Category Archives: Young People

Ecology goes- Wild About Birmingham!

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A few posts ago I introduced an exhibition Ignite, our Young People’s Forum are working on for the British Ecological Society’s ‘Festival of Ecology’. Now that spring is finally here it feels even more appropriate that we should be turning our attention to the great outdoors!

Ignite have spent the last few weeks working hard to get all their text and images for the exhibition to the designers, and also came up with a new name for it, ‘Wild About Birmingham! Here are a few of the latest concept designs to give a flavor of what the exhibition will look like.

Gardens Section

There are four zones to the exhibition. One focuses on Forests and Gardens.

Welcome Board

The introduction and welcome board.

Story of Wheat Section

One zone focuses on Food and Agriculture.

We are really happy with how the exhibition is starting to look! In fact there were several cries of, “It looks a lot better than I thought it would!” at the last Ignite meeting! The next stage is to create a whole range of family friendly activities to run alongside the show. Ignite have come up with all the idea, now it’s up to me to buy everything while they’re off doing exams! Good luck to all of us!

Easter Volunteers Year Two!

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We’ve talked about lots of new exciting projects in recent blog posts but today I want to return to an on going ‘We Made It’ project based on providing volunteering roles for local young people.

Our first batch of volunteers joined us last Easter holidays and were so successful that we committed to providing the same opportunities every Easter! This year we again welcomed a group of 16-17 year olds, from Birmingham to join our Gallery Enabler team.These are the people that help our visitors to enjoy the museum as much as possible by running activities, providing directions and talking about the exhibitions.

The group with their certificates

    The group with their certificates

This year we had the added bonus of the We Made It gallery actually being open! The volunteers, therefore, spent a lot of time helping visitors explore this space and running activities. The volunteers also used a brand new activity space on their final day to show visitors lots of handling objects and science demonstrations. Once again we are so impressed with the time and effort these wonderful young people put in whilst at the museum. Here’s to next year!

The Festival of Ecology

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It’s a term you’ve probably come across and think you know what it means but…what exactly is ecology?! Well this year is the centenary of the British Ecological Society (BES) and they want everyone to find out through their ‘Festival of Ecology’, a programme of events taking place all over the country.

Being big fans of the natural world here at Thinktank we decided to get involved in the Festival and celebrate the ecology of our very own city, Birmingham. But instead of the museum staff putting together an exhibition we’ve handed over all control over to our newly established Young People’s Forum, Ignite!

Brainstorming in the first meeting!

Brainstorming in the first meeting!

Ignite are made up of 17, 16-20 year olds from across Birmingham, all working together to produce a Pop-Up exhibition and range of family activities that will go on display this summer. In fact, the exhibition will be traveling all over the city to some of the sites of Birmingham Museums Trust like Aston Hall and Soho House (see full list of dates). Our friends over at Blakesley Hall have been exploring the ecology of their site already and are looking forward to the exhibition visiting them.

So what is the exhibition about? Well, ecology of course, but in particular the group chose to focus on how humans have shaped the ecology of the landscape around them. The displays are split into four key zones; Canals and Ponds, Gardens and Forests, Food and Agriculture and Urban Wildlife, all features found in Birmingham.

So far, Ignite have been working hard carrying out lots of research, writting all the text for the exhibition and choosing lots of images. We were also joined by three scientists from the University of Birmingham who came to tell the group about their own research in areas relating to the exhibition.

Spot scientists who've joined the forum!

Spot scientists who’ve joined the forum!

 

Dr Ian Thornhill and Prof Rob Mackenzie talking with their groups

Dr Ian Thornhill and Prof Rob Mackenzie talking with their groups

The input of Ian, Rob and Emma has been invaluable in making sure the exhibition contains up-to-date research from local universities. In addition, it was wonderful for the group to meet local academics that they would never usually come into contact with.

The group are currently planning a range of exciting family activities as we wait for the exhibition to come back from the graphic designers. We can’t wait to see what it looks like!

So what is ecology?! Well you’ll have to come along and find out!

The Final Completed Walking Trail!

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Slow Boat and the Walking for Heritage Team

Slow Boat and Walking for Heritage Team

The blog has been heavily dominated of late by our Walking for Heritage project. I promise I will stop writing about it soon! Ever since our lovely young people created their walking trail we have been working hard to re-make their prototype into a version we can publish. Only very minor changes were needed as the prototype itself was of a really high quality and had some wonderful, original features.

Take a look at the final version at the link below (its sadly too large to up-load to the Blog!)  

www.thinktank.ac/walking_for_heritage

We will now get some paper copies into the leaflet holders in our galleries and make the trail available on our website. All that’s needed then is for people to get walking! If you’re looking for something to do in Birmingham why not check it out and let us know how you got on!  

Another Walking Map Update!

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After a LOT of messing about I have (hopefully) improved on the Walking Trail mentioned in my last post. I have also used a different piece of software called Tripline to make the trail, to see which is the better tool. Tripline looks really slick but lacks some of the features of Google Maps. Take a look and see which you prefer!  


View Walking for Heritage in Historic Digbeth in a larger map

Walking For Heritage Online Trail

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A few weeks ago I worked on a project to create a walking trail around Digbeth with a group of young people (you many remember I mentioned it a LOT!). Well although the co-production side of the project is finished I am still working hard to get the trail published both online and in paper leaflets. Below is the first draft of an interactive google map showing the walking trail and featured landmarks. I’m hoping the young people who worked with me on the trail will take a look at it and add their comments! I’m wondering-

Is there enough text information about each landmark?

Should each image have a border around it?

Are there enough directions to help people find their way around the route?

Is there anything else they would like to add?

Thanks guys!


View Walking for Heritage in Historic Digbeth in a larger map

Walking for Heritage.. making map art!

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On the third day of the Walking for Heritage project the team got all arty with local artist and presenter Rosie Wells. We were asked by Rosie to think of a way we could represent ourselves through a piece of art, using maps as a starting point. As a completely un-arty person the challenge was a little daunting at first! However, she encouraged us to not think about what we were doing too much and to just put pen/pastel to paper! Everyone put loads of effort in and the results were brilliant.  

Here’s a selection of what we managed to produce.

Walking for Heritage continues…

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After two hectic days on the walking for heritage project things are beginning to take shape! Yesterday the group visited the Central Library to look at how Digbeth has been represented in map form over the past several hundred years. We managed to collect together lots of images and photocopies to help us create our own map.

We then had the great pleasure of a trip on the Ikon Gallery’s Slow Boat. The Ikon Youth Programme visited Thinktank several months ago so it was lovely to return the visit and finally see the boat! And what an amazing boat it is! It was wonderful to finally be able to view the canalside from the water as opposed to from the towpath. I think the group all enjoyed the experience and gained an insight into the role the canals may have played in historic Birmingham. For some it was their first time on a boat and several didn’t really realise the canals even existed in the city! Overall a brilliant experience.

 

Walking for Heritage Day 1!

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Map Research
A selection of maps and books to start the research process
 
Today the Walking for Heritage project began in earnest with 8 wonderful young people coming along to take part (to my great relief!). To re-cap Walking for Heritage involves the research and creation of a new walking trail in Digbeth, the area local to the museum. We began the day talking through the project and thinking about what heritage means to different people. We then moved on to the tricky topic of ‘What is a map?’. Though it initially sounds simple this turned out to be a surprisingly difficult question to answer! To do so we took a look at lots of different maps on the BBC Beauty of Maps archive sitewith this Fred Rose, Serio Comic War Map in particular catching our attention.

Fred Rose Map

This cartoon-map comments on the events taking place in Europe in 1877.

We learnt that a map can be far more than just a series of roads and houses when it comes to presenting a message and ideas. Hopefully today was just the start of our journey of discovery! Tomorrow’s action packed day contains a boat trip and visit to the central library so expect lots of photos!

 

Walking for Heritage

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Next week, in June Half-Term as part of ‘We Made It’, I will be running a project called ‘Walking for Heritage’ with a group of young people from Birmingham. Our challenge is to create a walking trail around the heritage landmarks of Digbeth, the area of Birmingham in which Thinktank is based. I’m really looking forward to the week and all the activities I have planned for the participants, including a canal boat trip on the Ikon Gallery’s Slow Boat, a visit to the Central Library and lots more! We will be documenting many of the things we get up to through the blog so look out for lots of posts next week!

I will be helped by a wonderful friend of mine, Rosie Wells, a local freelance artist and presenter who will be helping the group develop presenting skills and a piece of map art. Take a look at the video she has made, introducing herself to the participants and explaining the tasks she has set them.