Year 6 Conservation Day at N Lincs Museum
Results of Evaluation (by end users) of Educational Activities for Young Learners at Conservation Day held at North Lincolnshire Museum, Scunthorpe, Thursday 6th October 2005 The Year 6 teacher from Park Wood Junior School, Scunthorpe approached the education department at North Lincolnshire Museum. They put her in touch with her local FLO, Lisa Staves, who is based at the museum and Rose Nicholson the Archaeology Assistant (Collections).
The children were lucky enough to be doing an archaeology module at school, which unfortunately, is increasingly rare. Lisa, and Rose worked out what sort of activities would give the children the best learning experience and agreed the programme with the teacher. An all day outreach programme held at the school was decided on and planned. It is becoming more and more difficult for school groups to get out of the classroom and this was a way to bring the museum, the finds and the archaeologists out to the children.
The day took the form of an introduction to archaeology and Portable Antiquities, followed by a plenary where children could ask questions, followed by activities: ‘Investigating Objects’ Children received an archaeology object from the museum’s collection and a worksheet to complete. They had to go through the worksheet answering questions about the design and function of the object to discover its identity. Designing an heraldic shield using the rules of medieval heraldry. ‘Field Walking Objects’.
Children were given a selection of pottery, clay pipes and flint from a field to identify and record with the help of one of the FLO’s or archaeology assistant which they then had to sort by date. They were then given a map of a field with the finds plotted on it. The children then coloured in the find spots using a key which they had devised to show objects from different periods. This lead on to a plenary talking about different distributions of finds and what it can tell us about the past. This was a great combination of history with maths and geography skills, handling and potting data, making observations and inferences and using evidence. ‘Blind Drawing’.
Introducing the concepts behind why archaeologists, museum curators and historians write detailed description of objects or evidence. Each child was given a different object and the task of writing as detailed a description as possible without mentioning what the exact object was. They then passed the description onto another group who had to draw the object from only the description. The children find this activity difficult and frustrating when they can’t draw the object because the description is too vague but it uses discovery learning and reinforcement to explain why the more detailed the evidence, the more accurate the interpretation can be. To finish the activity they write a detailed museum label using what they learnt from the blind drawing exercise. ‘The Skeleton Game’. Before the workshop, the children were asked to bring in an object that meant a lot to them. They were then divided into groups of three/four and took it in turns to pretend to be buried with their personal object. The rest of the group have to decide what would survive in 500 years time, first in dry conditions and then in boggy.
The Workshops were lead by Rose Nicholson (Archaeology Assistant NLM), Lisa Staves (FLO N Lincs) and Anna Marshall (FLO South & West Yorks).
Number of respondents: 51 (100% response rate)
Feedback- questions and answers
- After today, do you understand more about things from a long time ago? Yes 40 No 1 Not sure 10
- Today, did you find out something new? Yes 49 No 0 Not sure 2 How did today’s visit make you feel? 39 0 13
- What was your favourite thing?
“Pottery, flint looking at different stones” Jamie-Lee Smith “Domonic dead!!” Declan Taylor, see scan
“My favourite thing was we were all keep swopping over (finds)” Daniel Ross
“I now more more and I understand about things from a long time ago. I found out new things and it made me feel happy my favourite activity was the first one because I liked the Victorian skirt lifter.” Sophie Corcoran
“Sorting the stons and playing deid.” Josh, 6H
“that the 10 Roman coins is a treasure all found in the same place. Treasure!” Liam W, 6H
“sorting the pottery” Daniel Gray, 6H
“I liked it when we had to write about an object and then swap sheets and gues someone else’s object”, Laura Hickman
“My favourite thing was the blind drawing because we got to write a description ands someone else got to draw your object you were describing. And you get to draw theres.”, Emily Cowell, 6H
