Summary

• Use a poster competion to expose students to the threats faced by urban cultural heritage, with particular attention to the effects of vandalism and graffiti.

Target group
Students age 7-13.

Before the project

• Determine a conservation or heritage-related subject for your poster competition. Remember the competition is a tool to motivate students to learn about the selected topic;
• establish a committee, involving either other classrooms across your city, or from other cities and countries;
• plan the competition:
  • identify a location to collect the entries;
  • select a jury. Both heritage professionals and graphic design specialists should be included.
• ensure that any didactic material prepared by the committee for teachers is distributed before the school year begins, so teachers have enough time to plan multi-disciplinary lessons.

During the project
Study phase: In the classroom, begin by talking with students about heritage, and what cultural heritage means:

• discuss the idea of transmitting cultural heritage to future generations;
• ask students why they feel heritage is important, and why it must be conserved;
• identify local heritage sites, monuments and museums;
• discuss their importance to the community, differences and similarities;
• introduce and discuss the concepts of preservation, conservation, and restoration;
• consider inviting professionals into your classroom to talk with students;
• discuss what endangers heritage, such as:
  • climatic conditions (ice, wind, sun);
  • pollution (acid rain, heavy traffic);
  • fires (accidental and deliberate);
  • inappropriate changes and reconstructions;
  • vandalism;
  • theft;
  • abandonment;
  • ignorance.

Action phase:

• Explore the heritage around your school in relation to the focus of your poster competition;
• look for monuments in the school neighborhood. Ask students which ones they find the most interesting, and why;
• note the most impotant and the shared characteristics that distinguish them from other buildings and monuments (styles, materials, sizes);
• invite students to interpret the history of the monument or site;
• note how the cultural resource has been preserved. Identify any conservation intervention;
• discuss how people contribute to the deterioration of heritage, via vandalism and graffiti. Discuss why people do such things, and how they could be influenced to change their behaviour.

Competition: Students create posters:

• encourage them to choose a clear and provocative image, to use strong colours, and to include a bold slogan;
• remind them that it should be clearly legible from a distance;
• convene a meeting of the jury to review the posters and select winners based on the criteria. Consider having several different categories.

Follow-up

• Hold an awards celebration, and arrange with your city (and any other participating cities) to exhibit the winning entries;
• consider asking the cities involved to print winning posters for use in a public awareness campaign;
• consider printing some winning entries in a catalogue, or on t-shirts, or other items students could use, such as day-planners or lunch-bags;
• set up a regional inter-school network to encourage the exchange of info about heritage teaching in the classroom

updated on: 8 August, 2006