GEM Cymru

During 2024-2025 Conwy Museum Service received funding and support from GEM Cymru to work with an education mentor to create a new resource called ‘Discovering Conwy Culture Centre Museum Store’.

Our mentor was Lorna Kernahan from Keystone Heritage. We looked at the current learning offer of Conwy Culture Centre (CCC), and conducted a questionnaire to schools to see how best the CCC could support the new Welsh curriculum. The feedback told us that travel costs are a big factor in schools’ ability to attend heritage sites like CCC and that they would appreciate some online resources.

Lorna proposed the development of an interactive PowerPoint presentation and lesson plan resource that schools can use in their classrooms. This approach allowed items from our store to extend their reach into educational settings without physically leaving the building. Additionally, it provided greater accessibility to items in the store that are typically not on display.

We examined themes within the Conwy Museum collection and identified a range of items related to the concepts of place, significant events, and fun mystery objects. These items span from prehistory to the present day (a deer bone tally and a computer are some of the objects).

The GEM funding paid for a photographer and graphic designer to professionally photograph the objects and to design the PowerPoint school resource, as well as the creation of a lesson plan.

We hope that this new resource will help spread the word about the museum service, and encourage schools to engage with us regarding specific enquiries or requests, particularly in relation to the new Welsh curriculum topic of Cynefin and local history.

Thank you very much to GEM Cymru.