Cultures in Contact
School projectYear 7-9 students
Cultures in Contact is a three-year project supported by Deutsche Bank. It aims to create a historical framework to help young people develop an awareness and understanding of their position in
a world continually shaped by the interaction of different cultures.
With a focus on whole year groups in four London secondary schools, the project provides sustained learning opportunities throughout Key Stage 3. It will take the young people on a cultural journey through history, with activities adapting to their changing interests, modes of thinking
and expression.
Each year the students visit the Museum in the context of pre- and post-visit experiences at school which provide stimulating learning activities based around the unique objects in the
Museum’s collection.
In the first year of the project the students looked
at contacts between Europeans and indigenous peoples in the 16th and 17th centuries in Mexico, China, west Africa and north America. In the Museum they worked with re-enactors to get inside the motivations for and nature of these encounters.
This year they are looking at the development of European empires in the 18th and 19th centuries, focusing especially on the British Empire and
British involvement in Africa. Role-plays and historical simulations are being used to help the students understand the reasons for the growth
of imperialism and its impact on people in different sections of society.
Pupils discussing an object.
Related resources
The British Museum offers a wide variety of schools resources for use either in the Museum or classroom.
Come to the Museum and activity sessions led by the Museum’s schools team.