Heritage Education and community: design and impact of guided tours of a Roman site

Introduction: This studio focuses on a horizontal conception of heritage, seeking the community’s involvement in the Roman Baths of Valduno site in the municipality of Las Regueras (Asturias). The impact of the different types of visits is analysed based on the work carried out by the school in the area: open visits (without intervening in the site and with the information panels created by a class group) and guided visits (by the expert team from the University of Oviedo and the volunteer Primary School students). Method: a mixed study is carried out as part of an educational ethnography. The instruments developed are questionnaires that collect the knowledge acquired by the public about the Roman Baths of Valduno site and participant observation that allows us to further understand the development of the intervention, the doubts, interests and difficulties of the public. Results: the site without intervention generates little interest from the public and, therefore, there is no real learning, while the other types of visits (open visits with new information panels and guided visits), based on the interests of the public and students, generate learning opportunities and a more significant experience. Conclusions: the educational intervention developed with the Primary School class and by the expert team at the site, following the lines established in previous studies on creating information panels and guided tours, achieved significantly more positive results.