This Guide has been created for teachers, to help plan their visit to the museum, and provide some ideas for classroom activities before and after a class visit.

You will find lots of great resources and activities that can be explored in the classroom, even if you can’t make it to the museum in person. You will also find information about each exhibition with suggested questions for discussion, which can be used to support a self-guided museum visit.

Download the pdf booklet here:

Visiting the Migration Museum: a Guide for Teachers

Education Programs

CHANGING WORLDS (Years 3-4)

This program focuses on the lives of children both pre- and post-colonisation in South Australia, including the experience of children at The Native School Establishment, which was on the same site as the Migration Museum from 1845-51, providing a unique and personal example of first contact (life for Indigenous Australian pre- and post-contact). Students will be asked to reflect on the following inquiry questions: Who lived here first and how do we know? How have laws affected the lives of people, past and present?

UNPACKING HISTORIES (Years 6-8)

This program is an investigative multimedia-assisted workshop that shows how the stories of individual lives fit into the local, national and global mosaic of history. Working like historians and curators, students wear gloves to unpack, examine, research and record the lives of several South Australians and their 20th and 21st century immigration stories. Students will be asked to reflect on the following inquiry questions: How are social histories put together? What stories can objects and documents tell? 

BEING A CHILD IN THE 19TH CENTURY (Years R-2)

In this fun education program students explore the past focusing on school life and daily life of colonial Australia before schooling became compulsory in South Australia. What did children learn at school? What technology was used?

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In this fun education program students explore the past focusing on school life and daily life of colonial Australia before schooling became compulsory in South Australia.

What did children learn at school? What technology was used?

The program will:

• connect the past to the present through developing an understanding of school life in the nineteenth century
• explore the use of slate and slate pencils
• explore the history of this site
• consider the effects of colonization for Indigenous Australians
• consider how laws affected the lives of people, past and present.

Suitable for years R-2/3