Our story begins in 2013, when Idrija Heritage Centre (now Idrija Tourism Board) established the Idrija Geopark, which, in 2015, became an UNESCO Global Geopark. A UNESCO Global Geopark represent sites and landscapes of international geological significance, which are managed in a holistic manner. A UNESCO Global Geopark speaks for its geological heritage in connection with all other natural and cultural heritage to raise awareness, knowledge and other issues regarding a sustainable development of an area. By managing the Idrija UNESCO Global Geopark our organization has received many tasks, among wich, protection, informing about and promoting the natural and cultural heritage of our area, is the most important. It is a great responsibility to take into consideration the heritage in an area of 249 km2 our Geopark encompasses. We seek various means and ways to teach about the inheritance of the surrounding we live in through local and international connections and by organizing different activities for local inhabitants, children and visitors. One of our latest missions in interpretation and education of this array of heritage was to establish a Visitor Centre, where a popular science interpretation of geological heritage was put on display for general public. As geological features are tightly connected to the landscape and lifestyle of the area, the exhibit also includes our cultural and technical inheritance. Our story therefore focuses on the interconnection of all heritage phenomena in our municipality, with the emphasis on that, often forgotten part of natural heritage – Earth heritage. Furthermore, our story envisions to continue and expand interpretation of this heritage to the community, focusing on pre-school and school children, to other geoparks and to the wider public, in order to grow the common perception and understanding of geo and other heritage and its importance for our society.

Idrija UNESCO Global Geopark is abundant in natural heritage, from diverse ecosystems, endemic species to interesting geological structures. This natural phenomena determined the productivity of man, our geology has formed the landscape, influenced the culture we live in and enabled the creation of various cultural and especially technical heritage. Our UNESCO Global Geopark represents the whole collection of heritage peculiarities, which importance was recognized by the UNESCO comittee and the Global Geoparks Network. It is our responsibility and duty to protect and educate about this heritage and to support the sustainable development of our region. This project allows us to expose and expand our calling in heritage education. We've been very active in promoting our heritage. Each year we organize workshops, seminars and other activities through the Geopark School Network project, during the European Geopark's Week and within the European Heritage Days events. We've been very active cooperating with schools, local organizations and the community to raise awareness about our heritage and heritage in general. In the past few years our great mission was to create a Visitor Centre, where a popular science interpretation of geological heritage was put on display for general public. It was an important achievement in natural heritage interpretation, as geological heritage often represent a challenge for interpretation. Of course, fulfilling one goal does not put us to rest. The interpretation and education about heritage is an ongoing process, which constantly generates new ideas. Each year we organize a Geopark School Network event, where children from all our four primary schools are introduced to and reminded of the tangible and tangible heritage. We organized workshops on past ways of coal-making, preparing traditional foods, architectural heritage, lace-making etc. We constantly promote the natural heritage and the traditions/past knowledge with workshops during the European Heritage days (workshops on flax production, bee-keeping, field trips to geological sites) and during the European Geoparks Week. Our activities in European Geoparks Week, European Heritage Days and Geopark school Network are always free and accessible. Our work reflects best in our Visitor centre. Although the interpretation in the centre follows a geological tone and offers a geological history walk, the topic is intertwined with introduction of natural heritage sites and cultural legacy of Idrija UNESCO Global Geopark. The past has left us with rocks, ore, fossiles and footprints of dino predecessors. Long-term contact between rocks and water gave birth to karstic world of chasms, sinkholes, karst fields and caves. But the creation of the cinnabar ore and the diverse lanscape reflected in a specific way of life, that left us with mining related technical achievements, culinary specialities and fine lace-making. All of this is shown in our Visitor centre. It is an interactive display, where visitors can be active, they can engage in experiments, discoveries and interact with exhibit pieces. We managed to include most of the Geopark's main attractions in one place for visitors to explore and learn. Now we are encountered with another challenge – how to expand the exploration in an interesting way, that will give even more information to visitors, how to guide them through the exhibit without beeing too intrusive or dull? We came across an interesting idea – we wish to create additional interpretational tools that can be used as modern learning tools or as an essential part of the Visitor centre experience and we want to offer children and families a way of exploring our heritage through play, by issuing a new, interesting board-game that will present our heritage. In this way we will make the learning experience even more fun and accessible and attract more heritage enthusiasm.

Idrija Tourism Board is constantly searching for new innovative methods of heritage interpretation, so the heritage of our Geopark can become collectively recognized and drawn nearer to the public. Our story seeks to establish a new bond between people and their heritage, while increasing knowledge and making it more interesting and amusing. The story and the project aims to educate the community, especially children in a creative way and make them aware of the shared geological history and geological heritage of Europe and the world. We want to encourage them to realize that a common geological history produced different geological heritage and even more specific local cultural heritage. Our specific activities are locally orientated, but as a member of the European Geoparks Network we also want to encompass the European perspective. Through a Danube Interreg Project we put through several heritage interpretation activities, exchanged good practices and we plan to continue to do so through a well established cooperation among European and especially Danube Region geoparks. On one side we promote geological heritage of other european geoparks in our Visitor centre, and on the other, we continue to share good practices outwards. Our story of interconnection is applicable to all cultural-natural heritage and of course in all of the 75 geoparks in Europe. In the future we want to share our story and the results of our project with them and promote the establishment of innovative heritage interpretation methods through the European Geopark Network. As a Global Geopark Network (which is part of official UNESCO programme – IGGP programme) members we envision to share our story and achievements even wider. Results of our project will be presented at EGN and GGN meetings and within Education Working group, so the dissemination will reach a number of actors working with geoparks heritage in Europe and the world. These international meetings with up to 800 representatives are a great opportunity to exchange educational and interpretation practises on heritage and running projects, what will also have a broader cultural and possibly even economic impact.