The Museo Escolar de Puçol or ‘Puçol School Museum’ started life in 1969 as an activity linked to an educational project called “The School and its Media”. The initiative consisted of learning about trades, traditions and the environment in Campo de Elche (the Elche Countryside) - organised in the rural environment itself - as part of the formal school curriculum. The idea of the project was to conserve a culture that was dying out due to the introduction of farm machinery, and to revive traditional trades and crops that were being abandoned to make room for mass manufacturing and crop production. Guided by a small team of teachers and external collaborators, the schoolchildren learn about Elche’s rich heritage, in direct contact with the custodians of the traditions. The Museum, which houses the old teachers’ houses, does more than restore over and exhibit objects, but works to conserve all aspects of Elche society. An active collaboration and participation that makes possible to recover and preserve all types of traditional elements and which is enormously beneficial to the school’s pupils, who are able to come into close contact with an unfamiliar culture.
