The Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre Onsite School Sessions

What causes damage to different materials, and how can they be looked after? Put on a lab coat and become a conservator. Use practical scientific methods and skills to identify materials and their different properties. This session also includes a behind-the-scenes look at one of our favourite objects.

Pupils will:

• Use practical scientific methods, processes and skills
• Perform simple tests
• Observe and use observations to answer questions
• Discover threats to objects and how to look after them

Have you ever wondered how the Museum cares for and looks after all the special objects within the collection? Become a conservator, explore objects made from a variety of materials, and experience how to look after your own special collections.

Pupils will:

• Show awareness of different materials and their properties
• Develop communication skills through expressing preferences and opinions
• Develop an understanding of how to store and care for their own possessions

Come and see what happens behind the scenes in a museum. Visit a studio and meet a conservator whose job is to repair and prepare paintings and objects for display. Discover how dyes and pigments are made and the artistic and scientific differences between them. Wear a lab coat and take part in a practical experiment exploring filtering, evaporation and solubility.

Pupils will:

• Experiment with materials that dissolve in liquid
• Recover substances from a liquid using filtering
• Discover how dissolving, mixing and changes of state can be reversible

How has navigation changed, and what can different maps, charts and globes tell us? The Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre has a unique collection of historic globes and maps. Visit the stores and explore a map made over 600 years ago as well as two very different globes. Use globes to help identify and label different places in the world. Use your discoveries to make globes which can be taken back to school.

Pupils will:

• Identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, the Equator, the Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circles, and the Prime Meridian in Greenwich
• Use maps, atlases and globes to locate countries
• Develop an understanding of the history of mapmaking

Discover intriguing museum objects and visit the mystery story store to inspire story writing. The mystery story store is a magical space in one of the collection stores, where you can open drawers, handle objects and play a musical instrument. It is also a home for stories. Pupils use their discoveries as inspiration for their own stories, which can be returned to us to be kept in the store as part of our collection.

• Develop historical enquiry skills
• Plan, discuss and record ideas for creative writing
• Identify audience and purpose for writing
• Write a high-quality creative story which will go into the collection

What happens behind the scenes at a museum? Visit the collections store and conservation studios to find out about museum jobs and meet people who help put an exhibition together - from object delivery to display. 

Students will:

• Learn about different careers within the museum sector
• Understand how an exhibition is planned
• Meet employees of the Museum and learn about their roles
• Visit the stores and choose a collection item they would like to display
• Develop their cultural capital