As part of the course ‘Social Science Teaching,’ fourth-year students in the Primary Education Degree programme (EP) at the Universidad Europea del Atlantico (European University of the Atlantic, UNEATLANTICO) took part in an educational tour of the city centre of Santander. The tour was organised as part of the Social Science Teaching course taught by Professor Samuel Allende Monje.
The main objective of this activity was to analyse the educational potential of the local environment as a resource for contextualising classroom learning and, in this way, provide students with different teaching techniques through knowledge of the history of Santander.
During the tour, the students visited four key sites that allowed them to contextualise three important events in the city’s recent history: the explosion of Cabo Machichaco in 1893, the bombing of 1936 and the great fire of 1941.
The students were guided by an ‘educational manifesto’ that structured the different activities to be carried out during the day. They began their visit at the statue of the Raqueros, continued on to the monuments commemorating Cabo Machichaco and the Great Fire of Santander, and ended the tour at the Botín Centre. At the latter location, a joint reflection was held on the teaching of history in primary education.
Throughout the day, the students took part in various activities designed to help them better understand the background and consequences of these historical milestones, as well as their influence on the city’s current configuration.
This experience allowed the students to discover how to take advantage of the educational possibilities offered by the environment surrounding their schools, in close relation to the subject of Natural, Social and Cultural Awareness. In this way, an active and contextualised method of teaching history is promoted, thus broadening teaching techniques in the classroom to a wider and more diverse context.