Archive and school

The city archive offers teachers and pupils a wide range of opportunities to learn about history. Important and interesting reference works and books or brochures on Aachen's history are kept here. However, it is even more exciting to get to know the various archive materials and how they can be used. The archive can help to awaken pupils' interest in the past and in the history of the area in which they live.

The City Archive is expanding its educational offerings to include an introductory rally with the Biparcours app, which is free for educational purposes.

Would you like to write a presentation or a research paper, take part in a competition or simply find out what we have to offer for you as a pupil? If you're wondering how you can prepare for a visit here, then click through our introductory rally!

As a teacher, the introductory rally gives you the opportunity to explore the archive and its tasks and functions with your pupils before a visit using the app. This allows you to get straight into the subject work when you visit the archive!

Pupils can visit the city archive:

• Get to know their own living environment and their past
• learn the different ways of thinking in the past and present
• develop a feeling for the zeitgeist in different times
• Interpret original sources and find out where the facts in the history book actually come from
• learn to critically evaluate historical sources
• Practicing independent research on a topic

Teachers can visit the city archive:

• Select background information for your lesson preparation
• prepare historical school projects and receive help with their planning
• Find answers to many questions such as: Are there any local sources on the topic in question? Which groups of sources are suitable for pupils? What difficulties can arise for the pupils? What requirements must be met?
• give "dry" history lessons at school more color and plasticity

As an extracurricular place of learning, the Stadtarchiv Aachen maintains educational partnerships with the following schools as part of the Bildungspartner-NRW program in the area of archives and schools:

• 4th Aachen comprehensive school;
• Amos-Comenius-Gymnasium, Aachen;
• Gemeinschaftshauptschule Drimborn, Aachen;
• Luise-Hensel-Realschule, Aachen;
• Ritzefeld-Gymnasium, Stolberg.

For pre-school and primary school children, we offer a playful introduction to the world of archives on a tour with our archive mouse Lulu. Alternatively, they can explore the former use of the archive building as a needle factory together with Lulu on a themed tour. As a first form of station learning, we offer a module on "Frankenberg Castle" for pre-school and primary school children. Based on the Fastrada saga, the history of the castle, its inhabitants and its function are explored using original sources. The archive mouse is also on hand here to help the children in a child-friendly way.

The city archive offers free guided tours for classes and learning groups in secondary schools I and II by prior arrangement. These can take various forms, such as

• General introduction to the workings of a municipal archive, the sources held there and how to deal with them
• themed short tours combined with the use of our learning modules:- "Aachen in French times" as a station learning or hand rally with the Biparcours app;
  - "The railroad as a motor of industrialization in Aachen" for Sek I and Sek II;
  - "Aachen 1933-1939";
  - "The end of the war in Aachen" as a station learning and as an iPad module. The most important sources of the two offers on the National Socialist era with a short introduction and an introduction to the archive can also be requested as a PDF from the archive. The compilation is suitable for enriching the teaching unit with local sources or for self-learning.
  - Colonial traces in Aachen as station learning on site or as a location-independent variant, which is suitable in whole or in part as a lesson enrichment with local sources but also for self-learning.
• Guided tour and work with original sources on the subject of the eastern quarter and Kennedypark, combined with a hand rally with the Biparcours app through Kennedypark. This offer is well suited for a project day on the topic of "Home", for example.
• Photo rally in which the learners look at historical photos from the Aachen street scene in the archive and then try to take photos from the same perspectives during a tour of the city, resulting in a comparison of the views.
• Themed visit in the footsteps of Fredy Hirsch for groups of up to 10 people.

Individual pupils and groups of up to three pupils can carry out independent research and explore original sources in the reading room during the opening hours of the City Archives after appropriate preparation by their teachers.

Of course, all these opportunities are not only open to schools in Aachen, but also to interested schools from near and far. Please get in touch with us.

We are happy to send teachers PDFs as an initial overview of the individual offers.