School Trips: The Big Pit

 

In order to explore how schools trips and museums can act as an exciting context for learning, a fellow Ed. Studies student Leigh Reece and I headed down to the 'Big Pit' in Blaenavon, the National Mining Museum of Wales. There was mining at Blaenavon from 1788-1980 and the coal face, shafts and lifts remain in place today and can be accessed via an underground tour which is undoubtedly the highlight of any trip to Big Pit. The rest of the buildings and surrounding parts of the mine have been restored or maintained and are now used as various attractions and exhibits for the museum, including the interactive miners galleries tour, winding engine house, miners baths and fan house.

If you have never taken a trip to the Big Pit, do! You'll love it and certainly learn a lot. But in the meantime watch this short clip to get a idea of what a day out or school trip there might include.

 

 

 

This is Bill who took us on our underground tour. We noticed he
interacted particularly well with the children on the tour and
introduced some interesting themes across the core subjects
through his exciting and engaging storytelling.

The 50 minute underground tour takes you 90 meters underground and gives you a chance to discover real life working at the coal face. Its gives the children first hand experience with real mining equipment and they even get to wear actual working miners lamps on helmets. Children are able to get a real sensory feel for the environment. Because it is a real mine there is also real risk so children are learning the importance of following the rules and constantly making their own risk assessments. It is an interactive tour and most of the information and stories shared by the miners are done so through questions and answers with the children. This gives the children a chance to practice and use valuable interpersonal and social skills outside of the classroom.

 

A school trip to Big Pit is most likely to be part of a big theme for learning being explored in the classroom back at school. A school trip can be used as hands on, experiential context in which to apply the knowledge the children have already begun to grasp in the classroom. It is a great opportunity for children to deepen their understanding of the theme through 'seeing' and 'doing'. With this in mind Leigh and I decided to look at what requirements of the National Curriculum for Key Stage Two might be met here.

 

The following are exerts from the Skills and Range sections of some of the subjects at Key Stage Two, with some examples of how they may fit around a visit to the Big Pit;

 

History

 

Nat Curriculum Range:  “Pupils should develop their historical skills,knowledge and understanding through learning about a range of historical contexts. These should be based primarily on the local area within the wider context of Wales”

• Changes to people’s daily lives in the locality in the nineteenth century

• The differences in people’s daily lives in two contrasting periods of the twentieth century

 

These are perfect topics to be discussed around a trip to the mine. The miners baths and the miners galleries gives a chronological explanation of the history of mining across two centuries told through the lives of the people who lived within that community. References to the daily lives of the community were made during both the Underground tour and the miners gallery tour.


Science 

 

Nat Curriculum Range: Pupils should understand......

 

• "the uses of electricity and its control in simple circuits"

• "the properties of solids, liquids and gases and how the particle model can be used to explain these properties"

During the underground tour Bill gave a great example of a simple circuit in the form of a miners communication system. Children would be able to relate this back to what they have learnt about simple circuits back in the classroom or could possibly be used to create a new topic for discussion back at school. This experience could give them a deeper understanding of the subject. The properties of gases were also discussed in the tour while talking about the dangers of fire in the mines.

Benefits of Trip

A school trip like this can act as a bridge between existing knowledge and new skills, attitudes and knowledge yet to be learnt. Returning back to school with a clearer understanding of the overall concept and a re-ignited enthusiasm for learning the children may be ready then to engage in some reflection and analysis on the theme.


Here is a link to some teaching packs we found online based around trips to the Big Pit:

http://education.scholastic.co.uk/content/821  

Task suggested for the children to do at school include:

• Write a diary as a child in the mine

• Write a letter complaining about the conditions in the mines

• Explore current child labour/ poverty issues

For further information on the experiences available at the Big Pit follow the link below to their excellent website:

¨http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/bigpit/

 

 

References 

Big Pit Website: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/bigpit/

National Curriculum Wales: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/educationandskills/schoolshome/curriculuminwales/arevisedcurriculumforwales/nationalcurriculum/?lang=en

What are learning contexts: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu

Big Pit teaching packs: http://education.scholastic.co.uk/content/821

National Curriculum Wales: