From 23 to 26 June 2026, representatives of the ARTeria Foundation participated in the latest international workshop of the Civic Heritage Quest project, held in Mons, Belgium. The meeting focused on designing innovative educational tools that combine gamification, storytelling, and digital technologies to make cultural heritage more engaging and accessible for young people.
The workshop programme combined conceptual work with practical field testing. Participants explored the city using prototype mobile applications and interactive quests that encourage users to discover local heritage through puzzles, challenges, and location-based gameplay. Despite the exceptional heatwave affecting Belgium during the event, all planned outdoor activities were successfully carried out.
One of the central sessions was dedicated to storytelling as a tool for cultural heritage education. Project partners worked together on designing quests that not only communicate historical knowledge but also create meaningful experiences and foster an emotional connection between participants and the places they explore. Discussions focused on the role of narrative in education, the structure of an effective quest, techniques for building suspense, and the use of protagonists and narrators to guide participants through the learning journey.
Participants also developed and refined scenarios that combine reliable historical content with interactive challenges and game mechanics. The aim was to create educational experiences that stimulate curiosity, encourage close observation of the surrounding environment, and demonstrate that learning about history can become an engaging and memorable adventure.
The workshop in Mons marked another important milestone in the Civic Heritage Quest project, in which partners from Poland, Slovakia, Belgium, Italy, and Spain are jointly developing a mobile application, a web platform, and a collection of geolocated and virtual quests. The project promotes civic, digital, and social competences among young people by using cultural heritage as an inspiring environment for experiential learning.
