In November 2018 we, Ruby and Jamie from 10b, took part in the anual UNESCO international student seminar about world heritage. Apart from the 10 students from Berlin there were 13 further students from European countries including the UK, Spain, France, Poland, Estonia, Sweden and Denmark. For one week we lived in the guest accommodations of the UFA-Fabrik which is a culture center in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
Against our expectations most of the students in the seminar, including us, did not know much about cultural heritage, but the packed programme for the week gave us the chance to explore what world heritage actually means, with a focus on Berlin, and how it affects us.
We visited the "Hufeisensiedlung" in the south of Berlin which is a social housing project and we were given a tour around the Islamic section in the Pergamonmuseum on the Museumsinsel in the center of Berlin. Beyond visiting world heritage sites, one day we were introduced to the idea of the "Flussbad Berlin" and held a debate about it.
Each day we visited one of the Berlin Unesco "partner schools" including the Sophie-Scholl-Schule and our school to eat lunch and to work on our central task of the week. In small groups we created videos about what we had learned about world heritage and what it means to us (and others).
We had a fantastic experience with the other students, exchanging about our cultures and world heritage and showing them our home city. We had finally learned what UNESCO is and how important it is to our education and to maintain the world's amazing heritage/ -sites. At the end of the week we had all made new international friends and were all very sad to have to split up the group. We would love to do something like this in the future because it was a wonderful experience!
Ruby and James 10b