Thesaurus of Child Ecology
Thesaurus of Child Ecology shows what happens when children contribute to designing their own school books.
The volume is a reader of ecology as a school subject and a practical tool showing how the ecology of images works as a method for learning collectively. At the heart of the book are 250 cards, divided into three colour-coded categories: Names, Things, and Uses. Names offer concise definitions of key concepts in ecology. Things contain synopses of texts written between 300 BCE and 2020 that relate to those concepts. Uses present exercises designed to activate and connect names and things through practical engagement. Together, these cards function like the components of a living thesaurus—where meaning is discovered through use, relation, and context.
Students engage with practical exercises (Uses), then learn about the background to these same exercises (Things) and finally they grasp the complex concepts behind the actions and readings they have completed (Names). In the classroom, students can thread the cards together with sample holders to build collaborative installations and tapestries—each configuration representing a unique ecology of ideas. No single narrative governs the connections; rather, each child constructs their own semantic habitat, revealing how multiple interpretations can grow from a common set of elements.
With regards to form, the book’s appearance and structure are entirely based on the feedback provided by a class of 24 children who attended a workshop cycle held between 2023 and 2025 in Castiglione delle Stiviere, Italy. Initially designed by educators, the book reflected an adult view of what a school book should be, replicating what already happens in academia. The children expressed very specific desires as to how their school book should look like, which led to a change in the contents’ order, to house the material in a soft-cover, to include both images and texts, to reduce the amount of content per page, to use colour and adopt a serif typeface.
The book poses questions about the role of publishing in education. Who decides what knowledge is printed? Do books need to be printed at all these days? Can children co-author their learning tools? These are practical inquiries, grounded in workshops where students explored how ideas migrate, how images prompt discussion, and how learning can be documented as a living archive—how information can be reshuffled, recycled, and repurposed, not only as a book, but also as an exhibition, a game, a theory, or a shared gesture.
Other than read, the book can be mounted as a wall tapestry with the staple holders on the cover.
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Size: A5
Page: 250
Year: 2025
Language: English & Italian
Publishing: Shibboleth