Reflect on what you saw in the collections and begin to sketch out some ideas
that you could plan for in a primary classroom.
Think about the impact of the visit on:
 Your knowledge and understanding of social studies.
 Your knowledge and understanding of Scotland.
 The pedagogical approaches of teaching social studies in a primary
classroom.
Before today I didn’t even know that the university had archives or its own
museum, and I certainly didn’t know that they have a vast variety of
recourses that could be useful to me as a teacher. The visit to the archives
has definitely helped to expand my knowledge and understanding of
Scotland and especially Dundee, because all the resources and artefacts
there seemed to have a direct link/relevance to Dundee. The visit also got
me thinking about the importance of social studies within education. I feel
that because we have so many resources available it would be a shame for
children not to experience them as they can learn a vast majority about the
world both in the past and today.
I was particularly drawn to the old photos of Dundee that were available.
Photographs are very useful artefacts and we can learn a lot from just
looking at a photograph. I would use old photographs in a lesson to explore
how Dundee has changed over a period of time, how it is changing right
now and finally how it will continue to change in the future.
Lesson idea
 Comparing old photos of dundee
I would use a series of old photographs all showing the same area for
example, the city centre outside the overgate shopping centre. I would
start with the most recent photograph first so the children could identiy
were it was and if they knew where was taken. Then I would show the
children a photography of the same place but taken in the late 1800’s.
Then I would ask the children to pick out anything that they notice
about the picture that who tell us when it was taken, where to see if they
could guess its real locating. I would do this again maybe twice using
photographs and to start putting them into a timeline. After the
discussion about how each one has changed and developed I would ask
the children to drawn their own version of the photography but imagine
it is the year 2070. This task requires children to apply the knowledge
they have about how places change over time and apply it to the
situation.