Lessons in Happiness: An incredible journey to teach children to love nature through drawing.

"Since we're stuck at home and can't come to you, why don't we paint online, using the computer and Skype?It was the month of March and the Covid-19 pandemic had turned our way of life upside down, forcing us all, young and old, into a long quarantine at home, when Matteo, According to the e Mathias They found a simple way to continue pursuing their passion: draw together, even if remotely, connected through a computer screen. A passion that, thanks to the help of a special teacher, Fabrizio Carbone, journalist and writer, has turned into a lesson in happiness, or rather in eleven lessons of happiness, an incredible journey which gave birth to a book (Lessons in Happiness – Pandion Edizioni) with the works of the 18 participants aged between 4 and 10.

LESSONS IN HAPPINESS

Day after day, Matteo, Theo and Mathias were joined by Anna, Aurora, Diana, Edoardo, Elio, Gaia, Giorgio, Giovanni, Giulia, Leo, Lucia, Merahil, Nicolas, Sofia e Vittoria.

Absolute protagonist of the drawings of the children: the nature, its wonderful landscapes and the animals that inhabit it. The Lessons of Happiness are also an important opportunity to raise awareness among children about respecting the extraordinary biodiversity that characterizes our planet. Fabrizio Carbone, a traveler and environmentalist, has had the opportunity to visit many countries in his long career as a journalist and report for RAI in the Amazon, Costa Rica, Norway, Finland, and England. Thus, in each lesson, painting was combined with notions of geography, history, and zoology, along with stories that allowed the imagination to travel from one end of the world to the other, reaching the Sahara Desert, the Arctic forests, the African savannah, the coasts of Alaska, or our Alps.

Day after day, the children learned to painting nature using the power of imagination, even drawing animals that are difficult to create in a very short time such as the uromastyx, the narwhal or the okapi, a truly particular animal, part giraffe and part zebra.

ALSO READ: In Iceland, a plaque commemorates the Okjökull glacier, which disappeared due to climate change.

LESSONS IN HAPPINESS FABRIZIO CARBONE

The first story, "set" with great enthusiasm by Matteo, Theo and Mathias, was that of the "battle between the giant squid and the sperm whale". A timeless journey, between legend and mystery, into the deepest depths of the ocean. Then, it was the turn of theNorth Africa The children imagined reaching it with a special plane: the wind. They also acted as archaeologists. Under Fabrizio's expert guidance, they set out to discover ancient Paleolithic graffiti and paintings.

And then theSouth America, where the longest river in the world flows. A lesson in happiness in which the young students discovered and drew the pink dolphin, the toucan, the howler monkey, and the pirarucú, a giant fish (it can reach a length of three meters and weigh 180 kilograms) that is at risk of extinction.

After having travelled, with my imagination, almost three thousand kilometres from Rome to Arctic Circle, the young artists lost themselves in the dancing lights of the Northern Lights and walked through a birch forest where they also met the great grey owl and the brown bear.

TO KNOW MORE: The magic of the Northern Lights, a breathtaking natural spectacle, with incredible colors and mysterious sounds.

A leap in Alaska between whales and icebergs and then the Incubuswhere the golden eagle soars and ibex, deer, and marmots roam free. A journey filled with spruces and squirrels peeking through the branches.

To reach the Toscana , Orbetello lagoon, we decided to rent, using our imagination, a mega minibus. Once they arrived at their destination, the children had the wonderful opportunity to hear from Fabio Cianchi, manager of the WWF oases of Burano, Orbetello, and Rocconi, a beautiful and wooded area, about the migrations of various bird species during the different seasons. This encounter resulted in beautiful drawings of herons, flamingos, northern bald ibises, and even the black-winged stilt, a protected species with its extremely long legs.

Stories rich in emotion and important moments in which children managed to stay in touch and socialize even in a difficult period like the one we all experienced between March and May 2020. Stories that will soon give rise to new lessons in happiness..

"Lessons in happiness” contains more than 300 drawings made by children and will be on sale starting from Christmas 2020.

HOW TO SAVE NATURE AND ANIMALS:

• In Trentino, on the Presena, geotextile sheets that save the ice from melting during the summer
• Val di Vara: discovering Italy's greenest valley and Europe's first organic village.
• Bordalo II, the artist who transforms waste into works of art, to save nature and animals.
• Recovering an ancient, completely abandoned olive grove and enhancing the area: the challenge won by Paola, Emanuela and Antonella.
• Sonny Richichi, from a permanent job to mud on his boots. To save abused horses.