On December 6, 2005 was the twentieth anniversary of the inscription of the Cathedral of Hildesheim and St. Michael’s Church in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites.
Being aware of the futility of our efforts to preserve our heritage if our children are not concerned about it, the Hornemann Institute took this anniversary as an occasion to work closely with educators to compile educational material on Hildesheim's World Heritage Site and to make it available to teachers free of charge.
Materials for educators
On this basis the Institute brought together a collection of field-tested materials showing various approaches to heritage (aesthetic, historical, ecclesiastical, etc.) to facilitate the integration of the World Heritage Site of Hildesheim in the regular school curriculum (History, Art, Religion, Latin, etc.)
The various contents include
- different age groups (from Pre-School education to Secondary School),
- different forms of school (day nursery, primary schools as well as public and private secondary schools),
- various subjects (e.g. Art, History, Religious Education, Latin)
Apart from materials for educators the collection includes background information for teachers about UNESCO, UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the World Heritage Site of Hildesheim as well as references to major media on this topic. This photocopiable loose-leaf-collection was distributed to all schools of Hildesheim free of charge in September 2006.
Also created as part of the project
Additional materials created as part of the project:
- Approximately 500 artistic works about Hildesheim’s World Cultural Heritage. A selection of 120 works was presented between 24/11/05 and 15/12/05 in the exhibition "Klasse Welterbe! Dom und St. Michael aus Schülersicht". Students created e.g. linocuts, reliefs from modeling clay or clay (with motives from the Bernward door or with scenes from their own school reality, such as "bullying," "stress," "being different"), designs for stamps, the Bernward doors with student related scences made of salt dough, arm reliquaries made of gypsum (either modeled after the originals or as individually designed art works), reliquaries with personal memorabilia of the children, columns of papier-mâché, architectural design studies of St. Michael reflecting the wishes of young people, a SCRAP-book, knowledge games, perspective boxes and surreal watercolor paintings and models of other World Heritage Sites which had their 20th anniversary at the same time. And among the students' works was also a computer game called "Fight for Hildesheim".
- New games on Hildesheim’s world cultural heritage:
- In the Footsteps of Bernward. Wooden jigsaw puzzle around the World Cultural Heritage sites Cathedral and St Michael, 42 parts, Hornemann Institute, Hildesheim 2005, recommended from 5 years
- The Bernward Door in the Cathedral. Wooden jigsaw puzzle, 33 parts, Hornemann institute, Hildesheim 2005, recommended from 5 years
- A public library for teachers in the Hornemann institute with the most important cultural and historical publications (incl. unpublished or out-of-print literature) as well as educationally materials (e.g., slide sets and videos) about Hildesheim’s World Cultural Heritage
Participants
29 Pedagogues from Hildesheim participated developping new teaching material. Furthermore, teachers have provided their previously developed materials for publication.
Future development
The materials were published in loose-leaf binder, so that they can be expanded: World Heritage offers much more ...