Archive for the ‘Resources’ 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.
Ancient Worlds Teacher Preview
Posted on: October 3, 2012
- In: About the Learning Programme | Event | Exhibitions | Galleries | Post-16 | Primary | Resources | Secondary
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With the opening of our new Ancient World Galleries the Museum’s Learning Team are pleased to announce that we will be hosting a Teacher Preview event to introduce teacher’s to our brand new galleries and associated learning programmes across the Key Stages.
This event will take place on Wednesday 14th November between 4.30 and 6.30pm. There will be a short introduction by our Learning Manager, followed by optional tours of the gallery spaces with our Curators. In addition our entire team will be present, allowing teachers to ask questions, learn about our new sessions and even register their interest in booking workshops on offer.
Our temporary exhibition, Breed:The British and their Dogs, will also be open and our Resources and Secondary workshop for this gallery will also be on show.
To book your space on the Preview Event email our bookings co-ordinator on school.bookings@manchester.ac.uk or call 0161 3052630.
GCSE and A-Level Geology workshops
Posted on: April 23, 2012
During the past few months, we have seen a surge of interest in our GCSE and A-Level Geology offer. It is great to see students fascinated by our specimens and engaging with museum experts, such as our Curator of Earth Sciences David Gelsthorpe. We have a selection of different geology workshops that can be tailored to meet the needs of specific groups, from Understanding and Interpreting Fossils, Trilobites and Exceptional Preservation. For the full menu of session available, please see our website. Workshops can also be supplemented with wow-factor fossil session and gallery tours as required.
We have welcomed Altrincham Boys Grammar School, Aquinas College and Balshaw High School to the museum over the past few months. Below are a few pictures of the workshops in action. If you would like to book any of our Geology workshops, please do get in touch.
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
New term excitement
Posted on: September 7, 2011
Image, heads down - planning how to display things in the museum
Pens, paper and lesson plans at the ready: the new school year is upon us! And how quickly the summer seems to have whizzed by. We’ve been busy here at The Museum reviewing our entire learning programme and working on new ideas to revamp some of the old favourites whilst also racking our brains for brand new workshop topics and activties. In addition we’re also immensely excited about the upcoming opening of the new Unearthed: Ancient Egypt temporary exhibition, which is going to be a fantastic interactive space encouraging visitors to explore Egyptology and Archaeology with our very own Dr. Digby (Terry Deary): What more could you ask for?
Our new programming is now up on the website, and we will be updating this throughout September with lots more information and resources for teachers as we build up to the opening of Unearthed at the end of the month. In the meantime why not see if you can bring our collection into your classroom via the Museum of Mystery?
Souvenirs for School groups…
Posted on: March 4, 2011
Our commerical team have recently launched a combined Museum and Whitworth Gallery Shop Blog known as Culture Shop Manchester. The aim is to to provide a means for customers and visitors to find out what we have available in the forms of products and offers whilst giving the shops a living internet presence.
One of their first posts is about School Groups & Goodie Bags: so take a look if you want to know more and order some fantastic souvenirs for your students to remember their educational trip to the Museum!
On 14th September 2010, Byran Sitch – our Curator of Archaeology – and I delivered a workshop at the Archaeology in Education conference in Liverpool organised by the Council for British Archaeology. Our workshop was focused on the Secondary session called Lindow Man: The Verdict, which was a huge success in 2008-09 during the Lindow Man: a Bog Body Mystery exhibition. If you can’t remember it, or were unlucky enough to miss the exhibition, see the University Museums Group case study which provides a quick overview.
Image, Lindow Man: The Verdict, Teacher resource cover
During the workshop for the conference, Bryan and I actually ran the Lindow Man: The Verdict workshop for attendees, and I’m glad to say that there is still a lot of enthusiasm for the topic and especially the distinct style of the court room drama workshop. It’s been a while since the workshop was delivered, and I’d forgotten how much fun it is and how involved you can get in the mystery of Lindow Man and his death.
The reason for all this reminiscing is to highlight the brand new Lindow Man: Teacher Resource which will provide any teacher with the necessary information to the run the very popular Lindow Man: The Verdict session within the classroom. For those who aren’t familiar with the session, the basic principle is that students have to argue three differing cases as to the cause of Lindow Man’s death and prove their case using evidence in a court-room: judged by their own peers. All three teams are provided with the same evidence – the evidence uncovered during the original excavation and examination of Lindow Man – but each team must interpret and question the evidence differently in order to make their case the most logical choice for the judges!
Everything required to run the session is provided in the Teacher Resource pack, but can equally be supplemented with additional materials. It’s a fantastic opportunity to get students to think independently, use evidence based research to draw conclusions and allow them to question the way evidence is interpreted and presented. In addition they also feel ownership over the case of Lindow Man and therefore feel that they are making an impact on the exploration of historical, and local, history.
To download the Lindow Man: Teacher Resource, just click here!
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.
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!
On Wednesday 28th April Karen Exell, Curator of Egypt and the Sudan, and I undertook a trial video conference with three Oldham schools. The trial was set up to help us look at whether video conferencing could be another way of working with schools in the future and increasing the reach of the Museum’s collection.
We took part in two conferences with the Oldham schools – a morning conference with Christchurch primary school and an afternoon conference with both Greenfield St Mary and Our Lady primary schools. Prior to the session, we asked the pupils if they had any questions about the ancient Egyptians that they would like Karen to answer. The questions submitted covered a wide range of topics from what the ancient Egyptians ate and what pets they had to what their death masks looked like.
image, ancient Egypt sarcophagus cover
In an effort to answer these questions as best we could, Karen searched the Egypt stores for objects to illustrate her answers during the video conference. The chosen objects included an ancient Egyptian death mask, baby feeding cup, vessel for holding beer, some games and tools . Both conferences were successfull and I certainly learnt lots (including that the River Nile is visible from space!). The trial also allowed me an opportunity to see video conferencing in action and generated lots of ideas within the Museum on how best it could be used with schools.
I’d be really interested to find out how many schools have access to video conferencing equipment and if you would be interested in using it with the Museum. Also, if you have an idea for an activity or session that might work well using video conferencing equipment, please let us know – we always welcome any suggestions and are looking forward to many more successful conferences in the future.
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