Heritage Leiden developed new resources for primary and secundary education.

The teaching project 'The Pilgrims: refugees and colonisers' for 11-12 year olds focuses on the Pilgrims as an odd group of migrants. They arrived 1609 in Leiden fleeing from English religious persecution. Eleven years later they set their foot on American soil as colonisers. How can such a change in role be explained? Using archival documents on the Pilgrims’ stay in Leiden, the students research their way of life and interaction with the locals. These results will be presented to a peer group in England. The next step is to learn about their first years in America and the complicated relationship with the natives. Using their own knowledge, experience and empathy the students interpret the differences between Leiden and America and draw a line to the present day.

In the project 'Welcome?', students of two levels in secondary school do research on the way different groups of migrants from Dutch history (from the Pilgrims in the 17th to the ‘guest workers’ in the 20th century). They use various archival resources to answer the following questions: Where did the migrants come from? Why did they leave? Why did they go to The Netherlands? When did this happen? How were they received by the locals? During their research they learn about various reasons to migrate, and that the decision is nearly always a difficult one. They find out the locals had and have different views on migrants, with different reasons. This project is developed by Erfgoed Leiden in close dialogue with the following secondary schools: Da Vinci College, Visser ’t Hooft Lyceum and Vlietland College (VMBO) and Rijnlands Lyceum Sassenheim (VWO).

Furthermore special modules of Leiden Heritage include the oral history methodology ‘young trailseekers’ (developed by the Leiden School of Education (ICLON) and Centre for Migration History) and a drama workshop by Leiden Theatre company De Veenfabriek.