3.3 - Active participation

Offering activities and events that provide deeper levels of participation will result in greater opportunities for more impactful outcomes, fostering bonds between people, places, archaeology and the historic environment.

These events will typically take place with more structured groups, usually in smaller numbers than passive engagement, but impact is much greater. Rather than meeting a simple need to broadcast the project, these kinds of activities aim to achieve a deeper level of engagement and measurable range of outcomes.

Considerations for active participation:

• resource investment: active engagement requires planning and preparation of resources, and may need additional support from specialists, such as training providers
• participation level: Across the spectrum of participation in community engagement, active participation will tend to sit more centrally. The goal will be to involve target audiences in the project, providing activities to facilitate a deeper level of participation. Workshops can provide direct opportunities to consult with key groups, foster links with stakeholders and involve communities in shaping project outcomes
• audience engagement: active participation can reach targeted audience groups and create opportunities for partnership working with venues (such as museums) or locally-based charities
• impact measurement: activities can be easily evaluated using both qualitative and quantitative data, collected before, during and following the event. Evaluation methodology should be planned well in advance   

Talking and walking/observational learning

Talking and walking events provide an opportunity to invite participants to experience a place they know in a different way, either through expert-led guided walks, or less formal approaches which follow a route but are more conversational. Guided walks can follow an established heritage trail or a walking route that has been created for the project. There may be opportunities to locate and record features in the landscape or spark memories of a place for an oral history project.  

To contribute to learning outcomes, an active walking event should facilitate some hands-on activity or enable participants to contribute to something during the walk. It is important to encourage and facilitate conversation between people who come along, asking people to share their memories or stories about stops on the trail, for example. This type of activity usually lends itself to smaller groups, although some guided tours can incorporate self-guided elements with hosted stops.  

A talking and walking style event can contribute to archaeology-focused outcomes, such as learning about the archaeological site, but can also meet social value outcomes, such as helping people to foster new friendships, connect with their local heritage and learn new skills. They can provide opportunities for increased wellbeing, encouraging people to meet and interact with other likeminded individuals in their local area, which can help combat loneliness, as well as engaging in a walk.

Evaluation strategies can be implemented when people book or register to join the event, and it is usually easy to collect data and feedback from small and medium-sized groups with some forward planning at the end of the event.

Project examples

• CHERISH Climate Change and Heritage Walls at the edge of Wales: Leaflet (PDF)
• Chance Heritage Trust – photo walks: Event Listing

Hands-on workshops/activity-based learning

The opportunity to get hands-on with archaeology is a great way to teach people new skills and provide a deeper understanding of an archaeological site or place. This could range from learning about Roman pottery or animal bone, through to digital photography, filmmaking, mapping and GIS. Workshops can achieve learning outcomes (people have learnt new skills) and could contribute to specific project outputs.

Workshops can range from short learning moments to in-depth and structured series, taking one group of people through a longer, more involved learning process. The same content can be run multiple times with different groups, and versions can be created for both in-person and online delivery. Before creating the content of a workshop, the project delivery team can explore the practical logistics around its development. The nature of the audience will determine how the content is delivered, and what the outputs of the workshops might be – a hands-on finds workshop for school children will have a different feel to one for adults.

Good things to consider include:

• who is the audience for the workshop, how will they be engaged and why will they come?
• will people work in groups or will they be working individually?
• what resources are needed, including people, venues and equipment?
• is the workshop location and nature of activity accessible for all?
• can engagement be made more accessible by running workshops online, in the evenings or at weekends?

Project examples

• APS, Wisbech High Street, Historic building recording: Webpage
• Oxford Archaeology, Strands of Time School Workshops: Webpage
• DigVentures, Miracles to Medicine: Webpage

Inspired by archaeology/creative responses

Offering something slightly different to a skills-led or practical experience workshop can provide a useful way to engage different and new audiences with archaeology. An example of this is arts-based workshops and training that uses archaeology to inspire creative responses. Within public and community archaeology projects, we’re seeing an increasing number of heritage professionals embrace these methods to create fun and engaging activities that provide a novel way to encourage people to interact with archaeology and heritage.

Creative response workshops might include things such as poetry writing, film making, painting and illustration, but could be based around any creative pursuit. The delivery team will need consider resources within your team and may need to hire someone in to deliver the event, which will need to be considered in the budget.

The benefits of these approaches can be wide ranging. Interacting with archaeological material or heritage sites without getting into the trenches with archaeologists can make participating in projects more accessible, particularly for those with health or mobility concerns which might exclude them from digging. Creative endeavours such as drawing or writing create space for people to think deeply about material and the past, and how they relate to their own lives. Engaging in creative acts of expression has been shown to be good for health and wellbeing, and can help people feel connected to their environments and a shared sense of heritage. These activities also generate a body of creative outputs produced by participants which can become part of a site’s narrative and provide impact evidence.

Project examples

• University of the Highlands and Islands, a creative exploration of coastal erosion: Academic paper (PDF)
• DigVentures, Discover Brightwater Bishop Middleham – make your own medieval art: Video