Making a Difference 3

Making a Difference: 3 Learning and Outreach Projects in the Cambridge Museums funded by Renaissance 2009 - 2011 Museum of Zoology Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences The Polar Museum Cambridge University Botanic Garden Whipple Museum of the History of Science Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Museum of Classical Archaeology

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Some facts and figures

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This report covers the period 2009-11.

The Renaissance Community Learning and Outreach funding has now been available to the University Museums for five years.

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During 2009/11 Renaissance funding has supported a total of 21 Community Learning and Outreach projects in the University Museums.

Of these, eight have involved collaboration between two or more of the museums.

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Just over 26,500 people participated in the events and activities supported by this grant stream during 2009-11.

This is an increase in engagement of approximately 33% since the previous reporting period.

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Overall the percentage of new visitors at these events varied between 100% and xx with a total of almost 5000 new visitors recorded. This confirms that these activities are continuing to have a substantial impact on increasing engagement with, and raising awareness of, the Museums.

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Projects have emphasised partnership working, with a total of 22 external partners involved in these projects

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Contents Introduction: Liz Hide, Museums Development officer, University of Cambridge

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Individual Museum projects Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Archaeology activities and resources

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Museum of Classical Archaeology Explore! Gallery Playbox

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Kettle’s Yard Young Carers Filmaking Summerdaze 09: Art and Imagination IJAD Secrets Dance project A Woman's Place

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Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences Cambridge Geology and Building Stones Trails

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University Museum of Zoology Young Zoologists Club Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 Half term and Easter holiday activities

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The Polar Museum Cultural Programme for the new Polar Museum

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Whipple Museum of the History of Science Poetry outreach events at the Whipple Museum Science of Musical Sound events

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Collaborative projects Twilight '10 Summer Trail '10 ‘Passport ot Museum Treasure’ MAA music event (May 10) SPRI (FoI Exploration Station) Ruth Hardie/Zoology Opera project (FoI) BioBlitz (UMZC) Botanic Garden music event Twilight '11

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Contact details for individual projects

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Introduction Liz Hide, University Museums Development Officer

This report brings together a total of 21 community learning and outreach projects which have taken place in the University’s embedded museums over the last eighteen months. Together they have reached more than 26,500 people - families, groups and individuals – who have engaged with the museums and their unique collections in a huge variety of ways, from dance to (sausagemaking) .

All the projects included in this report have been supported by Renaissance through funds from the University Museums Development Officer’s Community Learning and Outreach Fund. Although they do not, by any means, represent all of the informal learning activities which take place in the museums, they are wide-ranging in their scope and scale and as such give a snapshot of the museums activity. They represent a substantial and important part of the Museums’, indeed the University’s, outreach activity.

One strong message from these reports is the value for money that this funding gives.

The grant funding from Renaissance has been complemented by grants and in-kind contributions by each of the museums. In the case of some of the smaller museums, these grants continue to be the only source

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of funding for learning and outreach activities.

Running alongside the projects in this report, the MAGIC3 project (Museums and Galleries

effectiveness and sustainability. This approach is complemented by modest collaborative marketing activities such as the production and distribution of the joint museums leaflet. The emerging Cambridge Museums consortium provides a framework within which these exciting collaborations can continue to grow and develop, and over the coming Renaissance Transition Year we look forward with anticipation the opportunities which these developing relationships provide.

Liz Hide University Museums Development Officer eah12@cam.ac.uk Liz Hide in Cambridge) has enabled the University’s museums to develop their offer to schools.

As well as raising the profile of the museums amongst teachers and schools, new resources such as loans boxes and gallery activities have been developed which will also benefit all who use the museums.

Increasingly, our strategy is to support collaborations between two or more museums, most notably the well-established Young Carers’ project, the family summer trail, and the high-profile Twilight at the Museums, as a means to increased

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Archaeology activities and resources Sarah-Jane Harknett Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Over the summer of 2010 MAA collaborated with Cambridge City Council’s Childrens and Young Peoples Participation Service (ChYPPS) to deliver a series of 10 drop-in activity sessions. The themes of the activities were chosen to highlight the museum’s diverse collection of local and world archaeology and to maintain interest in these collections while the archaeology gallery was closed. They ran during the period July 26 to 26 August, with eight sessions in central Cambridge and 2 in Ely. In total approximately 150 children took part in the sessions, of these 45% had had no previous contact with the museums outreach programme.

The learning and outreach project funding allowed MAA to employ 4 people to lead the ChYPPS sessions, none of whom had been employed to do anything similar with the Museum before. They were trained in-house

by MAA’s Outreach Organiser, or by the project leader once established. Of these sessional leaders, one is currently studying Museum and Artefact Studies at Durham and another has been accepted onto the Teach First scheme (and used her experiences at ChYPPS in her application).

For drop-in participants aged 7 and above, the session leaders were able to use the activities to impart knowledge about local and world archaeology and to increase interest and understanding. With younger children, the sessions were more focused on developing creative and imaginative skills; practical skills in drawing, cutting and constructing the activities were also developed.

The initial application for funding also included the intention to convert some of the

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Chypps activities into resources for the new archaeology gallery - with the intention of making the gallery more accessible and engaging for families. Initial progress has been made to convert them, but as the Museum is now closed for redevelopment, and final decisions on the displays are still being made, it has not been possible to produce finished trails, sheets or activities.

However, during the initial stages of this project, work by artist Heather Donoghue created a series of cartoon figures to show costumed figures from a variety of periods.

These have been supplied in a digital format – giving the Museum an invaluable stock of images to use on future worksheets and activity packs once the museum re-opens.

The project was evaluated through informally

the team as they attended many different sessions.

One of the main successes of the sessions was the level of engagement and enjoyment from the participants.

One session leader recalled that they were told “[One 9 year-old boy] had never been so engrossed… or stuck at anything for longer than 15 minutes and he was there making medieval shields and swords and purses for the whole 2 hours – even when his friend tried to drag him away to play football!”.

questioning participants and parents, to determine their existing awareness and engagement with the museum and their thoughts on the session they had attended.

Approximately half of those participating in the sessions were familiar with the museum and had visited or attended activities there.

Some others were aware of MAA, but not its precise location and had not visited. The sessions therefore succeeded in maintaining a visible presence and in widening participation and engagement with nonusers. At all activities, MAA and University Museums leaflets were handed to parents and participants. Many expressed their intention to visit the University museums and participate in other museum-related ChYPSS activities. Several families became known to

Similarly another session leader noticed that [the bad weather on some occasions] “was not an obvious deterrent” [as] “even when it was pouring down with rain we had mothers bringing their children because they had planned the session into their schedules”.

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Explore! Gallery playbox Elly Wright, Museum of Classical Archaeology

The project Explore! aimed to enhance existing Museum of Classical Archaeology resources by making them more user friendly for family audiences and to promote the use of them. All elements of the final products encourage families to work together, shaping their visit themselves.

The project has provided an attractive and fun case in the form of a Greek temple to hold existing Early Years play boxes. These play boxes had not been out in the gallery due to space restrictions and as such were not regularly being used by families. It also houses a drawing station, museum trails, a peep-hole story set relating to the gallery display, a magnetic activity and a board to take rubbings from. The contents can be updated easily and can therefore tie in with events and exhibitions.

Launched as part of the Imagination Station workshop, the play box provided families with a source of inspiration to explore the gallery before joining the workshop. It enabled visitors to relax in the gallery space and discover its far corners. The workshop involved working closely with the casts and the introduction provided by the play box resulted in a more confident approach, with children taking a leading role.

Observation by Front of House staff provided information about the way in which the play unit was used by families. “Families were immediately drawn to the Greek temple on entering the gallery…children went to reassemble the magnetic vase on the outside and discovered that the doors opened and there was more inside.”

All participants completed a form indicating whether they have visited previously or were first time visitors. Informal interviews were used to record visitor reactions.

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“I drew a picture of Athena because we found her with the fluffy owl box…I liked looking around with the toys with my little brother.”

“I knew exactly which statue I wanted to write about because I had already explored the statues with the trail.”

“The children loved opening the doors to see what was inside. Being able to take the boxes around the museum was great and it kept the little one happy whilst Nina was busy writing.”

Providing the opportunity for young people to learn about and be inspired by the collection is central to the ethos of the museum and the play box has contributed to this aim. It is a now a permanent feature in the museum and as such the numbers of people engaged will continue to grow.

Young Filmmakers Sarah Campbell, Kettle’s Yard

Over a six week period in the summer of 2010 Kettle’s Yard worked with a group of young carers from Centre 33 on a Filmmaking project. The project was a partnership with Cambridgeshire Film Consortium, Stories Film and Sawston Cinema as well as two other University museums, Archaeology and Anthropology and Zoology. The project is a continuation of a relationship with Centre 33 Young Carer’s project which supports Kettle’s Yard aims to engage and target audiences from lower socio-economic groups locally.

It is the fourth time Kettle’s Yard has worked with Centre 33 Young Carers’ project. In a change from previous years the project ran during the summer holidays. An initial taster session on a Saturday in June lead to interest from 11 young carers. Filmmaker Peter Harmer led the session with assistance from Simon Panrucker. The group were introduced to film techniques and made short dramatic sketches which were then played back to the group.

Based on this taster session, Centre 33 arranged for young carers to sign up for 6 Mondays, across late July and August 2010.

The first session was an introduction for those who were new to the museums. The day started in the Zoology Museum, then moved to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and then over to Kettle's Yard for lunch and an afternoon session. At each site, the education officer introduced six works in the collection around the theme of journeys (this theme was not mentioned explicitly but was picked up by the group).

The young carers had a chance to experiment with cameras at each site and to begin developing their ideas. The following three sessions were at each museum for a day of developing ideas and filming. The final two sessions were held at Sawston Cinema’s editing suite.

The resulting films were edited and put on a DVD for each participant to keep. A family screening of the films was organised at the Arts Picturehouse, which was very well attended by families and friends. In addition each young carer had a project notebook used to note their ideas and give evaluation at the end of each session. The notebooks were nicely presented with maps in the front (relating to the idea of journeys). At an evaluation meeting for project partners, everyone was very pleased with how the sessions ran, with the right amount of time for each element. Peter had quite tightly planned the first session, not knowing what to expect, but as he saw the capabilities of the young carers, he was able to give them more freedom, which led to richly creative, experimental results. The second session at Kettle's Yard was a bit difficult as it was a mix of younger high energy boys and older more mature girls. Peter and Simon were able to share teaching across the group, but it was a tricky balance to strike and provided useful experience for future projects. When asked at the screening, the young carers said they got ‘friendship’ and ‘confidence’ from the project – without any prompting.

When asked what they would like to do differently, they suggested visiting different museums to learn about and take inspiration from new stuff. As a result Kettle’s Yard are planning to look for funding and partners to work with Centre 33 again in 2011.

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Summerdaze 09: Art and Imagination Sarah Campbell, Kettle’s Yard

Summerdaze was designed as an activity to reach out to a section of the community which is not well represented in Kettle’s Yard’s visitor profile. The aim was to engage with young people (under the age of 16) in lower socio–economic groups than those who typically take part in Kettle’s Yard activities.

The events were run in collaboration with Cambridge City Council’s Childrens and Young Peoples Participation Service (ChYPPS) and the University External Affairs department at two locations in the city of Cambridge. 37 children took part in the sessions, all of whom were new participants.

Artists Janine Woods and Clare Johnson developed a set of two art sessions based in a marquee where children and young people could drop-in and create a double-sided image, showing contrasts on each side (lightshadow, happy-sad, nature-town etc). The work was to be suspended in the marquee so that both sides could be seen, creating a mini temporary exhibition.

The first session at King George V Park suffered from some organisational difficulties.

Unfortunately the marquee was late to arrive making it difficult for the artists to set up and immediately engage the children. Other support activities on the site were not well directed and there was also some difficult and challenging behaviour from some of the children.

However the children who did take part enjoyed the use of acetate and tracing paper and the younger children enjoyed using the chalk pastels. Those taking part also enjoyed displaying their work, hanging it by pegs from string and the guy ropes of the marquee.

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The second session at Ramsden Square was much more successful. The Chypps support workers did a great job of engaging the children in football and then encouraging them to change gear and engage with the art activities. It was clear that many children had not had access to these sorts of art materials before and the artists reported on the strong, positive impressions they felt from the childrens’ engagement with the materials.

With one child asking, “Are you coming back tomorrow?”.

Evaluation of the project was based on feedback from the two artists running the sessions. In the first session the focus really was on using the art materials and managing the attention of the children rather than promoting follow up visits to Kettle’s Yard. In this environment, it would have been too much to try to promote Kettle’s Yard. One parent asked, but many children had never heard of it.

The artists reported that it was also quite a sobering experience; many of these children do not have access to fairly standard art kit coupled with a lack of opportunities locally to engage creatively in these types of activities.

This made Kettle’s Yard’s involvement in this project all the more important. It was felt however that one drop-in session was not enough. Feedback from the artists running the sessions suggested that sessions run over a couple of consecutive days on the same site would have been more successful.

This would have created opportunities to get to know the children better, expand on the initial contact and develop better chances to encourage visits to and understanding about Kettle’s Yard.

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In-Visible, IJAD Dance project Sarah Campbell, Kettle’s Yard

Kettle’s Yard collaborated with the IJAD Dance Company on a number of occasions in 2010. The project was supported by Cambridge City Council and the Arts Council as well as through the MLA Community Learning fund. The dance company devised and delivered four dance workshops for adults in February (with adults aged up to 70) and a series of creative writing & dance workshops for adults in August. Over the summer, they also worked on Abbey Estate, encouraging young people to get involved with dance, performance and movement workshops. The aim was to create a bridge between the world of Jim Ede’s legacy and the young people living on the estate. IJAD’s Director, Joumana Mourad, also ran a week of dance workshops with performers in the Kettle's Yard house, taking the ‘secrets’ and stories from participants and translating them into dance.

All of this work culminated in a joint exhibition/performance at All Saints Church on Jesus Lane, as part of the University of Cambridge’s Festival of Ideas. The story of Jim and Helen was the starting point for all of this activity. Joumana is fascinated by Kettle's Yard and the stories held within the house. She used the ReCollection: Kettle's Yard Oral History Archive to introduce participants to the house and collection and the inspiration for sharing their own stories.

The focus of the project funding was to work with residents of the Abbey housing estates.

The Education Officer was due to attend one session with images from the collection but due to unforeseen circumstances was unable to attend. There were also some communication issues between IJAD and the City Council, resulting in the last session not taking place. Despite these difficulties, Joumana and her team did a fantastic job of 14

engaging the young people they met. None of these young people had heard of Kettle's Yard and do not attend galleries or museums or dance performances. They would be classified as ‘hard to reach’ and yet within a couple of hours, they were energetically dancing and focussed on the tasks. Due to the ‘light touch’ nature of these sessions, photography were not taken.

I really enjoyed the dance session and would love to do more some time in the future (Workshop participant, 50+ group ) It was great to meet you all yesterday, including the other 'recruits'. I loved the workshop - Joumana's energy and spirit are wonderfully uplifting and encouraging. I think the Secrets theme is very exciting and inspiring... Thank you for creating this opportunity for everyone, not just 'dancers' (Workshop participant, 30-40 age group)

A Woman’s Place Sarah Campbell, Kettle’s Yard

Over the course of six sessions, two artists worked with a final group of 5 women to create textile works in response to the permanent collection at Kettle’s Yard and, in particular, Helen Ede’s role in the creation of the house. Extracts taken from the Oral History Archive were used to introduce the women to the history and characters of Kettle’s Yard and participants visited the house with the artist. All practical sessions were held in one of the communal rooms at Storey’s House.

The resulting women’s pieces were exhibited in the house between 23rd and 31st October 2010. Evaluation of the project was undertaken through the keeping of project diaries by both the lead and supporting artist and a feedback meeting was held with the participants who completed the project on 18 November 2010, at Storey’s House.

they could attend to develop skills. At the review, the women commented that they would have liked more sessions to develop skills included in the project, as many of the techniques introduced were entirely new to them, so they relied upon the artists’ expertise or used old skills to produce their final piece.

All participants reported that they had enjoyed taking part in the project and would like to continue with the work and build from this project. Although the pressure to produce work for the exhibition was at times stressful, they were pleased that they had taken part and felt that having an exhibition as part of the process was worthwhile. They would have appreciated greater feedback to know how their work was received by the visiting public and staff of Kettle’s Yard.

They also displayed their work at Storey’s House after the Kettle’s Yard exhibition and had many positive comments from other residents.

Of the five women who completed the project, two were new to Kettle’s Yard. In the review, one commented how it was somewhere she had always intended to come, but had never found the time. Now she is planning to take friends to visit Kettle’s Yard when they come to Cambridge and is putting the concerts into her diary to make sure that she gets to them. For the others, who already knew Kettle’s Yard, they felt that the project had deepened their knowledge of the place. However, they felt the project only made sense to them when they started to relate it to their personal sense of home and the link with Kettle’s Yard had initially been confusing.

The participants highly valued the opportunity to learn new skills. As one woman commented, “At this age is it is easy to stagnate” and she found the challenge of learning new skills particularly inspiring.

They particularly enjoyed this aspect of the project and would like the opportunity to continue. They suggested they would like to see regular sessions at Kettle’s Yard, which

Overall the women were positive about the project and Kettle’s Yard. One participant commented that it was nice to have something which brought them together. All were keen to see the link with Kettle’s Yard continue and develop.

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Cambridge Geology Trail Annette Shelford, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

The aim of this project was to produce a geology learning resource for use by A level/ first year under graduates, adult learners and their families. It also aimed to develop community partnerships and widen audiences through a collaboration with Cambridge Tour Guides.

The final product of this project is the Cambridge Geology Trail. The trail can be downloaded from the Sedgwick Museum website or purchased as a printed booklet from the Museum shop.

It is based on an earlier publication, The Cambridge Building Stone Tour, developed in the 1990s as a first year undergraduate geology practical by Dr. Nigel Woodcock and Dr. David Norman. The tour was out-of-date as some of the buildings featured no longer existed or their stone claddings had been changed. It was also not easily accessible to a non specialist audience. The initial intention was to take the content of the document, update and illustrate it, and to produce a learning resource aimed squarely at our adult audience for whom we currently have limited learning resources.

Early development work was carried out by the Friends of the Sedgwick Museum Education Prizewinner Sorcha McMahon in July and August 2009. Sorcha talked to Nigel Woodcock, researched a number of other geology and building stone tours, as well as looking at other self-guided walk publications that focus on Cambridge City Centre. She then worked with the Museum Education Officer to produce a draft version of a new trail in a format and style that were more appropriate to our intended audience.

Along with another student volunteer, Sorcha spent several days interviewing museum visitors using a questionnaire proforma to gather comments about the trail.

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In October 2009 we consulted with 3 representatives of Cambridge Tour Guides, with the idea that they might use the trail as the basis for a new specialist science tour.

However, it became clear that as the content did not involve the human interest stories that their guided tours are largely based on, it would not be something that they could easily market to their colleagues or to their audiences. This led us to rethink the focus of the trail so that it could be adapted for general geological interest- ie what can we learn about rocks, minerals and fossils from looking at the building materials in the city centre.

These changes were introduced by the next Friends of the Sedgwick Museum Education

Prizewinner Samantha Simic in August 2010.

Samantha also continued working as a Temporary Museum Assistant to complete this project through November 2010 – 1st Feb 2011 funded by the CLO grant. Further consultation with visitors and geologists from the Department of Earth Sciences led to a shortened, more geology-focussed draft version of the trail.

Explorers, a group of guides who run specialist tours catering for groups of children, are keen to explore potential links that they can make with the geology around the city through the trail and the Museum.

“What an excellent resource this will be. I can easily use some of the information in my science tours and will recommend the trail to people on my tours”

Evaluation: The trail was tested with 1st year undergraduate students and their supervisors from the Earth Sciences Dept. A geology teacher from Shooters College in London also tried out the trail with his ALevel geology group, alongside a visit to the Sedgwick Museum. It was also tried out by members of the Friends of the Sedgwick Museum and some other keen volunteers who responded to an invitation in the Museum’s Trilobite newsletter to take part in evaluating this new resource.

Responses were both highly positive and usefully critical which allowed us to fine-tune both content and presentation.

“It was a revelation to look at buildings from a geological perspective and opened a whole new area of interest” “All three of us….will never see our ‘sedimentary’ city in the same wayFANTASTIC” Valuable feedback and content information was also gained from ongoing consultation with geologists, archivists from St John’s and Kings College, Cambridge City Council, two stone supply companies based in Germany and France, and staff at the Jura Museum in Eichstatt, Germany.

To create a high quality, well illustrated trail Sam worked with Dudley Simons, the photographer in the Department of Earth Sciences. High quality images, based on the initial pictures that had been collated earlier in the project or that had been identified as requirements to illustrate the new content of the trail, were sourced. Cambridge Design Studio were then contracted to design the booklet.

Initial plans to launch the trail with an exhibition or event during Cambridge Science Festival were not feasible, however a small amount of money has been set aside to produce a flier or postcard to advertise the trail that we plan to circulate to shops and café’s on the route of the trail, and that Cambridge Tour Guides will be able to distribute. Summative evaluation will also be carried out prior to a second print run (sales, downloads, user feedback from the finished trail) which will also inform the planning of future projects of a similar nature. There is plenty more geology to discover in other parts of Cambridge and it would be an exciting future progression of this piece of work to involve schools or community groups in researching and devising a second similar trail in the north of the city.

A group of 20 Cambridge Tour Guides came to the Sedgwick Museum in December 2010 for a training session on the collections and history. As part of this session, the Museum Education Officer delivered a short session about the J Watson Building Stones collection and the Geology trail. The final proof has been circulated to all members of the group for comment prior to printing, and there is considerable enthusiasm for this resource, as well as a renewed interest in their interest in the potential of the Museum for their tours. In particular Cambridge Junior 17

Young Zoologists Club Ros Wade, University Museum of Zoology

The Young Zoologists Club of the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge has been running since 2008 funded largely by Renaissance CLO grants. In this time membership has grown to over 1000. During the time period covered by this funding, six editions of the newsletter have been produced and a series of workshops have been held in the museum galleries. A Young Zoologists webpage has been added to the museum’s main website and two Christmas parties for the club were also held. 325 children have participated in on-site learning activities through the activities of the club.

included an interactive talk a series of hands on activities focussing on antarctic animals.

The children played Antarctic Top Trumps; a board game like snakes and ladders focussing on the physiology and ecology of Antarctic animals; a sampling game counting the numbers of different sizes of organisms in different oceans of the world to explore gigantism in Antarctic marine ecosystems; a game sorting different marine animals into their biological groups on a computer; and one looking at how to estimate the number of elephant seals on a beach in South Georgia using aerial photographs.

A series of 6 workshops (3 of which were run twice) were held in the museum galleries with an average of 25 participants attending each session.

I learnt there are more little creatures in Antarctic than the big animals. I learnt that they have funny looking creatures in Antarctica.

Behind the Scenes Museum Tour Led by Collections Manager Matt Lowe and Roz Wade. As well as the tour, this included hands-on activities looking at the different aspects of work in the museum. These included: sorting through acid-prepped sediments under a microscope looking for tiny vertebrate bones; a Zoology Enquiries activity where the children were given zoological objects and asked to work out what they were, using the museum displays; a Make a Zoological Specimen craft activity for the children to make their own exhibit.

I enjoyed the top trumps especially because I learnt a lot about different Antarctic species and their strengths and weaknesses.

Discovering Primates. With research student Stephen Montgomery this workshop looked at different aspects of Primate biology. A talk looking at primate diversity and behaviour was followed by activities showing how scientists calculate brain volume using animal skulls and a trail looking at primates and their relatives in the museum.

Antarctic Animals, led by Dr David Barnes from the British Antarctic Survey. This 18

Creature of the Carboniferous, led by Roz Wade. After a trail of the animals of the Carboniferous period on display in the museum, the Young Zoologists went on a walk back in time using a timeline where 5cm represented 1 million years, and exploring major events in the geological history of the Earth along the way. Hands on activities included a carboniferous jigsaw puzzle of skeletons (made out of plastazote) of Phoilderpeton and Crassigyrinus, two large tetrapods of the time; a Trace Fossils activity, with different animal toys that could be used to make imprints in modelling clay; drawing Carboniferous creatures; and Carboniferous fossils brought out of storage for children to look at closely under supervision.

Jungle Life. Graduate student Tim Cockeril from the insect room of the museum led this workshop about what it is like working in the rainforest collecting data. An interactive talk, including dressing up in jungle exploration clothes, was followed by hands on activities.

These included sorting different groups of insects into their different orders, a game involving animal sounds and matching them to the animals that made them, and a competition to design the best piece of jungle equipment.

Seeing the Light. Researcher Dr Marie Pointer led this workshop about different types of vision in animals. The workshop began with children being asked to draw as colourful an animal as they could imagine.

This was followed by an interactive talk about animal vision and a series of hands on activites. The colourful creatures drawn by the children were scanned in and their colour balance manipulated to mimic the vision in different types of animals. There was a game using filters to filter out particular colours to see how colour vision affects the ability of predators to see prey; a set of colour-based optical illusions from scientists Beau Lotto’s lab to illustrate how human vision can be tricked; a UV box was set up and different animals placed underneath to show how they can look different; and a trail looking for different adaptations of eyes that could be seen from the specimens.

I enjoyed today. My best bit was the glowing scorpions.

(I learnt that) cuttlefish can ‘morph’ into coral, and that humans don’t have very good eyes compared to many animals.

Christmas Parties The two Christmas parties were able to take more children (around 50 at each) and were much more party-games based. Games included predator-prey pass the parcel, chimaera Pictionary, games using animal noises, deep sea play your cards right, and build a palm tree with Christmas crab pincers. Craft activities included making Christmas decorations.

Club membership grew far more than expected, with membership increasing by twice the size predicted when funds were originally applied for. This accounts for the increased cost of the project as a greater number of newsletters had to be printed and sent, and a greater number of welcome gifts purchased. Overall the cost of running the club between August 2009 and January 2011 was around £3.50 per member.

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year Roz Wade, University Museum of Zoology

During June 2009 the Museum of Zoology played host to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. This collection of photographs was on loan from the Natural History Museum in London and BBC Wildlife magazine. The exhibition attracted over 10,800 visitors to the museum with 71% of these being new to the museum. Although the cost of the exhibition was high at £2300 the large number of visitors it attracted gave a per visitor cost of around 30p, representing a good return on investment. Of those completing feedback forms, 78% said they would visit the museum again.

During the exhibition the Museum of Zoology also organised an Insect/Animal Diversity Day for families and an insect poll through their young zoologists club. On Insect Day, a research group in the Department of Zoology headed by Dr Walter Federle provided live insects and information about their research.

This included a colony of leaf cutter ants, stick insects, and giant Madagascan hissing cockroaches. A pollination trail, involving finding large flowers around the museum to answer questions about pollinating insects, and craft activities building beetles and making butterfly masks were also included in the event.

For the insect poll, there was little uptake by the Young Zoologists for a poll before the event (all that replied voted for dragonflies).

However, during the event, it was possible to collect data or people’s favourite minibeasts.

An ‘Evaluation Tree’ was set up with space to draw favourite minibeasts on the leaves and an evaluation form on the reverse. The feedback from the leaves showed that 26% of visitors were new to the museum, and 100% of people enjoyed their visit to the museum. Almost all replies said they would visit the museum again.

The results of the insect poll showed that Ladybirds were most popular, followed by Butterflies, then in joint 3rd place were spiders and cockroaches, Ants came in fourth, joint fifth were woodlice and bees, and with one vote each were caterpillars.

Whirligig beetles, locusts, grasshoppers, crickets and dragonflies.

The exhibition was advertised widely, through Cambridgeshire Agenda magazine, press releases sent out to local press, and through the museum and its website and new Facebook page. It was evaluated via feedback forms available throughout the exhibition and via the evaluation tree at the Insect Day. “Awesome photography competition exhibition, enjoyable to have something different.”

“It’s great to get a chance to see the Wildlife Photography in Cambridge.”

Comments from children on what they had learnt included:

“The leaf-cutting ants – how they carried the petals, had a rubbish area” “How a cockroach feels when it crawled on me”

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Half term and Easter holiday activities Roz Wade, University Museum of Zoology

During winter half term and Easter holidays funding from the community learning and outreach strand allowed the Museum of Zoology to run activities for families and children. These consisted of a series interactive gallery talks and the development of a set of explorer packs were for use by families when visiting the museum. The activities were particularly aimed at providing interpretation of museum displays for a younger audience. They were advertised through the Young Zoologists Club newsletter, posters displayed in Cambridge and in other museums, and information on the Zoology Museum’s website.

The gallery talks, titled Feeding Time at the Zoology Museum, looked at feeding adaptations in different groups of animals.

Specimens were taken out of the museum stores, including skulls of a tiger, a saltwater crocodile, and a giant anteater amongst other things. The museum’s handling collection was also used, including dog and cat skulls and cow teeth, so that participants could get a close view of the different types of teeth and feeding in these animals. Each talk was attended by approximately 50 people, mostly families. With a total of approximately 200 overall.

Evaluation for the talks was collected through a questionnaire. All those who filled out questionnaires said that they enjoyed the talks, and would visit the museum again.

Handling skulls was particularly popular.

Answers to did you learn anything new today included: “Yes, I discovered that elephants use only 1 tooth at a time!”

“Animals teeth are all different because they eat different food like fish, ants, toads, meat, plants.”

“Yes I did enjoy it. My favourite part was the tiger’s skull.”

A set of 12 explorer packs were produced.

Each contained a clipboard, an Explorer’s Notebook’ worksheet, colouring in sheets, paper to draw on, pencils and crayons, a box with small animal objects like mollusc shells and pieces of natural sponge, and a magnifying glass. These were available to borrow throughout the half term holidays, and are now also given out on Saturdays throughout the year. After the first packs were produced and proved popular, the original bags were found to break too easily so more robust bags were purchased to make them last longer. Comments cards were placed in all explorer packs.

“We loved the objects in the explorer pack and then spent a long time looking at similar objects and drawing. Thank you.”

“I really like this museum in particular because children of all ages can enjoy it.”

My little sister Erica who is 1 year old loves it. I am 8 years old and I think it’s fantastic! The adventure packs are cool, even my mum likes it.”

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Cultural programme for new Polar Museum Suzy Antoniw, The Polar Museum

The Polar Museum re-opened in June 2010 following an 18-month re-development of displays and a change of name (from the Scott Polar Research Institute Museum).

Before the cultural programme could be established the museum’s audience had to know of its’ existence. A leaflet and poster campaign targeting the city of Cambridge helped achieve this as well coverage in the national press. Signage on the busy road outside and the opening of the main entrance on this road also increased public awareness of the museum’s offer.

A 45-strong rota of volunteers was gathered to cover front-of house duties in the museum.

These act as the first point of contact for visitors coming into the museum. The volunteers were supported with training and resources (such as museum guides, what’s on leaflets and trails) to help them enrich visitor experiences and to enhance their own experience of working in a museum.

In addition to the cultural offer of the museum displays themselves, a programme of events were held in the Museum. The aim was to encourage visitors of the old museum to return and to create appeal to encourage new visitors. The events were designed to cater for a broad audience but initially 22

focused on bringing families into the museum and bringing the new displays to life with activities, stories and workshops.

Family events included: ‘Arctic Art’, in association with the Cultural Olympiad, an exploration of the Inuit Art temporary exhibition that accompanied the opening of the museum. Inuit stories and printmaking workshops were held at the museum and the art activities were then taken across the city as part of the CHYPPS summer outreach scheme. ‘Exploration Station’ was part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, encouraged visitors to explore and the museum’s collections in more detail by taking part in hands-on activities based around some of the objects on display. ‘Arctic Stories’ returned to the theme of Inuit mythology using storyteller Paul Jackson to help visitors experience the stories and pass on this rich oral tradition.

For older audiences, the University’s open weekend and alumni weekend gave our curators the chance to reveal all the hard work that went into the re-development of the museum to tour groups. Polar Explorer and TV presenter Paul Rose informed a packed lecture theatre about the logistics of polar exploration.

“It makes polar science more accessible, [I] enjoy learning about the polar regions from different perspectives.”

“Today I learned that I am still a child at heart.” “[I enjoyed] the way it’s non-academic, or at least accessible to anyone interested.”

“Today I learned to tell my stories to my children.”

“It was nice to see so many kids enjoying themselves over half term. It was a really inclusive kind of thing, people wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

Evaluation has been via feedback sheets which are available for visitors at the museum at all times and the logging of visitor numbers, which are recorded on a daily basis. Volunteers also have a comments/ questions book available for all volunteers to read and supplement at the reception desk.

Each of the museum events were evaluated with specific questionnaires designed for the event.

During the two big holiday family events it was found that over half of the visitors had never visited before, and for our adult lecture this trend was reversed. It is encouraging to observe that the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It is clear that increasingly visitors are finding out about our events through the internet, a sign that our presence is growing.

Visitor numbers have more than doubled compared to figures gathered in the old museum. Part of this can be attributed to the re-opening of the entranceway and accompanying signage on Lensfield road.

However the support of Renaissance has allowed us to reach out visitors who had never before considered visiting the Polar Museum and it is thanks to this support, that the Polar Museum has now established itself with a programme of well received events that have set the tone for future engagement.

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Poet in the Parlour Claire Wallace, Whipple Museum of the History of Science

In 2009 The Whipple Museum appointed a poet in residence, Kelley Swain. Kelley has been using collections in the museum galleries as inspiration for her work on scientific subjects and exploring new connections between art and science. The aim was to use poetry as a means of attracting new visitors and audiences for the museum. In collaboration with the University’s 2009 Festival of Ideas, The Whipple Museum ran two evening poetry events that aimed to create new audiences for the museum. In 2010, again under the umbrella of Festival of Ideas, the Museum hosted a poetry outreach event based around ‘Fungus based’ talks, poetry readings and creative writing. Across all three events over 50% of the visitors attending these events were new to the museum.

The first of the 2009 events was a reading from poet John Holmes, the author of Darwin’s Bards, on 22nd October from 6.30pm-8.30pm and was entitled Poetry After Darwin. He explored how poets have responded to Darwin’s big idea, and how poetry can help us to feel and understand what it means to live in a Darwinian universe.

The second event was held on 29th October from 6pm-8pm and consisted of a creative writing workshop called ‘Object Stories’. This was jointly run by our poet in residence, Kelley Swain and used the Whipple’s collection as inspiration for the creation of short pieces of poetry and prose.

Feedback for ‘Poetry After Darwin’: ‘Just lovely. Thanks to the Whipple staff for organising this and showing me the museum.’

‘It’s a lovely environment – I enjoyed browsing the objects and appreciated the slightly later hours.’

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‘Good way of getting people to see the museum (it worked for me).’

‘Range of ways to engage with the exhibits – nice to be able to wander round informally before the speaker began.’

Feedback for ‘Object Stories’: ‘I enjoyed the event and learnt new approaches to writing about objects.’

‘I enjoyed the event as it was an opportunity to try something new.’

‘It was brilliant, I really enjoyed it.

Everyone concentrated and seemed to be under a spell.’

These evening events catered for visitors, both new and returning, particularly those who find it difficult to visit the museum during its normal opening hours. These events also helped towards the museum’s on-going intentions to increase access to its collections and to attract new audiences as a result. Comments cards were used to gain information about visitors and gather their feedback about the events.

Feedback for ‘Fantastic Fungus’: ‘Thank you for making today's workshop so fun and educational! I really enjoyed it and have a lot more respect for fungi now...’

‘We really enjoyed the workshop on fungi which you ran, and would like to thank everyone who organised it. We hope that you are able to run some more creative writing workshops.’

The outreach event for Festival of Ideas 2010 was organised by the Museum’s poet in residence Kelley Swain (Author of the recent publication Darwin’s Microscope). The event included talks by Ruth Horry (about the Dillon Weston glass fungi) and by Dr Richard Barnett (about mushrooms in medicine).

There were also poetry readings by Kelley Swain and a practical creative writing session using real mushrooms as writing prompts. The session was attended by 16 adults and 2 children, the majority of which had not previously visited the museum.

Feedback from those attending suggest that The Whipple provided an inspiring environment for poetry. The sessions allowed the museum to represent collections within the context of the museum’s galleries in a new and innovative way that appealed to visitors.

‘Saturday’s workshop was very thoughtprovoking thank you!’

‘I enjoyed learning about something I didn’t know about before.’

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Science of musical sound Claire Wallace, Whipple Museum of the History of Science

The Whipple Museum began a ‘Science of Musical Sound’ project in December 2007.

This project aims to engage the public with the museum’s collection by highlighting the science and material culture associated with the history of musical sound. During 2010 a series of music outreach events were held at the museum. Three evening events aimed to reinforce the Whipple’s intentions to continue and expand improved access to the collections through evening openings to directly attract new audiences. Half-term childrens events aimed to increase awareness of the museum’s collection and attract new family audiences.

The first event was a Herschel evening, which took place on 3rd February 2010. It featured a performance of one of Herschel’s oboe concertos as well as a presentation relating to his life and work. A reading from a new book about the Herschel siblings was also performed. This event was aimed at older children and adults and encouraged visitors to get involved in further events held at the museum as well as returning in the future to explore the collection even further.

During the Science Festival 2010 the museum hosted two interactive evening talks. One by Professor Jim Woodhouse (17th March 2010) who specialises in acoustics and a second by Dr Christopher Hicks (10th March 2010), a fellow at Churchill College and Engineering Director at CEDAR Audio.

‘Very well explained for the layman, it was easy to follow and understand.’

‘Really enjoyed – learnt so much! Thank you.’

During half term week in October 2010 and on Saturday 20th March as part of Science Festival 2010 the museum ran half day 26

Science of Musical Sound outreach events aimed at families with children. The events were organised and run by Derek Scurll who is co-ordinating the project at the museum.

Each session incorporated specially facilitated hands-on activities, talks and demonstrations that had evolved from previous activity sessions that have taken place throughout the project. These have always been hugely popular and visitor feedback has shown an increasing demand of outreach of this kind.

‘The children had a fantastic time. They liked making their own instruments and playing on the computers. Thank you very much.’

‘We love the Whipple. Enjoyed making the pan pipe. Good choice of instrument for all ages! Thank you.’

These events not only maintained the awareness of this on-going project and augmented the huge interest that the museum has seen since its launch, but it also encouraged the attendees to take up the opportunity to get involved in other outreach activities at the museum in the future.

Funding for this project has provided a key opportunities for the Museum to expand its audience and provide an enhanced visitor experience

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Twilight at the Museums 2010 Mel Rouse and Liz Hide

Twilight at the Museums is now in its fourth year. Taking place on 17 February 2010, the event attracted over 5100 visits to eight museums in the space of just two and a half hours. The museums turned their lights down low encouraging visitors to explore their collections by torchlight. Many of the museums put on craft activities and trails around their darkened museums.

Museums involved were: University Museum of Zoology Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences The Whipple Museum of the History of Science Fitzwilliam Museum New Hall Art Collection Cambridge and County Folk Museum Cambridge University Botanic Garden

A central aim of Twilight at the Museums is to encourage first time visitors into the museums. Many of the museums reported a significant number of first time visitors, on average over 40% of visits were by new visitors, with the Whipple Museum attracting over 75%. This demonstrates that Twilight at

the Museums is successful at attracting an audience which does not typically visit museums whilst maintaining existing audiences.

For the first time Facebook was used as a promotional tool for the event, through the Cambridge University Museums page. This proved to be an excellent way of reaching new audiences and was a useful way to gather spontaneous event feedback. One visitor commented on Facebook “So glad I saw it advertised on Facebook otherwise would probably have missed it.

Keep up the FB posts�

Using Facebook gave the flexibility to add further information such as extra venues easily and a drip feed of information encouraged further interaction with the page.

This proved a useful avenue for reaching new audiences and developing a more sustained and two-way interaction with visitors. Whilst this is a free form of promotion it did involve staff time to populate the page with content.

Feedback from visitors about the event has been overwhelmingly positive:

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“Keep up the excellent work and long may such events continue to be held” “We will be coming back next year” “10 year old boy thoroughly enjoyed what he would normally call a boring museum“ “It was great! I love the museum at night!”

“Best way to see a museum!”

Funding from Renaissance supported a parttime coordinator who was able to facilitate the event across the eight museums. With many venues involved, having a coordinator

new venues this year (New Hall Art Collection and the Cambridge and County Folk Museum) whose events were both full to capacity.

makes therunning of the event smooth without putting pressure on any individual museum. The central organisation of many aspects of the event, particularly advertising lifted pressure from the individual museums allowing them to spend more time organising activities. In addition central coordination ensured that all the museums were well represented, particularly the smaller ones.

Renaissance funding was also given to the venues to help fund some of the costs incurred in taking part. All the venues are keen to be involved again, especially the two 29

Passport to Museum Treasure Summer Trail 2010, Mel Rouse and Liz Hide

In previous summers the University Museums have collaborated to provide a free summer activity. The 2009 summer activity, Cambridge Collectors Cards, proved to be very popular and we hoped to build on this success. The idea of a Passport to Museum Treasure was developed with the aim of capturing children’s imagination for travel and treasure hunts. The theme also linked into the current trend of holidaying at home. In addition it highlights the breadth of the museum’s collections – it is possible to travel the world through the museum’s collections and in addition highlighted some of the treasures of the museums. In addition the project aimed to promote the museums as family friendly and to increase visitor numbers and visits to less well known museums. The campaign was also developed with the aim of increasing museum participation in joint collaborative projects.

The following 12 museums took part in the Passport to Museum Treasure trail with a number of museums participating in the summer trail for the first time. The inclusion of non-University museums in the project gave them the opportunity to be involved with a large scale activity and allowed us to demonstrate the wealth of museums on offer in Cambridge.

University Museum of Zoology Whipple Museum of the History of Science Sedgwick Museum Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology The Polar Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge University Botanic Garden Museum of Classical Archaeology Kettle’s Yard New Hall Art Collection Museum of Technology Cambridge and County Folk Museum The activity ran from 10 July – 18 September 30

with a launch from the University Museums stall at the Big Weekend on Parker’s Piece.

It was promoted with a poster campaign across the city and the museums taking part and media coverage in university publications, local newspapers and radio. Individual museums promoted the trail through their own websites and email lists and centrally it was promoted via the University museums Facebook page and added to web based what’s on calendars.

The trail was designed to look like a passport, and contained all the information a family would need when visiting museums in Cambridge. This included a map, as well as opening hours and contact details for each of the museums. Each museum had a page in the booklet which had a photograph of their treasure and a question with space for answer about that particular object. As each museum had their own page it was also possible to highlight any activities happening over the summer that families might be interested in attending. Through doing this the hope was that by highlighting additional activities visitors would prolong their visit, rather than dashing in and out to just answer one question.

If children visited at least 5 museums and answered the question in each they were eligible to claim their own bag of museum treasure. This was a brown paper bag which was filled with worksheets, postcards and small items from the museum shops. In addition to the goody bag, children who completed the trail were able to get their passport stamped at collection points.

The last page of the trail was a tear off slip; this was handed in when the passport was checked at a collection point. Children were asked to copy their answers onto the slip and so it was possible to see how many museums they visited. The back of the slip had space for providing feedback, if this was

visiting more than the minimum number required to claim a goody bag. The average age of those taking part was 7.7 years. Approximately 46% of these were done by boys and 54% by girls. The first question simply asked if people had enjoyed the trail. 44 of the returned forms failed to answer this question, reducing the sample size to 289. Of the 298 only 3 indicated that they did not enjoy the trail, therefore 99% of visitors enjoyed the summer trail.

“I liked searching for the objects because when I was looking for it you can see different things too.”

“We have kept the passport and will try visiting the remaining museums during the October half term. More of the same please.”

completed the child was entered into a prize draw. This allowed us to increase the amount of feedback for the trail, which had proved difficult in previous years.

Evaluation: 3000 trails were printed. 300 of these were given away on the launch day. The rest were distributed to the museums, and to local community groups through the University Communications Office. Over the summer a total 385 goody bags were distributed, giving a conversion rate of 13% for completing the trail - the highest the conversion rate has ever been for a summer trail of this kind.

333 feedback forms were completed and 343 answer cards which provided a good level of feedback from those who completed the trail.

A total of 1885 visits across the museums were recorded. The average number of visits made was 5.5, with nearly a third of visitors

“I liked finding out the answers to the questions and seeking the exhibits.”

“I liked having to go to the museums to answer the question because I went to some that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise” My children and I much enjoyed your museum trail – thank you for organising this. It proved to be a very good incentive for the children and a good reason to go out on a rainy day.

“They really enjoyed the passport and it made the holidays really fun as we popped in once each week and had really good look round the museums. They always love the Fitzwilliam but it was great to get to some of the others, which I am ashamed to say - we had never been to before, The Whipple was my son’s favorite”

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Music at the Museum Sarah-Jane Harknett, MAA

Music events in Museums continue to attract new audiences to Museums. On Wednesday 12th May Carl and Leon Hogsden and Robert Brown performed a packed gig at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Carl and Leon perform the 'anonymous songs of England's past', using guitar, bouzouki, dulcimer and mandolin. Robert plays 'psychedelic folk cum blues cum jazz' and was performing in the Museum for the first time.

There were about 100 people who attended in total, of whom around 40% had not visited the Museum before. Around two thirds had not been to a music event in the Museum previously.

The event provided a relaxed environment to enjoy the music. During the interval many people were looking intently at the Museum displays, including the Assembling Bodies exhibition (the top floor had to be opened due to the number of attendees). Comments noted during the concert included: "an entertaining evening" "extremely enjoyable" "very professional" "fantastic music, really enjoying it. Fantastic acoustics, too" "I really like this Museum, it's small and lovely" "It's brilliant. I think it's a really good idea. It's a great way to use the Museum, good to have things in the evenings, I can't get the Museum at other times because it closes at 4.30. But this is a great way to see it" "will you do more concerts? And will they be free? World music - that's what I like. It would be great to come here for more."

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Exploration Station Suzy Antoniw, The Polar Museum

The event, ‘Exploration Station’ was run at The Polar Museum as part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. It encouraged visitors to explore the museum’s collections in more detail by taking part in hands-on activities based around some of the objects on display.

The aim of the event was to communicate the concept of planning a polar expedition. In addition to the hands-on boxes the activities gave participants the chance to discover survival essentials in the museum displays (with the guidance of a trail activity) and feel what it’s like to wear polar clothing (with a dressing up box).

The activity was free to all and ran on a dropin basis, new signs were printed to advertise this on the busy Lensfield Road. Front-ofhouse volunteers were provided with briefing material so they knew how to advertise the activities to visitors but the activities themselves were self-led with full instructions so they could run throughout the festival.

The activity boxes made for this activity were

count at reception, questionnaires provided with all the activity boxes and at reception and also interviews carried out with families taking part in the activities throughout the festival.

Knowledge and understanding and skills: “Today I learned what they did there, how to service [sic] and how they got there.”

being trialled with the aim of making them available on a more regular basis for visitors to use to explore the collections. Evaluation was therefore an essential component of the event and was carried out through a visitor

Attitudes and values: “Dressing up was really interesting to wear the clothes and see how warm it is” “and you looked really cool… well hot actually.”

Enjoyment, inspiration and creativity: “This is really fun.”

“I think it was great.”

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Carmen Eleckra, Opera Underground Roz Wade, Museum of Zoology

The Opera event at the Museum of Zoology was run as part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. This was a very different event for the museum, and attracted an audience of young adults, many from the undergraduate population of the University. This was quite different from the usual family audiences the museum attracts, and around 2/3 of the audience for the Opera said that it was their first visit to the museum. The queue for the event was large, and many people who were unable to get in due to the museum reaching capacity watched through the windows on the podium by the whale skeleton.

The event included a new opera called ‘Bonesong’ written and staged by undergraduate students from the Department of Music, and ‘Frankenstein’ by H K Gruber. A stage was constructed in the centre of the 34

lower gallery for the performers, who were accompanied by a small orchestra. Images were projected onto a screen in one corner, and special lighting effects set up to create a striking image of the museum and in particular the large mammal skeletons in the lower gallery. Electronica music was played in the intervals between these two short operas, and a bar was set up in the lower gallery for people to buy drinks.

BioBlitz 2010 Roz Wade, Museum of Zoology

To celebrate Internal Year of Biodiversity, the museum in partnership with the Community Affairs team of the University coordinated Cambridge’s first BioBlitz. The aim was to count as many species as possible within the space of 24 hours, and so highlight the amount of biodiversity in a local environment.

Coe Fen close to the centre of Cambridge was chosen as the site for the BioBlitz for its diversity of environments within a manageable area. The BioBlitz ran from lunchtime of July 2nd to lunchtime on July 3rd. A total of 562 species were counted: 181 insects, 30 spiders, 34 molluscs, 45 vertebrates, 40 lichens and 230 plants.

A base camp and information point was set up, where maps of the site and data collection sheets were available to members of the public taking part. Experts from the museum of Zoology and the Department of Zoology and many local wildlife groups were dotted around the site, available to id specimens collected by the public and to show how best to sample the site safely without damaging it.

Pond dipping and dissection of cow pats were popular activities during the two days.

Late in the evening of July 2nd, bat walks were run with local bat conservation charities using bat detectors, and moth trapping continued until around 1am. Early in the morning of July 3rd a dawn chorus walk listened for different species of bird. These late night and early morning events had to be booked in advance and each had at least 12 people on them.

This event was very different to other activities the museum has taken part in and represented a valuable outreach project. As this project was off site and in a large area with many entry and exit points precise visitor figures could not be calculated. However, there were estimated to have been around 600 visitors over the course of the event.

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Sounds Green I & II Juliet Day, Cambridge University Botanic Garden

Building on the success of a series of late night openings in 2009, the Botanic Garden wanted to introduce music on some of the evenings. The aim was to attract new visitors to the Garden and to give regular visitors the opportunity to experience the Garden in a new way. Through a collaboration with Cambridge Summer Music Festival, which runs over three weeks from July to August, two proms style evenings entitled Sounds Green I & II took place on July 21st and August 4th 2010.

For the first concert, Ric Elsworth, together with Lucy Landymore, Young Musician of the Year finalist and local student, treated over 400 people to an inspirational programme on the marimba. For the second, brilliant young harpist, Rosanna Moore, gave a performance in the intimate surroundings

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of the Continents Apart display in the Garden’s Glasshouse Range. Approximately 180 people dropped in to listen.

The events were promoted via both the Garden’s and the Music Festival’s websites.

6000 leaflets were distributed at the Garden, with the Friends News and around the city.

Good local press coverage was achieved.

Evaluation of the Garden’s late evening opening numbers (as distinct from the daily totals) had begun on June 16 and the comparison table below shows how the music proms created a significant uplift in visitor numbers.

June 16 July 7 July 21: Sounds Green I August 4: Sounds Green II August 18

154 133 434 180 121

This was particularly true of the harp recital on 4 August, when the weather was cold and showery. Without the music recital, the visitor numbers would have been practically nonexistent.

Evaluation was via feedback forms. Approximately 10% of visitors returned forms after the first concert. Of these, about 10% were first-time visitors and 10% were returning to the Garden having not visited for over 12 months. For the second concert, around 7% of visitors returned feedback forms. 33% of respondents were first time visitors, and a handful were returning to the Garden after 12 months. Respondents were also asked for their comments. Useful practical suggestions included ‘please tell us to bring cushions’ and ‘can you please set up a microphone’ and some felt that they could have been more widely promoted.

It was wonderful and my two (small) children talked about it all evening.

It’s my first visit and it’s been wonderful to enjoy a harp recital this evening: I shall certainly visit the Botanic Garden again.

The setting, the music everything was perfect. Please carry on doing this!!

The music evenings were an excellent opportunity to reach new audiences and the Garden hopes to repeat and extend musical offerings in 2011. Cambridge Summer Music Festival is keen to collaborate again and has suggested a programme of cushion concerts.

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Twilight at the Museums 2011 Felicity Plent and Liz Hide

Now in its’ fifth year, Twilight at the Museums continues to be an extremely successful public engagement event. The event is billed as a unique, once a year, opportunity to visit Cambridge Museums after dark. This year the nice venues which opened recorded more than 7000 visits during the evening, which we estimate involved a minimum of 3000 people. This is a 48% increase on visit numbers as compared to numbers for 2010.

The following museums and collections opened from 4.30 – 7.30 pm on the Wednesday of February half-term.

The Polar Museum Museum of Zoology Fitzwilliam Museum Botanic Garden Whipple Museum of the History of Science Sedgwick Museum New Hall Art Collection Museum of Classical Archaeology Cambridge and County Folk Museum

Lights were turned down to provide an unusual and exciting experience for visitors at all museums except at The Fitzwilliam Museum, which instead opted to host a magical shadow puppet show. In addition to events on the night, The Museum of Classical Archaeology delivered a small twilight outreach project with students from The Manor School. Students were set the task of creating sculptures using glowsticks. Experimental sculptures were made in an art class at the school and then a group of the students visited the museum, during their half term holiday, on the afternoon before the twilight event. Working with the education officer they created a glowstick sculpture which was displayed at the event itself.

Twilight aims to provide a fun opportunity for family learning and to encourage visitors to look at things differently. It also aims to

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attract new visitors – particularly those who might think that museums are not for them, and to give regular museum visitors a different experience to encourage repeat attendance and recommendation to other potential visitors. It is also an extremely important event for encouraging cross-museum collaboration in delivering public-facing activities.

All the individual museums were asked to record visitor figures and encourage visitors to complete comments cards. The cards were incentivised by the offer of a goody bag for one lucky winner. In addition to the feedback cards a number of roving volunteers visited the museums during the event to complete a more in-depth questionnaire.

Feedback was also gathered from staff and volunteers at participating museums.

In total 7543 visits were recorded by the nine venues, with an absolute minimum of 2630 people taking part in the event (this is the highest number of visitors at one single venue). Based on evidence from feedback forms and organisers at each venue we can estimate that total visitor numbers were btw 2700 and 3000. Data from the feedback cards suggests that 51% were visiting the venue where the card was completed, for the first time. However it should be noted that

the largest numbers of cards returned were from the Whipple and CUBG so this percentage is not a true reflection of new visits across all the museums. It is fair to say however that the 48% increase in visit numbers must be attributed to a large number of new visitors since these are the highest figures ever recorded for attendance at the event.

There were many positive comments from visitors indicating that they had enjoyed the evening. Negative comments were mainly concerned with the length of the queues which we hope to address in planning future

events. Visitors indicated that they felt this was an unusual and exciting way to visit a museum. Torchlight encouraged both children and adults to look differently at the collections, and created an exciting atmosphere. There was also a clear message that visitors intended to return to visit one or more venues. This shows the importance of this event in introducing new visitors to museums.

fresh new look for the event. The event attracted considerable advance publicity, including an interview on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and editorial coverage in the Cambridge News and a number of regional magazines. This fresh approach, is likely to have contributed to the increase in attendance numbers.

A dedicated url for the event was created this was used on all communication and linked from the University Museums and collections page. The website was regularly updated as more information about the event was available. The event was also listed on the Cambridge Museums Facebook page and a Twilight twitter account was set up with a hashtag for the event created. Twitter and Facebook references were included on the poster and flyer. Participating museums with Twitter accounts were encouraged to use it when tweeting about the event. News from each of museums was re tweeted and on the night of the event volunteers and event coordinators were encouraged to tweet With Twilight at the Museums having now run successfully for five years, it is clear that this represents an excellent opportunity for meeting outreach targets. The large increase in numbers this year clearly show that there is still more potential for this event to generate large scale museum visiting. The re-invention of the event annually continues to present good new opportunities to explore and expand new forms of communicating event information with visitors. In particular the wider use of social networking and free (unpaid) publicity vehicles in promoting museum visiting.

In previous years a large part of the small marketing budget was spent on fees for advertising space which ran in the weeks before event. This year greater reliance was placed on PR for ‘free’ publicity and the redesign of event publicity materials to create 39

Contacts

For more information about any of the projects in the individual university museums, please contact the appropriate person below.

Ros Wade Events and Outreach Officer University Museum of Zoology Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3EJ 01223 336650 jrcw30@cam.ac.uk Annette Shelford Education Officer Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3EQ 01223 766079 annette@esc.cam.ac.uk Sarah-Jane Harknett Outreach Organiser Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology University of Cambridge Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3DZ 01223 764769 sjh201@cam.ac.uk Sarah Campbell Education Officer Kettle's Yard Castle Street Cambridge CB3 0AQ 01223 352124 sec67@cam.ac.uk Juliet Day Development Officer Cambridge University Botanic Garden 1 Brookside Cambridge CB2 1JE 01223 336265 jcd35@cam.ac.uk 40

Claire Wallace The Whipple Museum Free School Lane Cambridge, CB2 3RH 01223 331103 jfkn2@cam.ac.uk shr29@cam.ac.uk Sophie Weeks Schools Liaison Officer Scott Polar Research Institute Museum Lensfield Road Cambridge 01223 336562 schools@spri.cam.ac.uk Jacqui Strawbridge Education Officer Museum of Classical Archaeology Sidgwick Avenue Cambridge CB3 9DA 01223 767044 js443@cam.ac.uk Liz Hide University Museums Development Officer Fitzwilliam Museum Trumpington Street Cambridge CB2 1RB 01223 336684 eah12@cam.ac.uk