Protectors and Collectors of Precious Things

This term we are working as a team of protectors and collectors of precious things. We were contacted by curators at the Museum of Precious Things who wanted our help, as they were concerned about a reduction in their visitor numbers and some of the reviews they had been receiving. Out of role, we thought about the different rooms and areas that might be in the museum and created a plan.

We then met with one of the curators of the museum, who was worried that the museum's funders would stop their funding if things didn't improve quickly. We looked through the reviews; they were not great, but they did give us lots of ideas of what needed to be done.

After lots of discussion, we all agreed that the museum needed to add some new exhibits and improve and update the exhibits they already had.

The Store Room

Our first task was to help sort through the museums storage room, which was full of boxes of artefacts that had been donated to the museum - some of them had been there for over 50 years! The reviews mentioned the lack of interesting Roman artefacts, so we decided we needed to start by sorting through those boxes.

We found some really interesting artefacts and were shocked that they had been left hidden in the storage room for so long. We thought that the visitors would love to see these on display, especially the armour and weapons, so we set about creating a new exhibit for the museum.

The Battle Room

We knew that to grab the visitors attention, we would need to think carefully about how we displayed the artefacts, we couldn't just put them in display cases - we needed to make the exhibit exciting! We thought about what might attract us to visit an exhibit and decided that we would use the artefacts and models of the soldiers to recreate a battle between the Romans and the Celts. Out of role, we spent some time sorting through the weapons and armour that we had discovered in the boxes and researching the tactics and battle strategies the two armies would have used. We then used drama to recreate our battle room and retell part of the story of the Eagle of the Ninth Legion.

Autumn term learning 

We started the year with “The Sound Collector” poem by Kit Wright. We did a sound survey of the school grounds and came up with lots of questions to explore further! 
 

We thought about how sounds are made and how volume changes. We have great fun making an idiophone, membranophone or chordophone. Some of us made an instrument which made a sound in mor e than one way! We learned about vibrations and their role in a sound being louder or quieter. Then we looked for a pattern in when is our classroom the loudest by measuring the average and maximum decibels over set times. 

The Animal Heroes 2023

We set up our Mantle team - the team we were in Year 1! We have done so much environmental and conservation work across the world and have won an award! We’re looking forward to new challenges this year… 

The Animal Heroes have been asked to go to North America to help a team who are worried about the whales there. We have been finding out what it is like in Canada and in particular in Labrador and Newfoundland. So far we have used maps and satellite images - ordering them from zoomed out to zoomed in. We think it is going to be cold there and we have been asked to camp! 
We did a bit of research on the Adventures at Sea team by looking at trip adviser reviews. It seems lots of people have enjoyed whale tours with them, but that more recently their customers have been left frustrated as they haven’t seen any whales. Oscar and his team are worried about where the whales are and the declining number of them in the area. 

Whilst all this has been going on, we have also been recognised for our amazing conservation work. Someone else has heard about this and would like our help closer to home. It seems her favourite place to visit in the Norfolk Broads is under threat… 

There were some protected species living there and someone wants to build houses there. We decided to explain how important this habitat was for wildlife and animals. 

Over in Red Bay, Canada we met with the Adventures at Sea team who took us out on the ocean in one of their boats. Oscar, our guide, spotted something on the radar which look like a whale but it wasn’t moving. After making some observations we we parked out that it was a North Atlantic right whale. We decided to represent it using collage. 

From the boat we could see gulls circling in the same area as the whale. Unfortunately it had died. 

We know that whales in the area are killed by vessel strikes and entanglements,  but there was no evidence of this in this case. The shipping lanes in Red Bay had been moved away from the whale migration and feeding routes. 
 

However fisherman were reporting that the whales were coming close to their boats in the new shipping lanes. What was going on? 
 

We did some further investigating and found out about the water in ocean warming over the last few years. This had meant that animals such as krill are moving to colder water and their predators like whales are having to search further afield for food. 
 

Oscar and the Adventures at Sea team agreed to take us further away from land and we tracked some whales. In the area we could see a wind farm and wondered if this might be one of the unknown reasons why right whales are now critically endangered. 
 

Speaking to an expert about wind farms, it seems possible that the noise pollution from the wind turbines could be confusing the whales and they might be disorientated. We knew we would have to spread this information so that people thinking about setting up renewable energy sources (which are a great idea) would be aware of potential threats to wildlife. 
 

We were being called to another important job, so decide to make a podcast and broadcast it on our website as well as send links to energy companies. 

Nile crocodiles

Our travel and insurance manager gave us a pack of information about Egypt and the River Nile to familiarise ourselves with. We were being asked to investigate some unusual goings on on the river banks seen by a captain of one of the cruise boats. 
 

After travelling from Alexandria to Luxor, we joined the captain on his cruise boat and we saw for ourselves someone lurking by the river bank and then appearing to take a baby crocodile, put it in his bag and head off away from the river. 
 

The captain thought he knew the man and that he lived in a village in Nubia. If we transferred to a felucca boat, they could take us to the village so that we could try to investigate. 
 

It turns out that the villagers like to keep some old traditions alive and keep crocodiles as pets. Crocodiles were sacred in ancient Egyptian times and there was even a crocodile god named Sobek. The villagers were fishermen in the past, but now they rely on tourists to visit and buy their crafts. The crocodiles draw more tourists to the village. 
 

We found out more at the local crocodile museum. 

We tried to tackle the problem respectfully. We shared some plans with the villagers about how to provide some better living conditions for the crocodiles.