Case Study: Building Young People’s Heritage Skills Through Active Participation and Co-creation

What is this case study about?

Jane Pit is a Grade II listed steam engine house, a scheduled monument coal mine, and the last remnants of the coal mining industry in Workington.

The 'People of Jane Pit' project achieved a key aim in enabling an intergenerational range of existing museum-based volunteers and new audiences to work together and collaborate. A key deliverable of the project was to engage young people and give them access to learning heritage skills.

DigVentures is a social enterprise that organises crowdfunded archaeological excavation experiences.

This project was funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grants.

What are the key learnings?

Who was involved in the project?

Alongside adult participants, 25 primary school-age students from a local school and theatre club and 10 young people aged 15 to 17 co-designed project activities and outcomes with the Helen Thompson Museum and their volunteer group. The project programme blended archival research, oral history workshops, and innovative mediums like Minecraft Education.

Through workshops, archival research, and oral history sessions, participants guided every aspect of the project. In practice, this meant that:

• A preliminary meeting was held in which volunteers made key decisions from the beginning about potential outcomes and participatory programming
• Young people would be supported to choose which stories to investigate and tell
• Museum volunteers nominated community members for interviews
• Volunteers chose different outcomes (an exhibition) to the original project plan (a film)

Young people were involved in all aspects of the exhibition.

What happened on the project?

A local after-school Computer Club used archive research to recreate Jane Pit and 19th Century Workington in Minecraft Education. Minecraft is a computer game in which players place blocks and have adventures in the virtual world they build. DigVentures had successfully delivered similar projects with youth groups and schools, and knew that Minecraft can be an excellent medium for learning about the historic environment.

3 of the Minecraft worlds recreated the upstanding remains of buildings associated with Jane Pit as well as pit ponies' stable, miners' graveyard and mine shaft, an interpretation of nearby Fostrams cottages, and an interpretation of the museum.

In addition, 10 young people participated in a week-long work-experience programme and had the opportunity to engage in creating and designing a museum exhibition actively. The programme encouraged co-creation, empowering the participants to contribute and influence every aspect of the exhibition, from research and archival work to developing promotional materials. The course participants learned heritage skills and fostered a sense of ownership by actively researching, recording oral histories, and crafting exhibition materials. The exhibition's thematic focus and the Minecraft model were shaped by the creative input of the young participants.

Young participants all agreed that the experience gave them valuable skills and exceeded their expectations.

To understand the impact of the People of Jane Pit project, DigVentures used different and complementary evaluation methods:

Visitors

• A short questionnaire, which showed that perceptions of Workington's heritage had been changed positively or that visitors were already proud of it.

Participants

• Focus groups asked young experience participants open-ended questions to determine the project's impact on them. They used Miro, a digital collaboration platform, to show a real-time visual representation of their feedback
• An online survey of work experience participants showed that 60% were more interested in a career in heritage after taking part in the Jane Pit project
• Museum staff and volunteers gave feedback throughout the project. This showed that for future collaborations, museum staff and relevant volunteers would welcome and benefit from receiving better communications so they can be well-prepared

Lessons learned

• Meaningful and memorable experiences for young people through active participation can change their perspectives on heritage
• The impact of projects can go beyond immediate outputs, potentially inspiring participants to broaden their perspectives on future educational and career possibilities
• Building creative outputs around what interests young people, in this case through Minecraft, can build a stronger sense of ownership with the project, as they can see that their interests and existing skills have helped shape it
• Making the Minecraft models available for other young people to explore allows wider audiences to engage with heritage in contexts they are already familiar with

Further reading

• For more information about the project, visit the DigVentures website
• Full recordings of oral histories are on the DigVentures website, archived with the Helena Thompson Museum. Listen to clips
• The Minecraft models can be viewed on Sketchfab:
  • Overview of 3 Jane Pit engine houses
  • First interpretation of the Jane Pit engine house
  • Second interpretation of the Jane Pit engine house
  • Third interpretation of the Jane Pit engine house
  • An interpretation of Frostrams cottages
• The CIfA toolkit on Public Engagement may be useful for first-time archaeology project leaders