"It has been an incredible two months being part of the
Making Museums project with both the Pitt Rivers and Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUM) education
teams. My main aim from my traineeship was to be involved in more delivery of
sessions - and I can safely say I have certainly achieved that with this
project! As Making Museums is a partnership between both museums and eleven local schools in Blackbird Leys, Cowley, Littlemore, Rose Hill, Barton, Wood Farm and Headington, we taught almost 500 Year 6 students.
During the first month Aisling (the OUM Education Intern) and I were overseeing the
delivery of sessions within the schools. Here the children discussed ‘what is a
museum’ and what are the roles of people who work there. They
also had an opportunity to explore real museum objects to discover what they
were made of and what they were. They would use their senses to explore each
object (but not taste!) and would ask questions to help further their
discovery.
The next step was for the children to come to the museums
and follow the journey of an object on its way through a museum. Firstly the children would reflect on what they did when we
came out to their school and would warm up their object investigation skills
with a ‘what is it’ game. Here they would be presented with objects and would
be given three options; they would need to decide on what the objects were by
using their senses.
After a discussion about how we find objects
in museums there was the big reveal that they would in
fact be archaeologists for the day! We then took the groups of very
excited children to their own archaeological dig. It would be their job to
dig carefully and as a team to discover what was underneath!
This part would often be quite frantic, often stopping to remind the children to dig carefully. Once finished we discovered the skeleton of a
human body and around it were some real museum objects. It was really
interesting to hear how the children were already coming up with
suggestions about who the person might be from their observations.
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| The Dig! © Pitt Rivers Museum |
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| Mapping the Dig © Pitt Rivers Museum |
The next step was to map the dig and then to document specific objects. We explained how objects need to be recorded when received at a museum so we can see their condition and record any damage. It was then time to go behind the scenes to see real museum professionals in their work environments. Here they would learn the importance of conserving objects.
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| Researching Artefacts © Pitt Rivers Museum |
Children then researched their chosen objects in the Museum. Finally we gathered back to reconstruct the dig and hear what everyone had found out about their objects. In this way a picture was built up of who this person might have been: Where did they come from? What did they do for a living? And how did they die? We had some very imaginative ideas.
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| Sweet Tasting at St Andrews© Pitt Rivers Museum |
The final part of the project entailed the children going back to their schools and making their own museums. We really enjoyed going to visit their class museums and seeing how they engaged their visitors. One group had researched different sweets and you can see me here doing a blind taste tasting of their favourite sweets. This was a very popular display!
I think I can say for both myself and Aisling that we have
thoroughly enjoyed delivering the project and have a great sense of achievement
from all we have done."
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