The model for Autonomy and Curricular Flexibility proposed to schools under Decree-Law No. 55/2018 will stimulate the operationalisation of the “Skills profile aimed at for students at the end of compulsory schooling”, through more flexible curricular management that could be transformed into educational practices that are more motivated and contextualised. Consequently, it is fundamental to identify and/or create local educational resources that serve these purposes, as well as to develop suitable methodologies and dynamics in order to achieve this additional form of curricular development.

The Postgraduate Course in Education, Science and Local Heritage is aimed at responding to these challenges, contributing towards the trainees developing and broadening the expertise, skills and attitudes that this pedagogical experiment requires, including skills associated with the promotion of cooperative practices, monitoring and assessment.

Based on the principles of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary education, the course syllabus fosters an integrated approach to local heritage and to science, seeking to train the students in educational practices in different contexts, encouraging the various types of literacy and with an emphasis on hands-on/minds-on activities in the natural environment. This course is considered to be of particular relevance not only due to its innovative character in terms of the implementation of Autonomy and Curricular Flexibility, but also because it takes advantage of local heritage — biological, geological, historical and cultural — which has enormous educational potential.