Archive for the ‘Outreach’ Category
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Here at the Manchester Museum we absolutely love projects that get pupils involved in real life science that matters – they are, after all, the researchers of tomorrow.
How much rain falls in Manchester?
So we were really pleased to get information on the ‘Crowdsourcing4Climate: Community Rainfalls Collections’ pilot project, which hopes to get the public and schools collecting rainfall data to add to the data we can use in all sorts of scientific research. It’s simple but could be a brilliant and effective school project and will support research at Manchester, Birmingham and Leicester Universities.
We’ve attached some information on how you can get involved and would love to see local schools contributing – so do take a look and let us know if you need any further information C4C_TeacherGuide-1.
The Manchester Museum Comes To You
Posted on: June 8, 2012
- Pupils from Wilbraham Primary School get hands on with Ancient Egyptian objects.
The Manchester Museum’s redeveloped ‘Museum Comes To You’ schools outreach offer is coming soon!
Recently, Bryan Sitch, our wonderful Curator of Archaeology visited Matthew Moss High School as part of an ‘Archaeology Day’ they had planned. He provided some of their Year 8 students with a talk on ‘What is Archaeology’ in order to inspire and inform them on this fascinating subject. He took along some basic finds from our collection and engaged the students in exploring what they thing archaeology is and how it is a destructive, but potentially very informative, process. According to the teachers, this really helped in increasing students’ understanding of the subject.
We;re really lucky that we have great curators who work with us in the Learning Team to make our programme successful and although we don’t currently offer Outreach Curator talks on a regular basis, sometimes we can organise the occasional visit here and there on special request. If this is something you might be interested in, please contact me: catherine.lumb@manchester.ac.uk
Happy New Year!
Posted on: January 4, 2011
So the festivities are over and after a quiet spell on the Learning Blog we are all back at the Museum and Art Gallery ready to enthuse students and make learning outside the classroom a fun and engaging activity for all.
Image, heads down - planning how to display things in the museum
We will be blogging about our new projects and workshops soon, but in the meantime why not check out the Learning Pages for The Manchester Museum and The Whitworth Art Gallery to see what we have to offer. If you don’t find what you are looking for, get in touch and we will be happy to help if we can!
We would like to thank the following schools for visiting The Manchester Museum between 18th & 22nd Oct 2010
Posted on: October 22, 2010
Barton Moss Primary, Eccles
Image, The entrance to The Manchester Museum
Brookburn Primary, Chorlton
Ermysted Grammar, Skipton
Great Marsden St Johns Primary, Nelson
Halifax High
Heathland Primary, Sandilane
Holy Family Primary, Salemoor
Loreto College
Lyndhurst Primary, Oldham
Martenscroft Children’s Centre
North Reddish Junior, Stockport
St Barnabas Primary, Openshaw
St Christopher’s Primary, Ashton Under Lyne
St Helens Primary, Barnsley
St Thomas Primary, West Houghton
Victoria Junior, Cumbria
Webster Primary, Moss Side
Wilmslow Prep School
On Wednesday 29th September The Manchester Museum hosted a preview evening for teachers in order to allow educational professsionals to see the new China: Journey to the East exhibition, view our ideas for the associated learning programme and talk to the learning team at the Musuem.
It was a fantastic evening, and seemed to be a great success. We had over fifty teachers attend to explore and investigate the variety of programming that The Museum is offering in conjunciton to the exhibition and it was amazing to be able to get input and feedback for the workshops and sessions at such an early stage.
Throughout the school year, as the exhibition is with us until June 2011, we are offering workshops and resources at all stages, from Early Years to Post-16. If you missed the preview, or even just want to find out more about the China: Journey to the East Learning Programme visit our website or get in touch.
We’re very lucky at The Manchester Museum to have some really enthusiastic curators who enjoy working with the public and teaching young people about their specialist subjects. In light of that, here is a special ‘guest’ blog post by Bryan, our Curator of Archaeology, and his experience of working with a Primary school gorup.
People often think that collections curators spend all their time in the store looking at objects. In fact there are opportunities to go out and visit schools as I found earlier this week when I was invited back to Flixton Junior School to talk to some Year 3 children about archaeology. Janice East is one of the teachers there and she has asked me to talk to the children several times over the last couple of years.
Pupil from Flixton examining an archaeological flint tool
So it was that last Monday morning I found myself in the school hall standing in front of two classes of 7-8 year olds. We talked about what archaeology is and after fending off the common misunderstanding that archaeology is in some way related to dinosaurs we looked at some prehistoric flint tools from The Manchester Museum collection. We divided the children into smaller groups and asked them to come up with a story to account for the flint artefacts I had put out on the tables for them.
I encouraged the children to think of themselves as detectives looking at clues and to try and come up with a story to account for the finds that they had before them. The children quickly grasped the idea that the flint arrowhead and the flint axehead were all that remained of a bow-and-arrow and an axe and that the organic materials had rotted away in the ground.
It was interesting that the children thought the flint scrapers were buttons even though they didn’t have holes in the middle. What was even more fascinating was the way the children talked about the artefacts as having been used by cavemen. It just shows how pervasive is the association between prehistoric stone tools and caves amongst the public even in the minds of quite young schoolchildren. It’s always great to work with the school because the children’s enthusiasm is infectious.
I believe Janice brought in some broken pottery from home and seeded the school flower beds before asking the children to search for ‘archaeology’. This turned the soil over a treat ready for the autumn. Now I wonder if I could try that in my own garden at home?
Bryan Sitch, Curator of Archaeology
Calling all Eco Schools….
Posted on: September 27, 2010
We are delighted to be able to offer four primary schools the unique opportunity to be part of an exciting and innovative partnership project beginning in autumn 2010 involving The Manchester Museum, the BBC 21st Century Classroom and the University of Salford.
Taking inspiration from the Manchester Museum’s forthcoming Living Planet gallery the ‘On My Doorstep’ project will encourage Year 5 pupils to engage with their local environment, and to consider issues related to biodiversity, ecology and sustainability. The project aims to provide pupils with the knowledge, skills and inspiration required to produce a short film about nature on their doorsteps. All four films will be shown on the BBC 21CC website and will provide a comparative resource for exploration of local environments in four contrasting areas of the North West.
The project not only supports the Eco Schools Framework (particularly the Biodiversity topic) and also offers an array of cross curricular learning opportunities in Science, History, Citizenship, Geography and ICT. Groups will get to grips with multi-media and learn a broad range of film making skills. Under the guidance of BBC staff and professional camera crew they will have the opportunity to use industry standard equipment and software.
The project will last for three weeks and each participating class will complete four activity days during this time.
Activity days include:
- Initial Museum visit – pupils will discover more about the project and take part in a number of special workshops to develop their skills as naturalists.
- Museum Comes to School – the Museum will visit school to help the class develop their ideas for creating their film.
- BBC 21st Century Classroom visits School – working with BBC 21st CC staff, professional cameramen and student mentors from the MA in Wildlife Documentary Production course at the University of Salford, groups will learn how to storyboard their ideas and film on location.
- Visit to the 21st Century Classroom – the class will work with 21CC staff to edit their films.
The project will end in April 2011 with a sharing event in which all participants will be invited to a film launch at the Museum.
Only four places available.
Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity!
For further information contact:
School Outreach – The Manchester Museum
Tel: 0161 306 1779
Email: schooloutreach@manchester.ac.uk
Tiger shadow puppet made of donkey hide. Made in Hubei province, China, between 1850 and 1950. © The Trustees of the British Museum
As Cat mentioned in her last post, the start of the academic year brings a new and exciting exhibition to The Manchester Museum. CHINA: JOURNEY TO THE EAST, a British Museum Touring Exhibition, opens in the Museum on 25 September 2010. The exhibition will be accompanied by a varied and stimulating learning programme, which ranges from Early Years to Post 16.
On Wednesday 29 September 2010 from 5.30-7.30pm, the Learning Team will be hosting a special after hours event for teachers. This event will offer teachers at all key stages a chance to see the learning opportunities available for your students accompanying the exhibition. You will be able to preview the new exhibition with Curators and members of the Learning Team will be on hand to answer your questions. Of course, there will also be the all important refreshments!
If you would like to join us at the teacher preview then please RSVP to me by email: menaka.munro@manchester.ac.uk or by phone on 0161 275 2631.
I hope we will see lots of you on the 29th September!
Primary Outreach 2009-10
Posted on: August 20, 2010
Vicky on an Outreach session at a school
One of the most popular outreach sessions we deliver is ancient Egypt and in the past academic year we have delivered over 20 sessions in schools across Greater Manchester and had the pleasure of working with some very insightful and imaginative children.
Thanks to all those schools which have sent us pupils’ feedback and comments! We have selected a couple to share with you.
We always enjoy seeing what further work the pupils have produced after our visit. Above are also images of some of the ancient Egyptian artefacts we bring into school and you can spot them in the pictures the children have drawn in the feedback shown.
We are always striving to develop our sessions to support teachers in delivering the curriculum and appreciate your comments.
In September 2010 we will be launching our ‘newly’ developed ancient Egypt session in response to your comments and suggestions and there will be more artefacts to see and explore.
Watch this space for more info…
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