Natural History Museum

As an exploration of working outside of the classroom, we organised and executed a school trip to the Natural History Museum.

This exercise gave us the opportunity to explore the benefits that museums have to offer.

We decided to focus on butterflies and creepy crawlies, particularly their life cycle, where they live and what they might eat.

Our main focus of the trip was the butterfly jungle, situated in the museum grounds. This gave us the chance to come in contact with real butterflies and watch first hand their life cycle from a caterpillar - to a crysallis - to a butterfly. This would be a highly visual and interactive experience for the children.

However, the butterfly house was quite small so would not serve as an all day activity. Luckily the Arthropod exhibition in the main building provided more information and interactive learning to back up with theory.

If this was followed through as a school trip it might be an idea to split the class so that both sections could be seen and learning could be collaborated through a talk from the museum staff.