Learning from the Jerusalem Workshop of the EDICULA Project. Promoting hands-on experience as part of cultural heritage learning and training activities

The EDICULA Project – Educational Digital Innovative Cultural heritage related Learning Activities – is a three-year project (2020-2023) co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. In its framework hands-on activities are integrated. Hands-on experience is conceived as a key part of Problem- based Learning and of analogous educational approaches and conceived as an essential component for achieving learning outcomes in a wide range of courses. A three-days international workshop, entitled: The Historic City of Jerusalem, The Holy Sepulchre: A Hands-on Experience, took place in April 2022 in Jerusalem. Examining its content, program, structure, and participants’ feedback, the paper demonstrates how the aims, objectives, and expected outcomes of the EDICULA Project were reflected in practice. Highlighting some of the workshop activities such as using nondestructive technology and advanced methodological techniques of conservation, all related to previous experience gathered from the 2017 Holy Sepulchre Rehabilitation Project, as well as flexibility in scale, moving from the urban scale to a single site onto conservation materials, and the workshop distinctiveness. Analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of holding an international, experimental, multidisciplinary workshop in-situ, while examining the effectiveness of a one-time short-term workshop on learning outcomes and gained skills, the contribution of hands-on activities and their added values on both participants and tutors. This knowledge is particularly important for developing hands-on modules in cultural heritage conservation curricula, strengthened by results of a preliminary stage survey on hands-on methodologies in postgraduate and undergraduate courses in academic programs in the field of cultural heritage and conservation studies.