The Royal Botanic Gardens and the Australian National Maritime Museum recently offered 6 virtual excursions looking at Cook, the voyage of HMB Endeavour and Banks the botany and plant classification. The collaboration began as a special presentation linked to the RBG 200th birthday celebrations.
The sessions on Wednesday 18th May were offered through DARTconnections and sold out very quickly and more spaces were added. The Thursday 19th May sessions were offered through Electroboard. The content was written by Mary Bell RBG and Anne Doran ANMM with Kieran Hosty an ANMM Maritime Archaeologist and Mary Bell presenting.
The students were very engaged with the content as it extended what they had been learning in the classroom. The questions they asked, clearly demonstrated that they had been thinking about what had been presented during the sessions and having Kieran who had dived on the wreck sites to give that extra insight was very useful. He may have inspired students to think about archaeology as a career.
The RBG and ANMM are considering offering this cross curriculum program again next year, to support teachers in the classroom and provide access to experts from both organisation. The program reached almost 1000 students.