Sweden Calling!
Teenage pupils from the City of Portsmouth Girls’ School made a trip to Sweden’s premier museum, the Vasa, without stepping outside the classroom with an innovative link-up using the latest web technology - Skype.
The Mary Rose Trust, the custodians of Henry VIII’s famous warship, regularly works with the school. This term they decided to be even more ambitious and embark on a novel project with the school Humanities Club. Working with Mary Rose team, the girls were inspired to improve their research and ICT skills.
The Mary Rose Trust decided to involve the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, with whom they are twinned. Following a visit to the Swedish Museum, the Mary Rose’s Learning team was struck by the huge potential of a project comparing these two ships. The Swedish team was equally keen to add a global dimension to their learning programme. The Vasa sank in 1628 on her maiden voyage, whereas the Mary Rose sank after 34 years service in 1545. The artefacts, excavation and conservation have very strong parallels, making it an ideal school project to compare and contrast.
The project started with a visit from the Mary Rose team to the Humanities Club to introduce the topic and the exciting ways that they could work with their European counterpart. The girls then spent time on their own internet research and the creation of digital presentations to feedback to each other, before preparing questions for the Vasa staff on a range of topics relating to the history, archaeology and conservation of the ship.
A Skype session followed allowing the Vasa Learning team in Stockholm and the Portsmouth girls to chat via live webcams as they took it in turns to ask their questions whilst watching the team on the interactive whiteboard.
Following the success of this link up, they are now planning to involve a Stockholm school so Swedish and British pupils can talk with each other and share their ideas and knowledge.
Helen Surawy, Director of Specialism and Kevin Burns, History teacher at the school both agreed that the whole experience from start to finish had been greeted with enthusiasm by the pupils and that this way of “global” learning had caught their imagination.
One of the Year 8 pupils involved in the project said, “I really enjoyed this Humanities Club project because I felt proud to part of something different and exciting”.
Mary Kinoulty, Head of Learning at the Mary Rose Trust said: “It is often difficult to interest teenagers in museums but this Skype project really appealed to this age group.”
