The content of the project is rooted in the collective experience of the Great Famine, a phenomenon that severely affected Ireland and the Dalmatian coast, together with its hinterland, in the 19th century. The failure of potato crops in Ireland and agrarian crises in the sub-Biokovo and coastal Makarska region caused famine, migration, and chronic poverty. To survive, local communities developed sustainable strategies for land use and natural resource management, relying on transhumant pastoralism, seasonal agriculture, and environmental knowledge. Traditional land management was based on limited arable land, crop cultivation such as cabbage, potatoes, and cereals, and the use of local materials such as stone, straw, and clay. This type of economy shaped a specific cultural landscape and rich traditional ecological knowledge, passed down through generations and based on experience, observation of nature, and collective labour.
On the premise that local communities endured thanks to sustainable land use and natural resource management, the project draws the hypothesis that traditional practices, transferred into a contemporary educational framework through experiential learning, can be used to preserve heritage, traditional knowledge, and sustainable resource management, and serve as a model of resilience to future food and environmental challenges. Through a strong educational component and activities carried out via the Student Research Hub, Open Lab Hour, and Erasmus+ mobility programmes, the project integrates fieldwork, digital methods such as 3D modelling and GIS analysis, and a research-based approach into the teaching process. This combination of practical work, digitalisation, and research creates a modern educational platform that enhances students’ competences, encourages innovative approaches to heritage preservation, and enables knowledge transfer while strengthening international collaboration within the EU-CONEXUS network and towards the target user groups. The project directly benefits the local community through a public culinary and cultural event, an educational booklet of traditional recipes, and a digital model of landscape transformation, transferring academic knowledge into everyday life and supporting sustainable development.