World Heritage UNESCO sites

This is one of the school projects I am sharing with teachers in Vietnam. I just added my trip to Cambodia.

Below is a short video about six of the UNESCO sites I visited while in Vietnam. I use a UNESCO World Heritage sites project with my students in the U.S. and introduced the project to the Vietnamese students. There is more information on the tab "Students and UNESCO".

World Heritage sites

Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural and natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration.

Places as unique and diverse as the wilds of East Africa’s Serengeti, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Baroque cathedrals of Latin America make up our world’s heritage.

What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.

https://whc.unesco.org/en/about/

Mammoth Cave

I started my pursuit of going to World Heritage sites many years ago. The closest site to Dayton is Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. This is a picture of my children back in 1995.

Uluru, Australia

I have been fortunate to be able to apply for numerous travel opportunities. The applications are challenging but so worth the chance of seeing the world.

Ten years ago, I started having my students research and create 3-d models of World Heritage sites. They learn about the importance of the sites, why the sites were selected for protection and hopefully a desire to visit the sites. In 2015 I organized a trip and took 120 students to Mammoth Cave.

Stonehenge

La Fortaleza and San Juan National Historic Site in Puerto Rico

Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras

Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow

While at Hanoi Star, I am helping students research World Heritage sites. The pictures, below, are the students discussing their choices and how they are going to make the model. The school has created a competition to be held on March 2. There are over 35 groups of students. Each group has a different UNESCO site.

Part of the list

While I am in Vietnam, I have added to my World Heritage sites list.

Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long - Hanoi

Hoi An Ancient Town

Complex of Hué Monuments

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay, located in the Gulf of Tonkin, within Quang Ninh Province, in the northeast of Vietnam, is165 km from the capital of Ha Noi. Covering an area of 43,400 ha and including over 1600 islands and islets, most of which are uninhabitated and unaffected by humans, it forms a spectacular seascape of limestone pillars and is an ideal model of a mature Karst landscape developed during a warm and wet tropical climate. The property’s exceptional scenic beauty is complemented by its great biological interest. (UNESCO website)

Cave system

This is one of my favorite sites.

I was fortunate to go the site with two university students. It was beautiful despite the overcast, rainy day.

Trang An

Situated near the southern margin of the Red River Delta, the Trang An Landscape Complex is a spectacular landscape of limestone karst peaks permeated with valleys, many of them partly submerged and surrounded by steep, almost vertical cliffs. Exploration of caves at different altitudes has revealed archaeological traces of human activity over a continuous period of more than 30,000 years. They illustrate the occupation of these mountains by seasonal hunter-gatherers and how they adapted to major climatic and environmental changes, especially the repeated inundation of the landscape by the sea after the last ice age. The story of human occupation continues through the Neolithic and Bronze Ages to the historical era. Hoa Lu, the ancient capital of Viet Nam, was strategically established here in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. The property also contains temples, pagodas, paddy-fields and small villages.

(UNESCO website)

My Son Sanctury

During the 4th to 13th centuries there was a unique culture on the coast of contemporary Vietnam, owing its spiritual origins to the Hinduism of India. This is graphically illustrated by the remains of a series of impressive tower temples in a dramatic site that was the religious and political capital of the Champa Kingdom for most of its existence. (UNESCO)

Angkor

Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations. (UNESCO website)

I took a two-day trip to Cambodia to see this amazing site. I had a wonderful Tuk Tuk driver who helped me see five temples in one day. It is truly astonishing.

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