Last June, two awareness-raising days were held against the looting and illicit trafficking of heritage within the Baix Empordà educational community.
INS La Bisbal, together with the Museum of Archeology of Catalonia in Ullastret, is a partner of the European project PITCHER. A project in which, over the last three years, they have worked side by side with other European partners to deal with the serious problem of archaeological and heritage looting that affects sites, museums and heritage elements all over the world in a general way.
One of the main objectives of this project is the creation of didactic resources in an open format, thought and designed to raise awareness of this issue among students in European schools. Likewise, these resources have been designed and created with the intention of making them available through the project's website so that citizens can make use of them and participate in collective awareness.
So, in compliance with one of the main objectives of the project, the INS La Bisbal has created an online educational resource, called 'Protect the sites', with which students acquire vocabulary, knowledge and critical analysis tools around the looting of archaeological sites and specifically the looting through the use of the metal detector. This resource has been developed on an open use tool such as Google Sites and, although it is designed to be developed on a specific site such as the Island of Reixac in Ullastret, it is applicable to other sites and/or museums 'origin archaeology.
During the spring of this year, the different 1st ESO groups of the INS La Bisbal (a total of approximately 170 students) were testing the didactic resource 'Protect the sites'. The testing consisted of carrying out all the activities designed to be carried out in the classroom and at the same time the trip to the Illa d'en Reixac site was also carried out over the course of a week to carry out the most practical part of the didactic resource in this outing, a version adapted to the monographic museum of Ullastret of the didactic resource 'Looting in the village' was also tested.
The evaluations of the participating students, in general, were very positive and have encouraged the teaching staff at INS La Bisbal to include this didactic resource in the center's annual program for 1st year ESO students. Thus showing the effectiveness of the resource and the project.
During the month of June, the INS La Bisbal organized two multiplier events with the aim of publicizing the PITCHER project and the teaching resources that have been created in the Baix Empordà educational community, the territorial area where the center belongs.
During the first session of the multiplier events held in the INS La Bisbal assembly hall, the project, the educational resource created and the experience of the students were presented to the educational community of the different secondary schools in the area from Baix Empordà. This session was attended by directors, pedagogical coordinators and other members of the management teams of the public institutes in the region.
The reaction of the participants was very positive and enthusiastic. Some management teams were interested in applying the didactic resource to their educational center with the desire to be able to participate in this collective awareness of society.
The second session of the event multiplier was held at the Mundial theater in La Bisbal d'Empordà, as it was focused on families from the town's educational community. About forty families participated, some from INS La Bisbal and also from other educational centers in the town. A rich and interesting debate was generated around the problems affecting heritage and helped to clarify concepts and reach society.
The general assessment by the community was also very positive, although in this case there was not as much feedback or return as in the previous multiplier.
These events have helped to make the PITCHER project visible and at the same time to echo among the educational community (whether teachers, students or families) the existing problem related to the looting and illicit trafficking of heritage.
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