Museum Discovery Day

Last month Salma and Maya trialled their new Need Make Use workshop for Museum Discovery Day with over 100 Year 8 pupils from Marlborough School, organised into 3 groups.


Need Make Use Workshop © Pitt Rivers Museum

This new workshop aimed to get students thinking about human creativity and ingenuity, and how people design and make what they need from the materials they have around them. 

Object Handling Table © Pitt Rivers Museum

An introduction to the Pitt Rivers followed by discussion and object handling got the students thinking about what needs people have - from the basic need to survive to more complex things like art, culture, communication and identity. 

Students had to consider how to design and make an object so that it would do what it is meant to do. But they also had to think about how the design would be influenced by factors such as materials, environment and identity. Each scenario was created by students choosing an identity, an environment, and a need from three different pots. 










One group selected a chief from a mountainous region who needed to design a mask to use in a ritual that would help the community deal with a difficulty.  If this sounds like a really tall order, Marlborough School rose to the challenge in an ingenious way.  They decided that the problem the community had was making money so they designed a mask made out of goatskin and leaves marked with the symbols and colours of success - red, gold and money signs.  The students felt that this should be a bright cheerful mask used to round up the community to creative positive vibes, get people networking and talking about how to make life and business more prosperous, so they could sell more mountain goat products like cheese, milk and things made out of hide. 

Another group designed a fierce animal mask that a ten-year-old boy could use in the forest to help him prepare for his first hunting trip. They felt that masks help us transform ourselves, so the boy could pretend to be a fierce hunting animal and then feel brave and strong ready to join the men on the hunt. 



Annotated student design © Pitt Rivers Museum

Here is an example of a student design for a specific need, identity and environment.

Having fun and being imaginative and creative was the order of the day.  Well done Marlborough school for coming up with so many fantastic creative designs and standing up in front of everyone to explain them.

Welcome!

Welcome to our new Education Blog! We will use this space to let you know about the diverse activities we run for lots of different audiences.
 A good starting place must be introducing the team, so here goes:

Left to right: Salma Caller, Andy McLellan, Simone Dogherty,
Maya Herbolzheimer, Shirley Careford, Becca McVean
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Andy McLellan, Head of Education, leads the department, provides the vision, and goes to lots of meetings. He is particularly interested in film projects and has worked with teenagers in care, schools and community groups. He arrived at the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2000 to start up the Education Team, which now encompasses seven staff.

There are Education Officers for different audience groups. Salma Caller works with Adults, Secondary Schools and Communities. She draws on her background as an artist and having travelled widely to help interpret objects to this wide range of audiences. Becca McVean works with Primary Schools, utilising her skills as a trained English teacher, and Simone Dogherty enchants families with her cheerful smile and demon design skills.

We are lucky enough to have a Music Education Officer, Isabelle Carré, who delivers specialist projects and workshops and can often be seen playing giant African xylophones, Indonesian gamelans or Korean drums.

Isabelle Carré introduces primary school pupils to giant
Ugandan xylophone in the African Music session © Pitt Rivers Museum

Maya Herbolzheimer is the only full-time member of the Education Team and works as an Activities and Outreach officer for the HLF-funded VERVE: Need Make Use project. She organises outreach activities in the ‘pop-up’ Pitt Rivers tent around Oxfordshire, and runs events in the Museum such as workshops, demonstrations and evening events for adult audiences.

Our long-suffering Joint Bookings Officer, Shirley Careford, co-ordinates visitor bookings across the Oxford UniversityMuseum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers, and manages the Visitor Centre. She’ll always try to sort out your problem but cross her at your peril, particularly when Tottenham Hotspur has lost.

So now the niceties of introductions are over, you’ll be hearing from us over the next few months. From the daily grind to the sublime heights of project work. Keep reading…