Y1 – Y3 General SMAG Tour with Tuatara Talk (2 hours)
In this session, students are to complete a ‘museum hunt’ worksheet whilst they are taken on a tour through the museum. Particular areas can be focused on, depending on what the students are studying at school. At the end of the tour, they learn about tuatara and get to meet one up close and personal! After the tuatara visit, it’s back to the classroom for an interactive whiteboard storytelling session of The Terribly Tired, Try-Anything Tuatara, by Lynley Dear. Alternatively, instead of the storytelling session, students can participate in an art lesson which teaches them how to sketch a tuatara.

Y1 – 6 Change in Schools (1.5 hours)
In this session, students explore how schools have changed in Southland by examining genuine photos and artefacts. They also get to try activities from those early school days.

Y1-6 Fossils (1.5 hours)
This topic has three separate lessons to cater for three different year level groups: Y1-2, Y3-4 and Y5-6. In each lesson, students will use a PowerPoint presentation, classroom activities and the Museum’s fossils displays to explore the answers to the following questions: What is a fossil? How are fossils made? What different types of fossils are there? How old are fossils? What is a ‘living fossil’? What fossils have been found in Southland? As part of this lesson is conducted outside, students will need to bring a rain-coat if it is a wet day.

Y1 – 10 Tikanga Maori (1.5 hours)
This programme teaches students about how the early Maori people lived and Maori culture by exploring the Maori gallery, as well as Maori artefacts, art, games and musical instruments.

Y1 – 10 Water Tower Visit (1 hour)
This session is held on site at the Invercargill Water Tower. Here, students learn about the history of the Water Tower and Invercargill’s water supply. They also get to climb to the top and take in spectacular views of Invercargill! For a half-hour longer, students have the option of sketching and writing poetry about the Water Tower.

Y3-6 Insects (1.5 hours)
Students are divided into eight groups and must work their way around eight stations to find out more about insects. In this lesson, students study real (dead) insects which are mounted in display boxes or preserved in plastic. They also complete worksheet activities and use the Internet to research questions they have about insects. Depending on stock, they may also have the opportunity to hold and observe a live locust from the Tuatarium!

Y4 – Y8 Exploring SMAG and Queen’s Park (10am – 2pm)
This is a big day out and can accommodate up to 120 students! Students will spend the morning exploring the museum in groups. For each gallery, they will have activities to complete. For these activities, they will find, interpret and analyse information, as well as develop their creative writing and drawing skills. In the afternoon they will use interesting facts about Queen’s Park as clues to complete an orienteering exercise.

Y4 – Y8 Our Environment and Conservation (1.5 hours)
This programme looks at the changes which have taken place in Southland’s environment since early colonisation and teaches the students how to conserve what we have by learning from the mistakes of our past. Areas of interest in the museum are the Natural History gallery, Beyond the Roaring 40˚S, Awarua Wetlands and the Tuatarium.

Y4 – Y8 Southland Community (2 hours)
This programme looks at how Southland’s community has developed since the early Maori first settled here. In this session, students use live experiences, games and drama to explore what it might have been like to be an early settler in Southland. Through this, they learn how Southland’s community has been shaped and what it means to be a citizen of Southland.

Y6 – Y10 Archaeology (2 hours)
What can we tell about the way people lived by the things that they left behind? This programme explores this question by investigating galleries in the museum and other artefacts.

Y6 – Y10 Beyond the Roaring 40°S (1.5 hours)
This programme sends students on an interactive explorative mission to the sub-antarctic islands of New Zealand. Here they will learn about the geography of the islands, the flora and fauna unique to the islands, the history of shipwrecks, whaling, sealing, farming, and wartime on the islands, as well as the sub-antarctic islands today.

Y6 – Y10 Our Culture (1.5 hours)
In this programme, students explore the topics of migration, personal identity, our culture and ‘Kiwiana’ by completing activities to do with a talk about immigration to Southland and early Southland, Momento gift shop, the Maori gallery, Victoriana, Beyond the Roaring 40°S, Sport in Southland and the Tuatarium.

Y6 – 10 Technology and Change (1.5 hours)
With a focus on technology and how it has changed, students explore the Maori gallery, Victoriana, Beyond the Roaring 40°S, Sport in Southland and Early Southland.

Y9-13 Our Endemic Life (1 hour)
In this lesson, students learn about the New Zealand Moa family and its connection to other ratites in the world. Then they study some of the birds on display and analyse features of each bird’s anatomy which have contributed to their rate of survival. They look at why some of our birds are extinct, endangered, threatened, declining or rare, and what can be done to help protect them. Finally, we visit the Tuatarium to learn about the behaviour, anatomy, environment, history and future of tuataras.