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Inspire Nature

The Inspire Nature action research project explores how museum objects and images encourage creative encounters with nature and stimulate inter-disciplinary experimentation and enquiry. 

University of Cambridge  Museum (UCM) educators worked collaboratively to develop a series of training sessions and digital resources for primary schools (pictured above). Through the five strands of Rocks, Trees, Water, Skies and Perspectives, the programme connects objects from across the UCM with themes from the Fitzwilliam's 'True to Nature' exhibition which opens in May 2022. The project was created in early 2021 when the museums were closed due to the pandemic.

Phase 1 (Jan 2021- June 2022)

Focused on the design and development of the remote learning programme to explore:

  1. How are museum resources and sessions being used to support creative teaching and learning in schools?
  2. How can hybrid museum learning programming in museum support new approaches to working with objects and collections?

Participating teachers gave feedback through the use of online polls and surveys during and after the sessions and in a series of semi-structured interviews. The research team then followed up with participating schools and teachers a year later to explore how the project had been developed in different settings. 

Phase 2 (June 2022- July 2023)

The second phase of the project took place in Summer 2022 and aimed to capture young people's voices and experiences in relation to the key themes of the project. A group of 10 children from a local primary school spent a week as 'Art Activists-in-Residence' at The Fitzwilliam Museum exploring and responding to the True to Nature exhibition. During this time, they will work with curators, scientists, artists and museum educators to explore how museum objects and collections can help us to better understand our relationship with nature, the environment and the changing planet. 

The Inspire Nature Residency brings together ongoing Fitzwilliam research projects exploring on the impact of extended residencies on children’s experience of and relationship with museums and on the role of museum collections and programmes to stimulate curiosity and creativity (https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/it-s-our-museum-too and https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/ways-of-seeing-inspire-2020.) This is our first residency with primary aged children.

Related publications

Noble, K. (2021) Challenges and opportunities: creative approaches to museum and gallery learning during the pandemic, International Journal of Art and Design Education https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12380

Project team

Kate Noble, Senior Research Associate Museum Learning

Sarah- Jane Harknet, UCM Evaluation Co-ordinator

UCM Educators: Imogen Alexander (Kettle's Yard), Naomi Chapman (Polar Museum), Rosanna Evans (Fitz), Alison Giles (Whipple), Chantal Helm (CUBG), Rob Law (MAA), Justyna Ladosz (MOCA), Haley McCulloch (CUBG), Holly Morrison (Fitz), Bronwen Richards (CUBG), Nic Skipper (Sedgwick), Jacqui Strawbridge (Fitz), Roz Wade (Zoology), Nicola Wallis (Fitz) and Jenny Williams (MAA)

Jane Munro, Keeper of Paintings, Drawings and Prints and the True to Nature exhibition team 

Outcomes of the project

Phase 1

The project has revealed the potential of university museum-led digital programming to support teacher wellbeing and nurture creativity through the creation of a virtual community of practice. The mixture of subject matter and collections strengthened our offer and the online format was accessible to a wider range of teachers. Videos and resources were shared with other teachers and re-visited. These findings have been fed directly back into our ongoing programme development.

We shared some of our inital findings with other researchers and educators through a series of conference papers in 2021:

‘What do teachers want from an online museum professional development programme?’ Museum Next Digital Summit, October 2021 

‘Creative Pedagogies in the Museum: practitioner researcher reflections on the features of creative learning’ British Educational Research Association Conference 2021, September 2021  

‘Challenges and opportunities: creative approaches to museum and gallery learning during the pandemic’, Parallel session for International Journal of Art and Design Conference, March 2021, online conference

 

Phase 2

A display of artwork created through the residency project (The Fitzwilliam Museum, July - October 2022)

Data analysis and write up will continue into 2023. 

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