Making Home Abroad - Lesson packages (in English)

Making Home Abroad’s learning material contains tasks that focus on the ancient objects that we digitized. The tasks of the learning material can be freely used in teaching and during museum visits, but also independently at home. As learning material for schools, the assignments are suitable for both elementary and high school, especially in the teaching of the following subjects (in parentheses is the assignment section appropriate for the subject):

• history, religion and outlook on life knowledge (“From ancient to modern”, “Discover and explore”, “Do it yourself”)
• Visual arts (“Do it yourself”)

The pdf file containing suggested answers can be found in the attached documents.

Information about tasks

The tasks in the study material consist of three sections (all attached here):

From ancient to modern. In the tasks of the “from ancient to modern” section, we will find out how, why and by whom objects from the ancient Middle East, Egypt and Antiquity have been brought to Finland. The purpose is to consider whose cultural heritage the objects are and why they are also important in faraway Finland. The tasks in this section are especially suitable for adult students, high school and the last grades of elementary school.

Discover and explore. In the Discover and explore section, we delve deeper into selected 3D modeled objects by considering, among other things, what the objects are, what their historical source value is, what they say, who made them and what they were used for. The tasks in this section are especially suitable for adult students, high school and middle school (grades 7–9), but some of them can also be used in elementary school teaching.

Do it yourself. The do-it-yourself section contains functional and cross-curricular tasks, where 3D modeled objects serve as sources of inspiration for self-made products. The tasks include instructions for making, among other things, a clay tablet containing arrowheads and seals used in the ancient Middle East and Egypt. In addition, the task section advises how to make a plastic 3D print of an ancient object. The tasks in this section are especially suitable for elementary school (grades 1–6), but also for middle school (grades 7–9), high school and adult students.

Use of 3D models in assignments

The 3D models of the objects used in the tasks can be found on the Sketchfab account of the Finnish Heritage Agency. 

At the beginning of each task, the objects to which the task is related are described. The naming of the objects follows the identifier used on the Finnish Heritage Agency’s Sketchfab account, e.g. “Savinaula (VK5738:2)”. The text tells what the object is and the series of numbers in brackets is the cataloging number given by the museum. It is recommended to keep the Finnish Museum Agency’s Sketchfab account open in another tab when doing tasks, so that the necessary objects can be found easily.

For the full data, see also Debenjak-Ijäs, Annukka, Sanna Saari, and Rick Bonnie. ”Making Home Abroad: Printable 3D digitizations and instructions (in Finnish)”. University of Helsinki, Humanistinen tiedekunta. https://doi.org/10.23729/a0e90d42-7663-434a-b657-bb055af51820.

Compilation of study material and tasks

Sanna Saari

Collaborators

Center of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE), University of Helsinki
National Museum
Museum Agency