Hands-on History

Teacher James Goatley enters his classroom with a large, grey cardboard box. A group of curious students gather around as he opens it and unwraps the first object. “This is a moa bone,” he says.
He has the students’ undivided attention.

And so begins an exciting and memorable learning experience for Room 21, a group of Year 8 students at Otūmoetai Intermediate.

James has taken advantage of a service to schools, run by the Council’s Tauranga Heritage Collection team, called Hands on Tauranga (HOT). It’s a free service that provides museum objects
to Tauranga City schools and community organisations. Objects from this handling collection can
be touched, worn and explored by students from Year 1 right through to Year 13.

Inside the box delivered to Room 21 is a set of 14 moa bones, including ribs, vertebrae and leg bones. Moa died out in the 1400s, which means these bones are at least 600 years old and possibly much older. A reading group in James’ class learnt all about moa last term, so when James saw that the bones were available to borrow, he took the opportunity to order them, along with other objects to ignite his student’s interest in history, such as a small dinosaur bone, typewriter, gramophone, patu muka (flax pounder) and even a meteorite estimated to be around 4.5 billion years old.

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HOT was created by Fiona Kean, curator for the Tauranga Heritage Collection, around 12 years ago. Fiona, along with Tauranga Heritage Collection Manager Dean Flavell, saw an opportunity to connect tamariki and rangatahi in the city with museum objects they could touch and explore, while giving teachers the freedom to create learning opportunities using the items in their schools. “HOT was set up after we had a group of school children and their teachers visit the collection. The children were fascinated by some of the objects and, as they hadn’t seen many of the items before, were intrigued as to their uses,” says Fiona. “This got us thinking that we could create a service similar to what
I had read about with museums overseas, called Museum in a Box. With Tauranga not having a civic museum, we thought it would be a wonderful way for students to engage with these types of objects, but in their own classrooms.”

Last year the Tauranga City Council commissioners identified HOT as being an important service
to the teachers and students of Tauranga, and a position was created to run the service exclusively and assist teachers in the subjects of local and Aotearoa histories. The development of the Aotearoa histories curriculum (compulsory teaching from 2023), means that the service can help teachers with their implementation of this new content.

So what sort of things can be borrowed from HOT? Objects are grouped by curriculum areas on the website, but can also be thought of in terms of themes, including early Māori life, life and schooling
in the early 1900s, the New Zealand Wars, World War I and World War II, the development of new technologies, and te taiao (the natural world). 

Some of the objects that have proven most popular with students so far this year include patu
muka (for pounding harakeke/flax) and pā kahawai (fishing lure), ngā kēmu Māori (Māori games),
dip pens and inkwells, military objects (gas masks, bayonets), the moa bones and fossil collection, stereoscope and stereographs, telephones (such as a Magneto from the early 1900s) and typewriters.

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Teachers access the service by registering online with HOT, then once approved, they can add objects to their ‘cart’ and check out, much like online shopping. A delivery day is arranged, then objects are delivered to the school.

New resources to help with the teaching of local stories are also being added to HOT, with a
resource all about the 2011 Rena disaster ready to lend out. Other resources in development are
a collaboration with The Elms, and a resource to assist teachers in their teaching of Te Pakanga
o Pukehinahina (the Battle of Pukehinahina/Gate Pā).

As for the students of Room 21, they’re having a brilliant time examining and playing with the objects. “I was fascinated by the moa bone and the meteorite. It was amazing to think that I held something that is 4.55 billion years old!” says Paquita Newman. Classmate Mia Walker agrees, “After I took a
look at the gramophone and View-Master, I had a whole new interest in how people lived in the olden days. And it was fascinating to hold grenades and cannonballs.”

And that’s exactly what HOT is for — not only exciting students about history, but also giving the young people of Tauranga an opportunity to learn more about where they come from, how people lived, and how the past influences both the present and the future.‍

handsontauranga.co.nz taurangaheritagecollection.co.nz

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Story by Megan Hoskin
Photography by ilk

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