Five Museum Learning Projects from the 2020–21 Lockdowns

This June 2021 roundup was written during the debate about proposed cuts to the higher-education high-cost subject funding subsidy, including arts and archaeology. Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Bernardine Evaristo and Jarvis Cocker were among the signatories of the Public Campaign for the Arts petition.

Lockdowns had also disrupted school arts teaching. Museum and heritage education teams responded with making activities, online courses and collaborative games that families and teachers could use away from a museum building.

Historical policy note, 10 October 2026: This article discussed the proposal available in June 2021. The Office for Students’ final decision of 20 July 2021 applied to a specific higher-education funding subsidy, and archaeology was excluded from the reduction.

These examples document museum and heritage learning during the 2020–21 lockdowns. Their formats vary, from short making activities to structured courses and collaborative games. When adapting one, begin with the learner’s task and the support they will need at home or in class, then check that the original resource and its access requirements are still available.

The British Museum – The Museum of the World

Developed in partnership with Google Cultural Institute, The Museum of the World is an astonishing interactive which is well worth a few minutes of your time (but likely you’ll want to spend more). Travel through the immersive timeline, which spans cultures and continents, and discover constellations of twinkling artefacts. A truly beautiful project that elegantly describes the importance of historical collections, museums and archaeology.

Many organisations used Google resources for their engagement projects – Google Arts and Culture tours were especially popular. And The British Museum’s partnerships have been a superpower in the pandemic – for example, their Virtual Visits are sponsored by Samsung and were able to quickly add capacity to meet growing demand.

Historic Environment Scotland – Learn at Home

A brilliant project for anyone wanting to grab kids’ attention and get them thinking about history. Historic Environment Scotland gathered resources and skills from across the organization to develop an incredibly charming new resource section of their website.

Take a look at their short ‘Craft Knight’ films to get a feel for the project – How to Make a Catapult, with Craft Knight is great and made ‘from home using a phone, homemade props, and the invaluable directing and editing skills of a photographer colleague’ (GEM Case Studies). The project is a great example of what you can do with a collaborative team and an experimental approach.

DigVentures – Archaeology at Home

As field activities became almost impossible, not-for-profit DigVentures rapidly developed their Archaeology at Home resources to continue their groundbreaking work into archaeological collaboration.

The project developed a six-week ‘How to do archaeology’ online course, a two-day festival and videos with virtual tours.

The account cited in this June 2021 roundup reported over 11,000 online archaeology participants from over 90 countries and an additional 11,800 primary school children in the junior course.

The project was an award winner in the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards, reaching a new audience for archaeology and a new way of connecting the professional and amateur archaeologist community. Incredibly – it also led to the discovery of a new henge site in Derbyshire.

National Museum Wales – Minecraft Your Museum

National Museum Wales challenged 6-11 year olds to build a fantasy museum in Minecraft – they then asked that the kids filled their museums with exhibits from their seven museums across the country. Hundreds of kids obliged – with museums featuring pyramids, dinosaurs, and an anti-gravity chamber.

This project was possible by the educational version of Minecraft which is available to all children across Wales.

The original project was described on the Minecraft Your Museum page.

MAM São Paulo’s Minecraft learning world provides another example with accompanying teacher-led activities.

Firstsite – Art Is Where The Home Is

Firstsite art gallery in Colchester was talked about a lot in the first lockdown for their fantastic resource pack developed with a roster of highly acclaimed artists – such as Grayson Perry, Cornelia Parker, Jeremy Deller and Sarah Lucas. By the time of the 2021 account, the pack had been downloaded over 48,000 times – but what makes this project even more impressive is the way that Firstsite has built on this success.

Firstsite’s Art Online pages brought together a range of virtual resources during this period. Firstsite also moved their ‘Super Black’ festival for Black and Caribbean history and culture online, and a series of films can be watched on the website. Plus, not only are there more activities here but there are also additional outreach resources. There’s an online studio space for sharing and conversations, showcase for The Great Big Art Exhibition which took place in windows across the country, and the surreal kids’ YouTube series ‘The Art Cave’.

What next?

In their ‘Remote learning in museums, heritage and cultural settings’ case studies, GEM commented that the ‘tireless work of museum and heritage education professionals to respond and reimagine what cultural engagement looks like during a pandemic continues to inspire and inform definitions of remote learning.’

Museums and cultural organisations have the potential to lead the way in remote learning – reaching out to diverse audiences and supporting education for all.

Science Gallery Bengaluru’s low-tech exhibitions show why language, bandwidth and mediation belong in remote-learning plans.