The Mobile Museum – a free outreach service for schools participating in the annual Kerry Heritage Explorer Award

Kerry County Museum runs an annual competition for Kerry primary schools – the Kerry Heritage Explorer Award. All participating schools can avail of a new outreach service, the Mobile Museum. Our Education Team can bring the Museum’s themed handling collections to your school and we will facilitate a workshop discussing the rich history and heritage of the county. Children are encouraged to bring objects from home and we will talk about how objects play an important part of telling stories from the past. The Mobile Museum outreach service operates annually from January until April. For more information please contact Claudia and Jemma at education@kerrymuseum.ie

What’s in the Box? – handling collections for primary schools

KCM has created three customised boxes – treasure chests – which contain artefacts from our collection. These boxes are available on loan to primary schools in Kerry. They are specifically designed to tie in with the curriculum and to bring a sense of discovery and scientific investigation to the classroom, kindling pupils’ curiosity by giving them a hands-on experience in history and archaeology. ‘What’s in the Box?’ was highly commended at the Irish Museum of the Year Awards in 2009. Each box is available to a school from one to four weeks (depending on the size of the school). The accompanying resource materials are specifically designed to allow the teacher to pick from a menu in order to structure a class session, deciding objects to use and in what depth.

Loan duration: One to four weeks

Cost: This is a free service when booked in conjunction with a Museum visit

Delivery: Boxes need to be collected from and returned to the Museum by the school

1. PRE-HISTORY BOX (STONE AGE AND BRONZE AGE)

Contains Stone Age and Bronze Age artefacts discovered throughout Kerry along with replica objects and resource materials.

How this box supports the history curriculum…

Local studies
Local historic sites and ruins
My locality through the ages

Continuity and change over time
Homes and houses
Food and farming

Early people and ancient societies
Stone Age peoples
Bronze Age peoples

  Download Pre-history resourse materials PDF

2. BALLINSKELLIGS CASTLE BOX (MIDDLE AGES)
Contains artefacts from an excavation of a medieval tower house in south Kerry along with replica clothes, objects and resource materials.

How this box supports the history curriculum…

Local studies
Local historic sites and ruins
My locality through the ages

Continuity and change over time
Clothes
Homes and houses
Food and farming

Life, society, work and culture in the past
Life in Norman Ireland
Life in medieval towns and countryside in Ireland and Europe

  Download Ballinskelligs Castle resourse materials PDF

3. TOM CREAN BOX (ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION)
Contains items that help bring to life Tom Crean’s experiences in Antarctica which include replica Burberry outfit, scientific instruments, sailors ditty box, maps, books and resource materials.

How this box supports the history curriculum…

Working as an historian
Time and chronology
Change and continuity
Cause and effect
Using evidence
Synthesis and communication
Empathy

Local Studies
My locality through the ages

Story
Stories from the lives of people in the past

How this box supports the geography curriculum…

A sense of place and space
A sense of place
A sense of space

Maps, globes and graphical skills
Using pictures, maps and models
Maps and globes

  Download Tom Crean resourse materials PDF