Geocaching is a form of entertainment that involves finding a hidden object based on geographical data. Since mid-October it has been used by members of the Department of Germanic Studies of the Faculty of Arts of the UPJŠ in Košice to guide primary and secondary school pupils along the paths of Germans in Košice.
On Tuesday, 17 December 2024, we welcomed the pupils of the Dominik Tatarka German Bilingual Grammar School in Poprad. The first part of the agenda prepared by our students for 21 young people from the grammar school in Poprad was an interactive lecture by the head of the department, doc. PaedDr. Ingrid Puchalova, PhD., about Germans in Slovakia. After the lecture, the students from Poprad went to the streets of Košice to join the author of the geocaching adventure, Dr. Michaela Kováčová, PhD., and the doctoral student of the Department of Germanic Studies, Mgr. Sophia Bednarčíková, to find a piece of German history in the form of historical monuments related to the Germans’ presence in the eastern Slovak metropolis. Technical conditions for their search were created by Bc. Marta Lörincová.
Students from Poprad could not hide their enthusiasm. In their search for monuments or objects connected with the German population in Košice, they followed five previous groups of gymnasts from eastern Slovakia who had decided to take this unconventional journey of knowledge before them. The participants of the geocaching can also get to know the campus of the Department of Germanic Studies better, recall the importance of the arrival of the German-speaking population to our territory, and get to know the monuments and objects that relate to their time in Košice.
The Department of Germanic Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the UPJŠ in Košice connects the academic environment with practice in this innovative and interactive way and offers those interested an unconventional opportunity to find out the yet unknown.
