Pre-planning
The unit is planned for a materials technology environment with the focal point being individual capsules containing a collection of items relevant to that student. There is scope to use any material even textiles, although this is less likely unless a textiles teacher is involved because of the physical location of the workrooms.
The technology department has a lot of teachers who are part time or teaching across several departments and who don't therefore have much time for writing new units. Heather and Steve designed the programme so that anybody else teaching it would feel comfortable with the required skills and would not be required to make much additional input.
There is a part time technician with a range of practical skills who is available to help if anyone else teaches the unit and needs specialist skills. The technician is shared with the science department but the two Heads of Department have agreed to be flexible and swap times around when required.
When trialling the unit Heather and Steve found that the containers were not always particularly brilliant and sometimes ended up being fairly crude such as the use of plastic containers from home. The next version put more emphasis on the students developing their containers.
Steve had done a unit where he got the girls to preserve something from nature in resin to tie in with the preservation aspect of the Time Capsule unit. Pupils would later ask staff "When are we going to do the subject that has the resin stuff?" When it was decided to change the order in which students worked through the unit, in order to capture their enthusiasm for the hands on elements, the resin preservation skills were made a part of the overall unit.
The Tairawhiti Museum was an obvious point of contact for Heather with its display collections, preservation requirements and permanent education officer. This was easy because she already knew people there and had previously taken students to the museum for various activities so knew this fitted in with their purpose.
A handbook was produced for the students which outlined the unit with guidelines and assessment procedures.
