Day at the Museum – local youngsters take over Heritage Quay
Thu, 03 Dec 2015 11:21:00 GMT
University’s Archive welcomes children from the Netherhall Learning Campus History Clubfor the national Kids in Museums initiative
HERITAGE Quay, the University’s Archive, was taken over by children from the Netherhall Learning Campus History Club as part of the national Kids in Museums initiative, to re-ignite the younger generation’s interest in visiting museums, art galleries and places of historical interest.
Kids in Museums is part of the Taking Over Museums annual event, where children are put in charge of local museums, galleries or heritage sites and are allowed to fully participate in the life and routine of the centres.
Throughout the day the children, who were all aged between 13 and 15 years old, took part in the archive centre’s daily activities. They discovered how to find unwanted bugs and pests in the collections and why the items are vulnerable to environmental damage. One of their tasks was to wrap the items in order to preserve them from damage and destruction.
The children digitised old records and soundtracks and found out why this is so important in the age of digitisation. They then went on to be roving reporters and asked visitors coming to the centre, what they thought of Heritage Quay and its collections.
The Archive’s twitter feed was taken over for the day with interactions between the children and members of the public as they gained experience with the do’s and don’ts of social media in the public eye.
Trizia Wells, Heritage Quay’s Learning and Engagement Officer, believes these initiatives are important to change children’s perceptions of museums.
“Traditionally, art galleries and museums have been seen by children as not being interesting and as being a ‘hands off, don’t touch’ kind of place,” said Trizia. “But this isn’t the case and there have been some really good national concerted efforts to change this.”
Trizia, who also works at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in Halifax, knows of the benefits for children if they are given the opportunity to truly interact with a museum and engage with the people who work there.
“The children who came along to Heritage Quay are at the age where they are starting to think about careers,” said Trizia. “These takeover days really give them a feel of what it is like to work with history and heritage on daily basis and hopefully creates the archivists of the future.
“At Heritage Quay, we are committed to increasing the younger generation’s engagement with history and we have already taken part in some fantastic workshops with local schools, with more planned in the future.”
- To find out about these workshops, email Trizia Wells on t.wells@hud.ac.uk.
