Present, past … future?
Archaeological sites are used, nowadays, as touristic places, somewhere
to develop cultural activities and nobody dares to know how we will use them in
1000 years’ time. Maybe these videos can give us some clues about how next
generations can preserve the ancient ruins sailing through the social and
historical knowledge and how the young people living Tarraco in the XXXth
century will be able to love their cultural heritage.
We understand sustainability as the perfect way to live happily with our
environment sharing culture, respect and future. Sustainability means preserve
natural resources, culture, social possibilities, economic viability, mixing
different cultures, understanding several ways of communication. These are the
reasons because we chose sustainability as the main theme of our two videos.
The first one deals with investigation and culture because we think that
knowledge is the best way to love our heritage.
Educational activity steps:
Students have already been in the archeological site for an in situ research, twice, in order to discover sustainability elements such as natural resource management, material use and reuse, isonomy, economical growth etc.
1. The students were separated in groups of 5 and were asked to discuss about the elements they have found during their visit and make a list of them. Bibliography research done during previous activities was used as well.
2. Then they were asked to make a list of good practices they found in ancient times that they consider are both beneficial for a community and feasible for contemporary practice.
3. Afterwards, each group presented their results to the plenary session. The lists were placed on the wall so everybody could see them.
4. After the presentation and further discussion, students were asked to vote which practice they would prefer to present in a form of a role play.
5. They decide after voting.
6. Using the guidelines and steps of activity ESD- 7 (“Write a play!”), students came up with their first role play ready to implement it in edMondo.
7. The following step was to decide which students will take part at the play and do the recording and filming.
RESULTS
"BACK TO THE FUTURE"
Video from Sant Pau Apostol secondary school in Tarragona
Some avatars are travelling from the future to the past. Their main
objective is to know how the Tarraco Amphitheatre was made.
The act begins in the III century AD and a team of Tarragona avatars are
travelling from the XXI century to the III; they are investigating how the
Amphitheatre was made and the purposes it had far from gladiator fightings,
executions and naval wars.
To make the act a little bit amusing, one of the avatars was only present
in a spirit form: Magí, which is the name of one of the protectors of the city
(Tarragona). Magí, as a spirit, can travel through the stones easily and can
even take photos of the basements of the Amphitheatre, how it worked –
architectonically speaking- and the quality of the rocks used in its building.
The other part of the team takes some notes about colours, some
ornaments, the four main gates, the access and how the people were seated
during a performance.
The act is finished when they collect all the information to know more
about it in order to tell the future administrators how to restore the Tarragona
Amphitheatre as it really was in the III century. A comparison between the III
century Amphitheatre and the XXI century one can be made if you click on
these two links:
Tarragona Amphitheatre III century AD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvIfDxw7Zls
Tarragona Amphitheatre XXI century AD
http://kupiki.com/fotos360/anfiteatrotarragona/logo/index.html
Another video from Sant Pau Apostol school
"IN GOD WE TRUST"
The second mission of the “Decurion team” consists on rebuilding one of
the most sustainable buildings for the Roman culture in Tarragona: the August
Temple in Tarragona. It’s the most difficult mission the team has because there
are very little evidences in the XXI century of the existence of this temple: some
coins, some stones under the Tarragona Cathedral and no more.
The reasons because the “Decurion team” considers the August Temple
a sustainable building are based on these three main ideas:
• Social
• Environmental
• Economic
A Venn diagram of sustainable development can be shown to understand the Decurion team reasons.
As you can imagine, there were a lot of social reasons to build a Temple:
human relationships, social status, social power, God’s relationships, etc. With
these kind of relations, the economic reasons are easy to be supposed:
businesses, marriages, future alliances, etc. and, of course, the environmental
reasons are included in these two factors; for instance, if a Tarragona citizen
decides to transform forests into vines, there will be a deep impact in
environmental resources and in economics too.
The intersections in the Venn diagram shown before introduce us some
concepts like bearable, equitable, viable and, finally, the three intersections of
these new concepts give us a sustainable way of living.
The Roman society in Tarraco, needs hope and a leader to trust in:
August. A temple, a building for August is an interesting way of giving the
Tarraco society consistence and future. The August temple will provide
relationships between gods and humans, humans and humans and humans
and natural resources.
The mission ends with an amusing joke about the money and the years
of efforts the temple will cost:
A man is talking to God.
The man: "God, how long is a million years?"
God: "To me, it's about a minute."
The man: "God, how much is a million dollars?"
God: "To me it's a penny."
The man: "God, may I have a penny?"
God: "Wait a minute."
The following link show the video of the Act 2 “In God we trust”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3PfPUP2BFo
“What do you see? I see… answers!”
Secondary School of Thouria
Archeological sites can serve many different “masters”. They have been used to attract economical benefits, to satisfy our curiosity about the past or to enhance our sense of a national identity by searching for a bond between an uncertain present and a past that has a significant value of great importance. Additionally, as the science of archeology changed, reformed or reoriented, the recent decades, archeologists discovered even more outcomes presenting how cities and communities were organized, what were the reasons for their prosper and even their declare. Ancient communities have offered information and gave lessons (both as good or as bad practices) to modern societies in several fields such as adaptation of the environment, natural resource management, agriculture, systems of government, taking decisions etc.
The project of Archaeoschool for the Future is focused on detecting sustainability elements[i] in the ancient city of Messene. One of the element students and teachers, with the support of experts and bibliography, observed was the reuse of the materials: buildings’ usage followed the changes in the society’s structures e.g. religion, system of government, invasions etc., by taking advantage of the materials of the surrounded landscape and materials taken from already existed building of (their) past.
In the example presented in the following video, students after a guide tour around the archeological site, end up at the theatre to rest for a moment. A discussion starts about what they have realized during that tour. The whole discussion revolves around the ruins of Basilica, a church built in the city by Christians, using stones from buildings of the ancient Greek world. In the past of course people hadn’t had the idea of preserving cultural monuments, but they did had that cognitive perception of how to spend less effort (money, labor hours, resources) in order to create something they need. Maybe their practice of reusing old materials found in older buildings happened by change, but for modern societies who fight against waste of natural resources could be a good idea to inspire. Students share their enthusiasm of the fact that observation of an archeological site can give modern societies some interesting lessons of good practices.
Video from Thouria Secondary School
[i] All these elements or factors that creates the condition in a community to function at a defined level of social well being and harmony, to support a defined level of environmental quality and natural resource extraction rates and to support a defined level of economic production, indefinitely.
Another video made by Thouria Secondary School, shows the re-use of water in ancient Messene, as a clever practice coming from the past....