13 October 2016


World Heritage Sites as a learning location – Bamberg succeeds in a first teacher training program

Bamberg, Germany

 Since 1993, the Old Town of Bamberg has been a UNESCO World Heritage site, and thus belongs to more than 1,000 cultural and natural sites all over the world, which are of great importance for the whole of humanity and are therefore particularly worthy of protection. Not only as a valuable historical ensemble, but also as a testimony to past life, work and action, the World Heritage site is relevant to the understanding of today’s times. Against this background, the Bamberg Center for Teacher Training (BAZL) and the Centre World Heritage Bamberg (ZWB) have conceived a training event for teachers of all schools and invited them nationwide.
Around 120 teachers took part in the advanced training course. The event was opened by Prof. Dr. Sibylle Rahm, Head of the Bamberg Center for Teacher Training (BAZL) and Mayor and Cultural Adviser of the City of Bamberg, Dr. Christian Lange.
The participants from 16 workshops were able to vote for the impulses by the Deputy Chairman of the Bavarian Land Commissioner Dr. Karin Dengler-Schreiber and Brigitte Wilhelm from the Berlin Committee for UNESCO Work. The mediation methods presented ranged from the creation of an audioguide of adolescents for young people through geocaching to the school use of the new application www.denkmal-bamberg.de

“Bamberg has more than 1,300 monuments. What is closer to putting the cultural heritage at the center of classroom teaching and familiarizing young people with their immediate surroundings?” said Mayor Dr. Christian Lange, the Commissioner for World Heritage.
Patricia Alberth, head of the Centre World Heritage Bamberg, is particularly pleased with the overwhelming response: “This teacher training is a German championship. The number of registrations and the fact that many participants have already asked when there is a continuation shows that we have hit a nerve with the topic.”