From Seeds to Systems: Reimagining Sustainable Cities through Cultural Heritage and Storytelling (SOI-GR-604)

Bautzen. Fleischmarkt mit Markttreiben – Deutsche Fotothek, Germany – Public Domain

Author: Katerina Spitsa

School/organisation: 13^th Experimental Kindergarten of Xanthi

Below is a summary of the activities, but you can download the full Story of Reuse and its annexes here in Word and PDF.

This is an early childhood learning activity (ages 4–6) where kindergarteners explore how a city works through an imaginary world they help create.

Inspired by a Europeana learning scenario on riverside heritage and agriculture (“Outdoor Learning – Riverside Heritage and Agriculture” (LS-PT-583) by Emídio Baptista), the activity was adapted for young children by centering it on a fictional city called “Gigi’s City”. Using Europeana images of traditional markets, transport, farming, and water systems, children connected historical practices to present-day needs.

Through hands-on activities, they designed markets, built transport solutions, and created water systems developing early understanding of how urban systems interconnect and engaging in meaningful problem-solving along the way.

Below is a summary of the activities, but you can explore them in more detail by downloading the full Story of Reuse here: in Word and PDF.

The Story Unfolds: From Observation to Creation

The learning process began with a discussion about the children’s own town. They shared what they knew about shops, food, and everyday life. To extend their thinking, selected images from Europeana were shown, depicting traditional marketplaces, street vendors, and agricultural practices.

Creating the Market: From Cultural Inspiration to Play

This exploration led to the creation of “Gigi’s Market”, a central place in the imaginary city. Gigi, a fictional character co-created with the children, acted as the main protagonist of the story, a young, curious goat who takes on the role of an entrepreneur and wants to grow, produce, and sell her own products. Through her story, children were invited to make decisions, solve problems, and shape the development of their city.

Inspired by Europeana images of traditional markets, street vendors, and food production practices, children designed and constructed their own marketplace. They created stalls using recycled materials, produced symbolic goods such as vegetables, fruits, and handmade products, and organised the space to resemble a real market environment.

From Market to Movement: Transporting Goods

As the market developed, children realised that goods needed to be transported. This led to a new challenge: How will products move around in our city?

Through Europeana resources depicting animal-powered carts, early transport methods, and local trade practices, children explored how people transported goods in the past. They experimented with movement, weight, and stability, comparing their constructions with historical transport systems and recognising how solutions evolve over time while responding to the same needs.

The Restaurant: Connecting Systems

As the story evolved, children decided to create a restaurant. This new element strengthened the connections between systems. They explored guided by these questions:

• Where do ingredients come from?
• How do they reach the restaurant?

Exploring Water through Cultural Heritage

As the restaurant and the plants cultivation became central to the city, children began to reflect on what is needed for these systems to function. This led to the exploration of water as a vital resource. Through visual and interactive resources, children explored how people in the past collected, transported, stored, and used water.

These resources helped children understand that access to water has always been a central challenge in human life. This became the key question: How can our city get water?

Designing Water Systems

Inspired by both cultural heritage material and their own ideas, children designed and constructed their own water systems. Through experimentation, they explored how water moves, how it can be stored, and how it reaches different parts of the city. At the same time, they investigated how water can be cleaned and made safe for use. Using simple, hands-on experiments, children explored basic water purification processes, such as filtering water through different materials, observing how impurities can be removed, and discussing why clean water is important for people, plants, and the functioning of the city.

Growing Food: The Greenhouse

To ensure a stable food supply, children explored how plants grow. Europeana resources related to traditional agriculture and cultivation helped them understand how people supported plant growth in the past. Children designed structures that:

• protect plants
• allow light to enter
• connect with the water system

Outcomes

The Gigi’s City project delivered strong outcomes on both sides of the classroom.

Children developed systems thinking, early engineering skills, sustainability awareness, and cultural understanding, while also strengthening collaboration and self-reflection. The hands-on, narrative-driven format made complex ideas genuinely accessible to 4–6 year olds.

For the educator, the key insight was that wrapping heritage resources in imaginative, play-based contexts (rather than following a rigid structure) unlocks deeper engagement and more meaningful learning. Formative assessment through observation and open questions further supported responsive teaching throughout.

PDM 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Deutsche Fotothek.