Hat-trick rethinks learning at the Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum has appointed Hat-trick Design Consultants to rethink its suite of schools learning materials, following a three-way pitch.

Working with educational consultants, the group will design up to 30 packs for children aged six to 16, with material drawn from across the museum’s galleries. The packs will be developed to support the national curriculum and used by teachers to support school projects through visits to the Natural History Museum.

According to Hat-trick partner Jim Sutherland, a key challenge of the designs will be to create a coherent suite of material, while meeting the diverse needs of primary and secondary education age groups. ‘In the past, the museum has done separate batches of packs for a few galleries, but there has been no coherence across a whole set. The age groups are very different audiences, with a different level of requirement,’ says Sutherland.

The print material will be developed along the theme of ‘explore and discover’ and will be based on children accomplishing a range of tasks as they explore the museum, progressing in rank from ‘researcher’ to ‘professor’ as they cover subjects.

The guides are scheduled to be launched in January next year. Separately, DogStar has designed a corporate brochure, published this week, to promote the Natural History Museum as an event venue.