teaching - Earth Science Teachers' Association

TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 31 ● Number 4, 2006
Lone Museum Curator Attends his First
ESTA Conference. The Message – Make
More of your Museum
JAN FREEDMAN
The third weekend in September, the 15th-17th, was an interesting and exciting one. Not only
was it the first time young Cally Oldershaw admitted that it was her birthday at Conference, but it
was my first time at an ESTA Conference.
Based in the beautiful old city of Bristol, with the
soft purple-green Pennant Sandstone paving
stones and the old granite, basalt and Millstone
Grit cobbled roads. Walking along Queen’s road, with
the grand Wills Memorial Building and the majestic
edifices surrounding, all a slight golden honey colour
from the Bath Stone they are built from. You can close
your eyes and imagine yourself in a lagoon, with the
hot sun beating down on your back and the warm
water splashing gently on your legs as you walk on
thousands of tiny ooids almost crunching beneath
your feet. A small school of brightly coloured fish may
dart past your feet forcing you to look down into the
crisp, clear, turquoise sea and see hundreds of enigmatic
fish all diverse shapes, sizes and colours shooting
swiftly through the water.
The weekend Conference was fascinating, packed
with hands-on workshops and lectures, from mass
extinctions to volcanic eruptions. There were three
things that stood out for me at the weekend. The first
was that my old A level teacher was there, and hadn’t
aged or grown an inch! Mr Loader was still the same
enthusiastically charismatic little fella with his highly
contagious laughter, reminding me of first being taught
about pyroclastic flows and differentiation in the
magma chamber.
The second and third things go hand in hand. From
speaking to lots of different people in the coffee and
lunch-time breaks, it was interesting that not many
teachers knew they could use museums as a valuable
and often free resource (not only for geology, but art,
history and ancient history too) I think I was the only
person from a museum at the Conference. ‘Often free’
as some museums may charge to show groups of school
children around; not so Plymouth Museum, which
offers a completely free service!
The larger museums usually have dedicated
museum education, learning or outreach officers.
Museum education staff, and even the curators themselves,
can be available to go into schools and bring
with them minerals, rocks and fossils for the children
to handle. Day field trips around the local area can also
be arranged, in their museum or out and about in
town. Museum education officers are also ex-teachers,
so they know the curriculum and can tailor their
events, making them relevant to the key-stage, attainment
targets or age group. This is an interesting
approach, as the museum education staff use the
museums’ collections for the students to handle and
learn from, resulting in a fun and imaginative way of
learning for all involved. In another way, it is incredibly
important as it can give the teacher the day to relax
a little, as the museum staff member will probably do
all the talking!
If there are smaller museums near your school, without
dedicated museum education staff, they can still be
useful. If you pop in and speak to the geology (or sometimes
natural history or natural science) curator, they will
usually be more than happy to arrange something.
It is important that schools are aware of their local
museums and how they can be used, but it is also
important for the museum education officers to be
knowledgeable about what they teach. I found out from
the Membership Secretary, Hamish Ross, that there are
9 people out of 529 members with ‘museums’ somewhere
in their address record. This is important as
museum education officers need to understand geology
in order to teach it well, which is why I was surprised to
see no other museum education officers at this Confer-
Continued on page 14
Figure 1
Looking at cave
deposits. Just one
of the many ‘Wild
About Plymouth’
activities – a
monthly event
organised by the
museum for
children and their
parents. Activities
include day events
such as guided
walks in and
around Plymouth
to look at rocks
and plants and
visiting the
estuaries to do
some birdwatching.
13 www.esta-uk.org