While cultural heritage topics are taught at colleges and universities, they rarely appear in the primary (first-level) or secondary (second-level) education in an organised way.

The following teaching materials are designed to enable teachers to incorporate a selection of topics related to ancient and medieval tangible, built cultural heritage (i.e. architecture and archaeology) into their classes. They are aimed at secondary (second-level) classes, but can be adapted and used at other levels as well.

The materials below cover topics through which built heritage from the ancient and medieval periods can be introduced in the classroom, including Greek and Roman Temples, Ancient Theatres, Monasteries, Holy Sites, and Preservation of Cultural Heritage (using the site of Palmyra in Syria as a case study). Images and content are drawn from the Network’s participating digital projects.

Each set of materials includes two PDFs: a presentation with images for use in class, and a teacher’s guide to the topic, which includes exercises for students to do in class or as homework.

These materials were produced by Premodern DCH Network research assistant Prolet Decheva, with input from the Network’s organisers. All teaching materials here are available for download and use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. If you share or repost these materials, please credit the ‘Premodern Digital Cultural Heritage Network and Prolet Decheva’.

Further materials for the teaching of cultural heritage topics in schools can be found at:

• Heritage in Schools (primary/first-level schools)
• Archaeology in the Classroom (secondary/second-level schools; Transition Year)
• UCD Access Classics Transition Year Unit (secondary/second-level schools; Transition Year)