As we continue to build experiential learning at AISB, we are exploring how academic learning can connect with real places and people. Sometimes the opportunity is quite literally beneath our feet.
During archaeological excavations connected to our school expansion last year, a medieval iron-smelting furnace dating to approximately 1100–1200 CE was discovered beneath our campus. That discovery has since developed into an interdisciplinary learning experience involving historians, archaeologists, craftspeople, and other experts.
Learning from the evidence
Support from the AISB Fund made it possible to build a learning experience primarily around our Grade 4 and Grade 9 students, connecting directly to their curriculum.
For Grade 4, the project provides an entry point into the arrival and development of Hungarian culture. For Grade 9, it connects to their Power of Geography work, particularly human-environment interaction, settlement, resources, and the ways geography shapes what people are able to build and produce.
Last week, students worked alongside historian Dr. András Vadas and archaeologist Dr. Tibor Rácz to explore the medieval past through evidence found here in Nagykovácsi. They handled locally discovered artefacts, examined maps and historical documents, and considered the questions historians and archaeologists ask when trying to understand what happened centuries ago.
This week, the learning moved outdoors.
Working alongside metallurgist Dr. Ádám Thiele and blacksmith Mr. Sándor Benkő, students followed the process from raw materials to finished ironwork. Over five days, they constructed a furnace and charcoal kiln, prepared materials, experimented with traditional methods of creating fire, smelted iron, and eventually forged their own ironwork.
A shared learning experience
The project also created opportunities for students beyond Grades 4 and 9 to take part, including our IB History students, bringing different age groups and areas of learning into the experience.
There was certainly some luck in discovering this piece of history beneath our campus. Turning it into a learning experience for our students took a great deal of work.
Thank you to Dr Laura Vas, and Piroska Nagy, the wider AISB team, and the experts involved for bringing it all together.
This experience was made possible through the AISB Fund and the generosity of our parent community.
