The Traditional Culture Center Pusol School Museum was conceived in 1969 as an activity linked to the Pedagogical Project "The School and its Fear," which aimed to investigate the aims and traditions of the Field of Elche (Campo de Elche). It is an educational project of environmental integration focused on significant learning and values education. Its main method of teaching is a cultural heritage based on natural resources.
The project was located within the boundaries of Pusol's rural district, where the school was located, between 1968 and the mid-1980s. After the project's achievements were known, its operational scope grew bigger, first including the remaining rural districts of Elche's countryside (the mid-1980s) and later including the city of Elche (1990s).
Students are encouraged to be autonomous, responsible, and cooperative in protecting cultural heritage. With this innovative project, two overall goals are achieved. First, it promotes value-based education by integrating local cultural and natural heritage into the curriculum, and secondly, it contributes to the preservation of Elche’s heritage through education, training, and awareness-raising in the educational community.
The Pusol Project, which was implemented at Pusol (Elche, Spain) in 1968, has successfully integrated the study of heritage into formal education. With the help of teachers and external collaborators, children explore Elche's rich heritage in contact with tradition keepers and contribute directly to its preservation. Students do fieldwork, museography, and teaching one another and visitors about heritage. Its success relies on its openness and participatory character.
The children have been involved in research, heritage preservation, and research relating to the project. So they study and explore the heritage on their own. As well as documenting the intangible heritage of their environment, the schoolchildren also provide artifacts, such as palm tree carvings and the local gastronomy cookbook, on various media (audio, photo, video). Furthermore, they carry out museum work with the contributions of the community through cataloging, listing, storage, and exhibition of the items. As a result of this project, almost 500 schoolchildren have been trained to run a school museum with 61,000 inventory entries and 770 oral histories, preserving everyday life heritage and promoting cultural mapping.
This museum houses unique collections that show distinct ethnological aspects (agriculture, business, industry, folklore, traditions, etc.). These collections are available for scientific research at all levels. Today, the project has received wide recognition from the local rural community, Elche's general population, and education and culture experts for its pioneering democratic, integrated, and participatory nature. However, the project can serve as a model for bottom-up heritage safeguarding.
References
(https://ich.unesco.org/en/BSP/centre-for-traditional-culture-school-museum-of-pusol-pedagogic-project-00306) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elche#The_Traditional_Culture_Center_Pusol_School_Museum) (https://www.premiosen.hispanianostra.org/premio-europa-nostra/traditional-culture-centre-pusol-school-museum/?lang=en)