Local history in a memory center: young students expand their understanding of the city

Abstract

In the context of the relations between institutions of memory and teaching of public history, this article presents an educational project designed around the approach of local history and carried out at the Unicamp Memory Center with young high school students from public schools in the Campinas region during the school holidays. This project sought to introduce students to the discussion of issues related to the relationships of cultural heritage, memory, and preservation, by providing them with contact with moments in the history of Campinas in which there were significant changes in the central urban area, accompanied by successive erasures of memory supports. Encounters between past and present occurred in the dialogue with documents and observations made by the students. The city, taken as the organizing axis of activities associated with the learning of history, carries the potential to stimulate a broader understanding of the dynamics of social relations in urban space and broaden urban experiences.