”The project is called ’Going to sea’ and the idea is to communicate the archaeology, the ship, the sailing, the route, the crew and the project…… as education,” says Louise Kæmpe Henriksen from the School Service.
The project is arranged because of a public grant at approximately 450.000 dkr.
”The Sea Stallions Website is the base of the project. Our goal is to get schoolchildren to explorer the site. We want them to use their curiosity and be able to experience the site without them feeling like it’s an ordinary teaching situation. And the teachers should feel comfortable enough with the site to encourage their student to explorer the different elements on it. Elements like pictures, themes, text, games, figures, 3D models ECT, which can all be used in their schoolwork,” says Louise Henriksen.
”Thinking back to my days of high school, when we were using a card index and had books from sixties, I must say this is a much more modern and exciting way of seeking historical sources and literature.”
An interdisciplinary project
’The Going to Sea’ project is suppose to be interdisciplinary and useable in both natural science, math, geography, history and Danish and by public school as well as high school. The Viking Ship Museum is therefore co-operating with public school- and high school teachers.
”We are creating a map showing the route and the current position of the ship. At the moment we are placing points of interest on the Map - containing historical places, like cities, locations of excavated ship wrecks, ship or settlements….. And historical happening like the battle of Hastings, an event marking the end of the era we today now as the Viking Age,” says Louise Henriksen.
But there will also be marks on the map containing information linked to the Sea Stallions historical journey in July and August 2007.
From soup pots to Knud the Great
”The information linked to the sailing in 2007 could, as an example contain the cooks diary, notes from the ship builder about how the ship is reacting during the sail or the skippers log. We will also place weather information and data from the navigation systems on board on the map”.
”Every mark on the map will be followed by text and pictures. And we will be making an inspiration and material box with questions and assignments connected to the theme for the student to use in their schoolwork. From each text there will be a hyperlink into further information – by creating hyperlinks we make it possible for the student to go deeper into one specific theme – like Knud the Great,” says Louise Henriksen, who herself is sailing with The Sea Stallion from Roskilde to Dublin.
Homepage ...now with goodies
”Without revealing it all I can say that we are planning to place a lot of great and exciting things on the website. We have asked an illustrator to draw six characters on board the ship. The students can click on the figures and read about the characters in the Viking Age and today. We are also co-operating with a school teacher that has created an electronic solar compass that should be easy for children to use. And then we might add a model of a ship to print, so that student can work in scale 1:10 like scholars do at the museum when reconstructing a ship wreck”.
”One of my colleagues is also trying to create a genealogical three with all the participating parties in the Battle of Hastings, where it will be possible to select just one family line out for a closer look”, says Louise Henriksen.
The three people involved and their assignments …
Mikkel is the leader of the project and the mathematical genius of the three. His is creating assignments and technical details concerning weather information, course and all the tracks picked up the GPS and send home from the ship.
Barbara is a historian and she’s writing the history of the cities in the Viking Age and the text for the exciting historical sites the ship will pass on its way from Roskilde, North of Scotland and onwards to Dublin.
Louise is also a historian and she’s writing about the battle for the throne of England, the great kings and the text attached to the different figures on the ship. She is working with old laws written in Old Norwegian, sagas and the famous Bayeux tapestry.
