You may think January is a relaxing time in the Education section, enjoying the quiet lull before the tide of visiting school groups wash through our doors. Well, we have been everything but relaxing as we prepare for the Museum’s upcoming exhibition Not just Ned: a true history of the Irish in Australia, which opens on 17 March.
Convict Brick
I’m on a team developing a program for years 5 to 10, in which students will consider the role of historians and the use of different sources in interpreting our past. Students will become history detectives and examine how historians have used different sources to tell stories within the ‘Not just Ned’ exhibition. It is essential that students, especially years 7 and 8, gain an understanding of source reliability and develop techniques to assess the bias in and usefulness of sources.
I cannot wait to do our first ‘Not just Ned’ program, I’ll let you know what the history detectives uncover!
Check out our programs for Not just Ned.
I’ve really enjoyed watching this program develop because it combines opportunities for students to respond both analytically and creatively when considering different sources in history. It’s the eternal challenge of the history teacher- to provide detailed and vigorous engagement with detail along with the opportunity to emotionally invest in the topic. It’ll be interesting to see how teachers and students respond to the exhibtion and this program.
[...] to book into one of the programs we’ve developed to help students explore the exhibition. Jess has blogged about [...]
Well here we are at Keys to Canberra with representatives of all our local cultural institutions and others keen to let educators know what it is they do. We’re waiting to tell all our local teachers and pre service teachers about our Not Just Ned programs among others. Perhaps a quick survey as to how many people have Irish ancestry is in order…