Focus presents the new Academy and webinars dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030
A full house for the first three digital workshops of the Focus Junior Academy 2021
Focus, the Mondadori Group brand, leader in popular science and a point of reference for science and current affairs, is launching new initiatives for students, teachers and users in 2021.
Next month sees the launch of Focus Academy, a new project by Focus and Focus Storia aimed at attracting kids from second level high schools to science and history with online training activities, in line with the alternating school/work programmes outlined in the relevant convention.
At the heart of this year’s programme are the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030, a 360° awareness building plan that will involve the magazine, with special detailed coverage, the web, with the multimedia content of Focus.it, and, from February, a series of monthly webinars open to all with scientists and experts, to stimulate debate and develop awareness among the young about the actions necessary for our future and based around six issues identified by the editorial team: the risks to biodiversity; health; discrepancies in the distribution of energy; more sustainable cities; food for all; the risks to oceans; climate change.
“For Focus adopting the UN goals is only natural, given that they are about saving our planet, scientific and technological development, and the quality of human life,” explained Raffaele Leone, editor of Focus and Focus Storia. “The issues we have selected are part of the magazine’s DNA given our long-standing support for environmental sustainability, medical and technological research and the protection of biodiversity. That all of this coincides with the launch of the Academy is an added value. Kids are extremely aware of these issues. Indeed, they are an authentic driving force for governments and research. They expect that we adults commit to reducing our environmental impact and outline new ways of pursuing these aims. To discuss these issues with them will provide an added stimulus also for us.”
The classes that enrol at the Academy will connect once a week, for four weeks, with the editorial teams of Focus and Focus Storia, to experience, live, the creation of a popular science and history magazine. The students will be actively involved and will have the opportunity to try writing articles or conducting interviews that will then be selected by the team for eventual publication in subsequent issues of Focus.
Also Focus Junior, the brand for children between the ages of 8 and 12 who want to have fun discovering the world in a new and intelligent way, has adopted the UN Agenda by proposing for the Focus Junior Academy digital workshops dedicated to eight of the 2030 goals: health and wellbeing; quality education; clean and accessible energy; industry, innovation and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities; underwater life; life on earth; and the partnership for goals.
The project, now in its third year, is designed to provide additional tools to assist the syllabus of primary and middle schools, in line also with recent directives which from this year include inter-disciplinary civic education. During the encounters, pupils will work in class on a detailed multimedia journalistic project with the editorial team that will be published on the Focus Junior web site and magazine. The January, February and March appointments of the Focus Junior Academy are already fully booked, with the participation of more than 150 pupils for each workshop.
Finally, for teachers, a series of webinars and monographs have been put together by Focus Scuola, the monthly magazine that supports primary and middle school teachers with the best teaching advice and suggestions to look more closely at the issues related to the UN Agenda 2030 and innovative teaching practices, though ideas, and best practice from experts in the sector.
“In this period of great uncertainty and social upheaval, Focus Junior has decided to reinforce its role in support of children and early teens in an effort to accompany them in their progress towards being future citizens,” said Sarah Pozzoli, editor of Focus Junior and Focus Scuola. “Our objective has become that of trying to ensure that education goes beyond knowledge and skills and is a method for creating a new forma mentis in order to imagine a more sustainable world, that is also more peaceful and free of social, gender and racial discrimination, in line with the guidelines of the UN’s Agenda 2030. And we will do this in our usual style and learning-by-doing approach, while stimulating curiosity and a sense of irony.”
This is how the Focus system is further reinforcing its offer in the education sector: from collaboration with institutions and companies, to school-based projects involving students, families, schools and teachers, and successfully developing activities and events that speak directly to the protagonists of the world of education thanks to an innovative and engaging didactic vision.
Focus is Italy’s most widely read magazine, with a total audience of 7 million readers and users (Source: Nielsen media impact data fusion, April 2020) and 2.9 million followers on social media channels (Source: Shareablee, November 2020).
Focus Junior is a point of reference in the world of kids, with an average monthly circulation of 100,000 copies (Source: Ads, Jan-Sep 2020), 589,000 unique users per month on its web site (Source: Audiweb, Jan-Oct 2020) and a community of 140,000 fans on social media (Source: Shareablee, November 2020).
For information and enrolments: