Every history, art, music and world literature textbook begins with a lesson on the culture of ancient civilisations. In the previous month Savremena’s students familiarised themselves with how human cultures and histories began developing.

Wishing to make the acquired knowledge as memorable as possible, Savremena International School took its students onto an educational field trip. We were lucky in that we didn’t have to go far to find one of the oldest archeological sites namely the Vinča site located on the left bank of the Danube river about 15 kilometers southeast of Belgrade. This is where archaeologists found remnants of a neolithic settlement, one of the earliest in Europe, dating back to 5000 years B.C.

A student’s activities in a day

On Thursday, the 1st of October, in the morning hours, cheerful under the autumn sun, Savremena’s students visited the site that guards the secrets of one of Europe’s oldest civilisations.

While one group, just on the banks of the Danube, watched a film about what life was like in the ice age, another group looked around the exhibition and listened to the curator’s story on the perfect Vinča folk that had lived there in neolithic times. The third group was on a small hill, not far from the museum, reading an article about Ötzi the Iceman from the ice age who was discovered as a frozen mummy in the Alps.

Students began imagining the people living on the site that they were visiting. The groups rotated so that everyone had the chance to watch the movie, visit the museum and answer questions about our distant ancestor Ötzi.

Children, now it’s your turn

Now that our students had acquired a wealth of knowledge and information, what could they do with it? We decided to create a report on the Vinča archaeological site. The competition was opened and all the students competed in creating the best report.

They were divided into groups of three and ran off with their iPads to take pictures, record interviews and imitate real journalists. The knowledge they gained throughout that day became useful in the moment when they were asked to create something important and interesting with it.

We are confident that through such practical lessons, the knowledge students acquire in various subjects can become fully functional. And finally, the winning report will be published in the first issue of the School Newspaper. More on that in our next post.

More photos in gallery.