Stories of old Athens through the lens (LS-GR-60)
Go exploring old Athens
This learning scenario focuses on images of Athens, capital of Greece, in the 19th and 20th century. Photographic material from Europeana is used to explore past life of Athens. The lesson deals especially with buildings and monuments of Greek cultural heritage. However, architectural material will be used as a frame to describe the natural environment, locations and professions of the past. Why? In order to help students realize the changes made in our city during two centuries of history. Students will be able to discover aspects of a past life as well as further acknowledge progress regarding the structured environment, preservation of monuments and building and how changes formed the contemporary identity of our city by contrasting the image of Athens then and today.
This scenario is connected with an Erasmus+KA229 program. My school participates in entitled “Cultural Heritage as a catalyst of creative entrepreneurship”. It is a topic of which is photography and how to promote each country’s cultural heritage through photography with the help of a local entrepreneur. This is why I chose to teach this lesson to a group of Erasmus students who are 15-16 years old.
Using verbal activities and online tools
This learning scenario consists of five activities which enable students to deal with our topic through verbal activities and use of online tools. The main teaching resource was the Europeana portal, section Photography. Besides Europeana, I used external links both in English and Greek with material about old Athens.
Overall, the lesson was very positively received by students. They all completed tasks without difficulties. They also really appreciated that they gained knowledge about the history of old Athens through the use of photographs and online tools.
Students enjoyed carrying out the tasks.They admitted that this lesson was very different and more interactive than their typical lessons.
Thanks to my students’ feedback, this experience will motivate me further to use and create visual content in the classroom and make my lesson more interactive with students.
If you would like to know more about this learning scenario, click below:
If you liked this learning scenario, you can also read this:
- Reflections on Europeana Photography
- Explore a wealth of vintage photographs with Europeana Photography
- Questioning a photograph
The featured image used to illustrate this article is free for commercial use and no attribution required. It belongs to Gonbiana from Pixabay.