Our school is a Liceo Scientifico ( Secondary school specializing in scientific studies), our students range from 14 to 19 years of age.

Their total number is about 820. The school building is set in a town of 17.000 inhabitants, surrounded by four other towns of the same size, where the students come from. Scordia is 50 minutes far from Syracuse, 30 minutes from Catania, 45 from Caltagirone, 20 from the Jonio sea and the Natural Reservation "Oasis of the Simeto river". The natural park of Etna is 40 minutes far, Taormina is 55 minutes far.

            Our town is an agricultural centre with one of the most important intensive citrus industries in Italy. We are proud to say that our oranges are the sweetest in the world. The climate is mild Mediterranean: in winter the temperature never goes below 0° C.

The agricultural crisis has increased the economic problems of these towns giving life to gigantic phenomena of juvenile unemployment, accompanied by expressions of uneasiness like scholastic abandonment or drug addiction. In these contexts subjects and occasions of cultural growth have often absent, associations of category, local corporate body, have not developed a role of efficient contrast to a crisis that invests in the first place the sense of cultural identity of the young generations; the school itself has been interpreted, and at times it has chosen to be a place of transmission of knowledge, or worse, a place of wait, in a climate of general mistrust and resignation toward every possibility of ransom and raising of the young people. The high school contributes to answer the demands of the territory with the activation of circuits able to open the use to different and distant social contexts (twinnings, exchanges, etc) and the realization of projects that favour the acquisition and the expansion of linguistic competence in general (computer courses, dramatization, literary-artistic-scientific contests) in addition to guarantee the realization of the normal curricula. The school is the only government superior institute of the town and it involves pupils coming from nearby towns such as Miltello V.C., Ramacca, Palagonia, Castel of Judica. For these towns Scordia and the school represent a point of reference and a centre of ferment of the social and cultural comparisons of the district.  In our school there are handicapped people (about 10). From the didactic point of view, there are four main courses of study:

SCIENTIFIC - based on the deep connection between science and humanistic knowledge Scientific methods and procedures are studied without forgetting the function of the language as intermediary in the description of reality. Mathematics and experimental sciences have a basic cultural and didactic role. The humanistic area has been given great importance, too, so to allow the students to acquire an overall historical and cultural vision of human society.

 BILINGUALISM - The study of two foreign languages (French and English) gives the students the chance to acquire a linguistic and communicative competence.

 Social - psychological – pedagogical - This course provides our students with the cultural basis and the skills to continue their studies in the field of teaching or in the social one.

2. the institute has begun to deal with cultural exchanges in 1998 when two projects of exchanges of classes have been realized that have involved over 40 students and that have seen the pupils of the Sint Ludgardiss School of Merksem Anversa for twice guests of families of students of Scordia and our students guests of Belgian families. The experience was fantastic for all the components and was  organized out of the program Socrates with the help of the local corporate body, municipality of Scordia, of the Corporate tourist body of the province of Catania.. It participates to ELOS: didactic project in partnership with Eijkhagencollege of Landgraaf (NL) + Boggio Lera in Catania (CT) + Urola Ikastola (Countries Basque) + Newport Free Grammar School (United Kingdom), whose objective  consists in the revision of the curricula, of the didactics one of the varied subjects and of the organizational and managerial order with the purpose to direct the students toward a more concrete and aware European spirit, also in the respect of national identities. Other similar 13 groups exist, coordinated  by as many Dutch schools that work with the same methods for a total of about 70 schools of every European nation; Moreover the institute belongs to an international network of schools with which shares experiences of exchanges between pupils for the formation of a spirit and a European conscience  (www.euroschoolnet2000.org).   In June 2005 we took part in an international music festival organized by the school of Sternberk in Czech Republic.

3. the institute intends to establish some relationships of exchange of ideas and opinions between teachers and students of different countries, but above all to operate some comparisons in methodological-didactic circle.

The priority objectives, coherently with the P.O.F. of institute  will be: 

To build a European common curriculum for basic aspects  of the  European citizen in disciplines such as history, geography, law and economy (civic education), religion, and. environmental education for the first three classes of the course of high studies. 

To develop a European conscience 

To improve linguistic competences and communicativeness 

Promoting the knowledge and the use of new technologies in the teaching-learning both of the mother language and the foreign languages 

To activate new strategies to improve the effectiveness of the didactic practices 

The take part in the activities of the project, guarantees the opportunity to know and to appreciate a civilization, a different socio-cultural reality, developing a spirit of tolerance at the same time, the promotion of the intercultural education with the reception of linguistic and cultural minorities. The collaboration for the preparation of the project of teachers of different disciplines other than the foreign languages is a fundamental part, because the job that will be developed within the project will be integrated in normal scholastic activities and it is part of ordinary curricular activity  and therefore subject to an in itinere and final evaluation of the single teachers and of the class council itself in the final poll, and they will result in a portfolio of the student. The divulgation of the experience lived directly by the pupils, by the teachers and by the scholastic personnel in general, and by the parents, too will have to arouse interest and curiosity turned to the discovery of different civilization from theirs and  also promote in the others the attainment of new horizons through the search of sources with the use of the new technologies of the communication and the information (for ex. internet). The final products, page, video, poster and brochure, will be divulged in the school on the occasion of shows, conferences or lectures. 

4. the whole teaching staff in their planning and in daily scholastic work, the Headmaster assisted by the staff of Presidency (Vicar, collaborators, Instrumental Functions to the POF of Institute, the heads of Department), the Institute Council, the exchanges committee, the Teachers Council. In this project teachers of Chemistry and Biology are involved who settle the timetable and define the priorities, then English teachers who co-ordinate translations and communication with our partners.