My Porto is World Heritage (Portugal)

A City/Schools educational project

In order to raise awareness of the importance of Porto’s historical centre and develop a sense of belonging, the City of Porto set up an educational project for schoolchildren between 10 and 12 years old, created in collaboration with their teachers. 30 classes have taken part over 3 years, a total of between 700 and 800 children in all.

Implementation

The initiative takes the form of sessions held every 2 weeks 

• classroom session
• site visit
• classroom session: film “Patrimonito” (from the UNESCO kit)
• artistic creation: drawings, compositions, etc. with city museums and libraries
• exhibition of productions (optional)

Results and perspectives

Teacher satisfaction is very high (> 90%). Pupil assessment is carried out via informal conversations at the end of the 4^th session, with such questions as “What are the 2 most important things you’ve learned?” 

This enables determination of how many children had never visited the UNESCO site (80%) or made use of library or museum services. 

It also made it clear that there was a need to train teachers, who were interested in the subject but did not really grasp the notion of World Heritage. A dedicated training course is in the pipeline. 

Download the presentation (from Slide 14 onwards) (Presented during the 2^nd meeting of European World Heritage Associations)