sharing the past - Auckland Museum

Sharing the Past activity sheet
Why are the tools so different from the ones we
use today?
· Collect and display some fossils or fossil pictures
and pose the question "How was the world different
then?" Research answers.
·Encourage children to make their own holiday
memorabilia collection to display.
Year 4 - 6
· Collect life histories (of great grandparents if
possible). Write diaries about children's daily life
based on knowledge gathered.
· Make two time capsules. One a simulated version
from the past (teacher collected), another
assembled by today's children to be opened in
the future.
· Study an ancient civilization, e.g. Pompeii, Rome,
Greece, Mesopotamia. Produce a play based on
some event, perhaps a fiesta day or a religious
celebration.
· Become familiar with some of the archaeological
evidence left on an abandoned living site.
Pretend you are digging on your school site one
hundred years into the future. Draw a simulated
archaeological map. Detail what was found.
· Use the Internet to play some simulated archaeological
games. The Ontario Museum has an
interesting site:
http//www.rom.on.ca/digs/munsell/
· Make a time line showing tools or other equipment
and how things have changed over time.
Predict how they will function in the future or if
they will be used at all.
· Rubbish bin archaeology. Create a bin shape,
each day glue, or pin drawn rubbish onto the bin
but cover the previous days rubbish. End by
uncovering the week's result and analyse daily
trends. Can you do this in reality? Find out who
uses rubbish to gather evidence and what can be
found out.
· What kinds of things do archaeologists find?
What rots and what remains? Bury food and less
fragile articles well before your study, predict
then dig up to prove or disprove theories.
· How do things from the past become buried?
Make a list: rubbish buried, deliberate (graves
animals, people), hiding valuables in war time e.g
carvings which decorated Maori buildings, laying
27 Activity Sheet
Auckland Museum
Te Papa Whakahiku
PRE AND POST VISIT ACTIVITIES (Cont.d)
foundations, natural disasters (e.g. Titanic), accidental
(windblown leaves, volcanic ash etc.)
· Study our own version of Pompeii, the Buried
Village near Rotorua, which was buried during
Tarawera's eruption.
Years 7-9
· Organize a visit to a retirement village and
interview willing residents about their early lives.
Prepare questions beforehand to encourage
variety. Survey toys, tools, kitchen equipment, etc
compared to today. Display as a museum might.
· Study your local area. Use local historians,
library records, street names and buildings to
gain ideas. Build a 3-D model of the area or a
map with overlays to note the changes.
· Playing dead. One child lies on the floor surrounded
by all the things s/he would want to take
to the After-life. Make an outline for the record.
Imagine excavating this grave 1000yrs on.*What
would decompose and what would be left?
*What could archaeologists say about this person's
status, job, age, and cause of death? *What
could be said about the society in which this person
lived, technology, money, literacy, and gender
equality? Make a second much depleted outline.
· Examine a handbag's contents. *What does it
tell you about wealth, age, health, gender and
the society of its owner? *If stolen and thrown
away what would survive into the next century?
Divide into two groups write a report. One on the
person now and one if found next century.
· Use Digging up the Past by M. Trotter and B.
McCulloch to research New Zealand's archaeological
discoveries. Each pair could research a
site, an artefact or detail some of the evidence
used to trace the Polynesian settlement of the
Pacific. Or each pair could choose an aspect of
discovery e.g. bones in N.Z and what they told us,
or tools or moa hunters’ sites, or ornaments which
show how Maori lived.
· Research an ancient civilisation. What evidence
can be used to describe daily life? Is there something
you can't find out? Why is this?