On your own or in a small group, visit the National Museum of Scotland (free and open daily from 10:00-17:00). If unable to visit in person, you can do this task with the NMS digital collections or another museum near you. You can visit any time, but we suggest trying to visit before our Thursday class if possible. We have reserved the first half of the scheduled time on Thursday for anyone who wants to visit NMS then; please use the sign-up by end of Monday if you would like to be matched to students and we will email you a meeting point.

1. (10-20 minutes) Look around. How is the museum organised? What stories does this organisation tell about the organisation of nature, culture, and history? How do the galleries establish contexts for the objects they contain? If pressed for time, focus on the Science and Technology galleries (west wing off the Grand Gallery) or the Natural History galleries (east wing off the Grand Gallery). Remember, not all the fascinating objects are on the ground floor!

2. (15-30 minutes) Pick one object, either in a case or free-standing. What is it? What features can you describe from looking at it? What other information is available about it? How would it have been used and by whom (if applicable)? How would it have been collected and why (if applicable)? Can you determine where it came from and how it got to the NMS? How is it put in a context of other objects in the museum? How does this museum context affect your experience and interpretation of the object?

Afterward, write some notes on these questions that you might choose to use in a portfolio response for your assessment.

Some suggested Science and Technology gallery objects include: Dolly the Sheep, the Watt Beam Engine, the Black Knight Rocket, the Pitch Drop Experiment, an undersea telegraph cable (several appear in different cases), Enigma machine, Transit theodolite, Monod haemoglobin dice model, X-ray tubes, microscopes, the Joseph Black display case, CERN Accelerating cavity, or Wilson Cloud chamber.

Some suggested Natural History gallery objects include: the 'Evidence for Evolution' case, Dodo skeleton and model, Moine Thrust Fault, Astronomical Regulator Clock, Sendtner Orrery, or Schmidt Telescope.