24 August 2010 by volunteer
During the summer our Volunteer Project Supervisors (Fred & Emma) have been looking after a very large team of volunteers over at World Museum.
Here in their first blog post, Fred fills you in on the some of the activities that have been taking place on gallery…
“As part of The World Museum Liverpool’s programme of events to celebrate 2010 being the year of biodiversity, a number of arts and crafts activities have been running daily during the Easter and summer holidays. It would have not been possible to run these activities without the efforts of volunteers. Nearly 60 volunteers have committed their time to enable us to teach children and young people the importance of biodiversity and how it creates good habitats for wildlife through a range of interesting and inclusive activities.
On our Savannah gallery, an African waterhole scene has been used as inspiration for a worksheet. Volunteers assist children in colouring in and decorating a picture of a lion hunting a zebra at the waterhole. Alternatively, they are given stencils to draw their own wildlife pictures. Through these activities, the volunteers show children how Savannah and grassland areas are threatened by increasing desertification, caused by poor farming methods reducing the biodiversity of the habitat. This enabled volunteers to link this activity to other areas of the museum such as the Ancient Egypt gallery, where a similar process is thought to have once occurred. When the children complete their drawing and colouring, volunteers help them to display their creations on the wall, or they have the option to take them home as a colourful souvenir of their day out!
Downstairs on the Plantastic Exhibition, volunteers work alongside demonstrators to help children learn about the importance of having a diverse range of insects and flowers to form a habitat. Different boards on the wall signify different types of habitat, such as ponds, woodlands and meadows. Children are helped by volunteers to make 3 dimensional flowers and insects to add to the habitat boards. Whilst helping with the craft work volunteers help children learn about the important role played by insects in pollinating plants, and how different types of plants and shrubs exist in different habitats, linking in to some of the messages that can be learnt through the Plantastic exhibits.
A flower shop display has also been set up. For this, volunteers help teach children how bright colours and patterns on flowers are used to attract pollinators such as bees and insects. It also gives kids a chance to get creative and they have created a really spectacular display!
All these activities are great fun for the kids, helping them create personalised souvenirs of their day out, as well as teaching them about important conservation and ecological issues.
Both sets of activities have been a great success, with volunteers seeing over 400 visitors on some days.
The Volunteers can be found in the Plantastic exhibition on Level 2 and the Savannah area on Level 4 every day until Sunday 5th September, from 11am until 4pm.”
If you are interested in volunteering, please contact the volunteer team to find out more.
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