It all starts with a mysterious wooden box handed out in a classroom and ends with a group of four-year-olds interpreting a 17th century Flemish painting at the Mdina Cathedral Museum.

It all starts with a mysterious wooden box.

The activity, quite innovative for Malta, is meant to increase children’s cultural capital and help them make sense of traditions and symbols which they could otherwise take for granted.

The mind behind the activity, associate professor Adrian-Mario Gellel, said life was so fast-paced these days that people no longer had time for interaction with their surroundings, to the detriment of their cultural knowledge.

At the same time, the digital era provides an information overload, making it difficult to distinguish between knowledge and wisdom. In fact, he said, educational systems gave more importance to factual knowledge, but in real life, wisdom often came in handier.

The Symbol Literacy project is meant to help children develop their observation, thinking and creative skills, among others.

The aim is to help them recognise, read and interpret these symbols and metaphors wherever they are and in whatever form they are in.  The project has been going on for some four years and it all kicked off when Prof Gellel urged his university students to incorporate the surroundings within their educational material.

When he was met with scepticism, Prof Gellel decided to give it a go with one kindergarten class.

The activity was soon picked up by the whole school. Nowadays 14 schools participate in the project, which includes an activity in the old capital organised with the support of Mdina Cathedral Museum.

Yesterday, a group of kindergarten two pupils from the San Ġwann St Francis School headed to Mdina seeking “a soldier in shining armour and a pair of wings”.

They were told he would be in a building “with a large green door and two statues on the facade”.

The information was provided in a wooden box they were given last week, inside of which they found a paper man, a sword, armour, a shield and a pair of wings.

In Mdina, they used their observational skills and looked out for the green door.  Several activities later, they spotted a Flemish painting of St Michael hanging on one of the walls of the Cathedral Museum, where they were told a story of bad and good.

The ‘soldier’ was eventually spotted in a 17th century painting at the Mdina Cathedral Museum.

Young students expressing themselves on paper.