Enriching Exhibitions Stories with Year 10 History and Computing Students

Last term, 24 Year 10 students took part in an extended research project to create digital stories about museum objects, working with experts from the University of Oxford eResearch Centre and the University of Edinburgh. 

They began with a VIP visit to the Ashmolean Museum where students worked with Dr Andrew Shapland, the Sir Arthur Evans Curator of Bronze Age and Classical Greece and the curator of last year’s blockbuster Labyrinth exhibition. We learnt to safely handle 3000 year old objects from the museum’s Bronze Age collection and discuss their uses and purpose. The objects we were lucky enough to handle  included a tiny clay ox, a cast bronze axe head, decorated clay pots, engraved stone seals, golden cups fit for use by royalty….. and a 3D printed replica, which Freya and Amy did spot as not being quite so old. 

The morning was wrapped up with a tour of the Aegean World galleries by Kirsti Deacon, a member of their education team, giving all students a greater insight into the Bronze Age world and a chance to make their own observations and interpretations of the objects on display. 

Upon returning to school students worked with Dr Robinson and Mr Daniels to examine objects from our own Rumble Museum, investigating the connections between our objects and those in the Ashmolean, drawing out parallels between their purpose and use in society of the time. But this project was not just about looking at objects in a museum! We wanted to show students the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and how their knowledge of computing can be applied in a variety of fields, including museums and curation. 

To do this students took part in an afternoon computing workshop - taught by Mr Chikunga and Mrs Ali, and supported by the Enriching Exhibitions researchers - to produce their own professional-looking digital book. Students learnt about key-value pairs and object data to produce code in YAML that represented their observations and interpretations alongside the Linked Art data from the Ashmolean collection. Students were able to include photos they’d taken in the handling sessions and use the Markdown language to add formatting to their personal interpretations of the objects. 

By the end of the sessions the students had produced a digital book, which we have published below.  This resource, as students have now learnt, could be updated in the future to include the Rumble Museum objects or the other items they investigated at the Ashmolean. Excitingly, the students’ efforts will be included in a presentation to an international audience of museum experts held at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam next week!

Below are photos from across the different sessions, some taken by teachers and some by students. Most of the students on the trip had never visited the Ashmolean Museum before, and their coos and gasps of excitement upon entering the central atrium were delightful, as was their behaviour throughout the day. We all hope our students leave this activity feeling newly enthused and emboldened to engage with the wide range of cultural riches on their doorstep - both in the town centre and in Cheney’s own Rumble Museum. 

The project team would like to thank all the teachers and students involved in making their project a success. Further details about the Enriching Exhibitions Stories project, which is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (project reference AH/Y006011/1), can be found at the project’s website: https://linked.art/community/projects/ees2/ 

Enriching Exhibitions digital book

Enriching Exhibition Stories - Evaluation and Recommendations Report