Raising Awareness of Primary School Students on Cultural Heritage through Interface Design

Abstract

Cultural heritage is the cornerstone of a society, a set of tangible or intangible values that have come from the past to the present and should be passed on to future generations. Today, however, it has become important that these values, which face some negative impacts, are protected and sustained. In this study, the objectives of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades that may be related to cultural heritage in the Primary School, Life Science and Visual Arts Lessons curricula were examined. A visual interface was designed with the idea that realizing these acquisitions, which have content related to cultural heritage, supported by visuals in a digital learning environment will contribute to the retention of information. In this interface design, there are games such as puzzles, artifact stories, reading aloud, finding a similar artifact, completing the image to teach historical ruins and artifacts. With this design proposal prepared for the outcomes of the lesson, it is aimed to increase the interest of the 7-10 age group primary school students to the cultural heritage of Turkey and to raise their awareness. In addition, it is aimed to train them through gamification and to contribute to their mental development in this way. A case study was used in this study. The study group consisted of classroom and visual arts teachers and visual communication designers. The opinions of the teachers and design experts were consulted about the contributions that the interface design prepared by the researchers could make to the realization of the relevant outcomes and its functionality and aesthetic aspects. The qualitative findings from the document reviews and interviews were evaluated to determine the contribution of the interface design and to improve it in line with the criticisms made.