Museum of Anthropology
Our Trips
What can we learn about cultural belongings from their shapes?
In this program, young learners will think about how shapes, textures, and movement can be used to express feelings, memories, and relationships. While visiting a selection of belongings in MOA’s collection, students will reflect on how Indigenous makers use art to share knowledge, express land sovereignty, and reflect cultural identity, while building core competencies in art, math, and social studies. After exploring the collections, students can engage in a hands-on community mural activity in MOA’s Learning Lab to practice telling their own stories through shapes.
Please note: Teachers must deliver two pre-visit lessons in class to introduce key concepts for the Shapes That Speak program. Please refer to the accompanying Teacher’s Notes for instructions and complete the lessons prior to your visit.
How have Indigenous people used public events to claim agency over their representation during times of colonial oppression? How do our experiences, knowledge, and identities shape the way we interpret archival photographs?
This program is inspired by one of MOA’s past feature exhibitions, To Be Seen, To Be Heard: First Nations in Public Spaces, 1900–1965. This exhibition It explored how First Nations people represented themselves as Indigenous, self-determined and modern in urban public spaces during the period of the potlatch prohibition and other forms of erasure in Canada. Prior to this program, teachers will share excerpts from this exhibition’s documentary with students in the classroom. During the program at MOA, students will visit a selection of works by contemporary Indigenous artists and makers to expand on the ideas of To Be Seen, To Be Heard. Finally, students will participate in a reflective art making activity using mixed media self-portraiture to explore themes of representation, agency, and futurity.
Please note: Teachers must facilitate a pre-visit activity in class to introduce key concepts for the To Be Seen, To Be Heard program. Please refer to the accompanying Teacher’s Notes for instructions and complete the lesson prior to your visit.
How can we learn from cultural belongings and artworks? What can these works reveal about the people connected to them?
In this program, students will enjoy a guided gallery tour spotlighting belongings and artworks that embody rich, diverse stories and histories. Students will be invited to make observations, inferences, and reflections about how these works inspire learning and inquiry. Following the tour, students will visit the MOA Learning Lab and engage in one of the following hands-on activities:
- Arts-based Activity: Taking inspiration from Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’ Bone Box, students will create a collective mural depicting belongings that are precious to them, reflecting on how belongings tell stories and ethical considerations of sharing belongings in museums.
- Teaching Collection Activity: Guided by inquiry prompts, students will visit with belongings from the touchable teaching collection, build inferences about the belongings based on their observations, and learn from quotes from their makers.
Visit the Laboratory of Archaeology (LOA) and be an archaeologist for the day! Discover the rich, 9,000-year history of the First Nations people who live along the lower Fraser River by learning about their ways of life, tools, and technologies. This program was designed in collaboration with archaeologists from the Laboratory of Archaeology at UBC. We also recognize with appreciation the Musqueam people whose knowledge guides the ongoing evolution of the program.
This program includes a hands-on introduction to cultural materials used long ago for hunting, fishing, wood-working and home life. Students will engage with real and replica belongings to determine how they were made, how they might have been used, and why they survived for thousands of years. After a brief introduction to First Nations’ use of the cedar tree and a rope-making demonstration, the program will conclude with each student making a bracelet.
