application of the ATLAS, in which all the partners are involved, the Guidelines for Teachers for the use of the ATLAS and the Student's Booklet for Students. These last outputs will be published as e-books on the SELECT website and on the schools' websites. All the Intellectual Output will be published in English and in other 6 languages, thus allowing a wide diffusion of the project's results throughout Europe. The great number of international partnerships and worldwide contacts of all the scientific institutions involved in the project will ensure a wide diffusion of SELECT's results also outside Europe.
The SELECT partnership aimed at achieve 4 objectives: Ob1. More reliable maps to describe the peoples who settled in Europe before the Roman era. Existing maps of the ancient European world are often not scientifically detailed, do not provide a diachronic or thematic overview and neglect the pre-Roman period. Ob2. Provide the education system with a digital tool that can promote autonomous learning and the ability to self-regulate for all students and citizens. Ob3. Promote the multiculturalism and the sense of the European belonging. Ob4. Strengthen the links between the participating organisations (academies and non-academies), educational, cultural and administrative bodies at local, national and international level.
The project SELECT focuses on the cultures of ancient Europe before Romanisation. The ancient peoples outside the Greco-Roman world are the "minorities of the past" whose heritage is often neglected by most of the European education system. An understanding of ancient European history is crucial for today's multicultural societies. With the aim of contributing to the improvement of the study of history and geography, an innovative, multidisciplinary, multi-layered, interactive tool (ATLAS) has been created. It can be used for self-study and/or as a complementary tool in class to fill historical, educational, and cultural gaps. In addition, ATLAS with the languages, scripts and cultures of ancient Europe also encourages citizens to learn about these topics on their own. In summary, SELECT addressed two key needs: - To increase European citizens' awareness of the common European cultural heritage outside the Greco-Latin world by reconstructing the entire historical geography of the peoples who settled in ancient Europe and left a written sign of their presence. - To provide European education systems with a self-learning tool for the study of the ancient world while promoting their digital literacy, as proposed in the European Guidelines “New Skills Agenda for Europe”. Understanding ancient European history is vital for today's multicultural societies. Across Europe, a common heritage should regain importance to foster mutual understanding.