The educational project on the Melanesian shields preserved at MUSEC involved 75 children from four classes of Lugano’s primary schools (a first, a second, a fourth and a fifth) and was realised thanks to a close collaboration between MUSEC and the Municipal School Institute. Through a series of visits to the museum and lessons in the classroom, which lasted six months, the children were able to explore the many meanings of the shield. The children were able to reflect on an extraordinary multiplicity of forms, functions and styles to arrive, at the end of the educational journey, at a synthesis of their work in the decoration of their own shield. Among the decorations, those of a more markedly defensive character featured most prominently in the works of the youngest children: spiders, sharks, snakes, jellyfish, bears and skulls; did an excellent job of protecting the shield’s owner from the phobias and danger that these elements themselves represent. The 75 works created by the children show that the shield is an object charged with evocative power and triggers: in many of the decorations, interior and cultural forms that exorcise phobias and banish fears are evident. By coming face to face with ‘other’ cultures, sometimes so distant from their own in space and in the remembrance of things, children have the opportunity to express themselves with profound freedom, suggesting to adults the lesson of an original form of creativity, precious for the harmonious growth of all.