“Our heritage” states the EU official website, “has a big role to play in building the future of Europe.” As primary school educators, we could not agree more with this statement. Yet, teaching young learners about their heritage can often be an unproductive endeavour. Cultural heritage is all around us, but fragmented across disciplines and curricula. Celebrating multiculturalism is a laudable goal, but it is yet to be translated into comprehensive pedagogies. Young learners’ engagement with heritage is essential in building the future of Europe, but any interaction other than respectful preservation is often considered hubristic. Motivated by these observable needs and inspired by the discourse of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, this project aims to develop new and innovative pedagogies for teaching and learning about cultural heritage. Our objectives are to make cultural heritage an appealing subject for both teachers and learners, to approach it creatively through digital technologies, to consider it in relation to the increasingly multicultural composition of our classrooms. Underpinning all these objectives is an understanding of cultural heritage as a dynamic and participatory field of learning, one that warrants not only the preservation of the past, but also our interaction with it in the present, for the purpose of building a better future. As the slogan for the European Year of Cultural Heritage succinctly puts it, “Our heritage: where the past meets the future.” We have appropriated this slogan into the title “Cultural Heritage: Cherishing the Past, Building the Future” for a 22-month project involving six primary schools from Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Spain. We envisage the project as an all-encompassing experience for our schools, involving different groups of participants. To ensure that all children take part, an array of activities has been planned, including three transnational pupil exchanges. Teachers will oversee the implementation of pupil activities, design and deliver innovative teaching on the project’s topic, and take part in two transnational training activities. Parents and the wider community will participate in outreach activities and events targeted at the project’s dissemination. Methodologically, activities have been designed to foster participatory and experiential learning. They all have a parallel implementation stage, an interactive stage between pupils at different schools, and a follow-up stage that connects them to other activities and/or dissemination events. Digital technology plays a key role, both in developing innovative approaches to teaching cultural heritage and in facilitating learners’ participatory engagement with it. To this end, the project also includes activities targeted at increasing both teachers’ and pupils’ digital fluency. The project has been designed to yield sustainable results that will last beyond the project’s timeframe and have an impact beyond our six-school partnership. In terms of teaching, the key result will be innovative methods for addressing questions of cultural heritage in primary education. Teachers will also gain transferable digital skills, especially in the areas of multimedia output and interactive digital lessons. These improvements will not load existing curricula with new material, but renegotiate our approach to existing material and its incorporation into formal and informal lessons. Concrete output with long-term benefits for our schools includes new lesson plans, templates, and games in adjustable digital formats. To broaden the project’s impact, this output will also be made freely available on TwinSpace and open education databases. Pupils will not only gain factual knowledge about the different facets of cultural heritage (tangible, intangible, natural, and digital), but, more pressingly, they will actively participate in its development and gain a deeper appreciation of multiculturalism. In addition, they will improve their digital literacy skills. The project’s concrete results comprise all the material and digital outputs of pupil activities, including an interactive cultural tourist guide for children, a digital calendar of European traditions, and a digital museum of project artefacts. All these results will also be digitally shared and disseminated. Looking to the future, the project’s benefits can only increase as European classrooms become more multicultural and more reliant on technology. Apart from their intrinsic value for education, these benefits become more relevant, more topical, more exigent in the context of a project that teaches the future generation of European citizens to cherish their cultural heritage and work together in building a better future.
“Our heritage” states the EU official website, “has a big role to play in building the future of Europe.” As primary school educators, we could not agree more with this statement. Yet, teaching young learners about their heritage can often be an unproductive endeavour. Cultural heritage is all around us, but fragmented across disciplines and curricula. Celebrating multiculturalism is a laudable goal, but it is yet to be translated into comprehensive pedagogies. Young learners’ engagement with heritage is essential in building the future of Europe, but any interaction other than respectful preservation is often considered hubristic. Motivated by these observable needs and inspired by the discourse of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, this project aimed to develop new and innovative pedagogies for teaching and learning about cultural heritage. Our objectives have been to make cultural heritage an appealing subject for both teachers and learners, to approach it creatively through digital technologies, to consider it in relation to the increasingly multicultural composition of our classrooms. Underpinning all these objectives is an understanding of cultural heritage as a dynamic and participatory field of learning, one that warrants not only the preservation of the past, but also our interaction with it in the present, for the purpose of building a better future. As the slogan for the European Year of Cultural Heritage succinctly puts it, “Our heritage: where the past meets the future.” We appropriated this slogan into the title “Cultural Heritage: Cherishing the Past, Building the Future” for a 22-month project involving six primary schools from Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Spain. We envisaged the project as an all-encompassing experience for our schools, involving different groups of participants. To ensure that all children took part, an array of activities had been planned, including three transnational pupil exchanges. Teachers oversaw the implementation of pupil activities, designed and delivered innovative teaching on the project’s topic, and took part in two transnational training activities. Parents and the wider community participated in outreach activities and events targeted at the project’s dissemination. Methodologically, activities were designed to foster participatory and experiential learning. They all had a parallel implementation stage, an interactive stage between pupils at different schools, and a follow-up stage that connects them to other activities and/or dissemination events. Digital technology played a key role, both in developing innovative approaches to teaching cultural heritage and in facilitating learners’ participatory engagement with it. To this end, the project also included activities targeted at increasing both teachers’ and pupils’ digital fluency. The project was designed to yield sustainable results that would last beyond the project’s timeframe and have an impact beyond our six-school partnership. In terms of teaching, the key result was innovative methods for addressing questions of cultural heritage in primary education. Teachers also gained transferable digital skills, especially in the areas of multimedia output and interactive digital lessons. These improvements did not load existing curricula with new material, but renegotiated our approach to existing material and its incorporation into formal and informal lessons. Concrete output with long-term benefits for our schools includes new lesson plans, templates, and games in adjustable digital formats. To broaden the project’s impact, this output has also been made freely available on TwinSpace and open education databases. Our pupils did not only gain factual knowledge about the different facets of cultural heritage (tangible, intangible, natural, and digital), but, more pressingly, they actively participated in its development and gained a deeper appreciation of multiculturalism. In addition, they improved their digital literacy skills. The project’s concrete results comprise all the material and digital outputs of pupil activities, including a calendar of European traditions, a digital museum of project artefacts and a code of multiculturalist conduct. All these results and many more have been digitally shared and disseminated. Looking to the future, the project’s benefits can only increase as European classrooms become more multicultural and more reliant on technology. Apart from their intrinsic value for education, these benefits become more relevant, more topical, more exigent in the context of a project that teaches the future generation of European citizens to cherish their cultural heritage and work together in building a better future.