Ysgol Clocaenog in Denbighshire was awarded first place out of sixty nine Welsh schools taking part in the Museum's Spring Bulbs for Schools investigation this year.

The Super Scientists won a fun-packed trip to the National Slate Museum where they learnt about the Story of Slate, looked for mini-beasts and built giant nests in the quarry!

Professor Plant: “Ysgol Clogaenog did really well in the Spring Bulbs investigation and sent in the most weather data out of all the schools in Wales! This really was an achievement as schools are getting better and better at recording and sending their data. It was lovely to meet the Super Scientists from Ysgol Clocaenog, we had lots of fun building nests and pretending to be little birds! We also learnt lots about Slate and I especially enjoyed watching the slate splitting!”

If you would like to take part in this project next term please complete the on-line application form:

Spring Bulbs for Schools - Application form

Now it is time to research the fibres used during the paper making process in the different papers of ‘Effort and Ideals’ lithograph prints.

There are several methods to identify fibres such as the staining technique. The most common is Hertzberg’s Reagent which is used for paper fibres are based on iodine and zinc chloride. This type of stain is formulated to dye different groups of fibres differing colours. However, there are many disadvantages using this system because the specific colours stated for particular fibres are difficult to reproduce.

So, in this case we decided to take some samples of fibres of the prints and identify them under the polarising microscope.

In the first image, we are taking a small sample of fibres from one of the prints. We are using an invasive and destructive technique for that reason we have to be extremely careful taking the sample. Just shaving a little bit the very bottom edge we will be able to get enough fibres to analyse in the microscope.

In the third picture we are leaving the fibre sample on the microscope slide. After that, we will cover the sample with a cover slip and sealing with Meltmount (is a thermoplastic: it is fluid when heated and functionally a solid at room temperature; the appearance of the prepared slide will remain unchanged after the slide is returned to room temperature).

Once the sample is ready, we will work with it in the microscope. We took photos applying different magnifications.

In the fifth image, you can observe a detail of a linen fibre through the microscope. The term ‘linen’ covers a wide variety of material described as flax or linen. In both Europe and China flax has been used as a textile material since at least 4,500 BC.

The raw material after cutting and removing the seed head is retted in still or slow running water to slow process of bacterial decomposition. In some areas the process is carried out in a damp atmosphere only.

Linen is a bast fiber. Flax fibers vary in length from about 25 to 150 mm (1 to 6 in) and average 12-16 micrometers in diameter. Flax fibers can usually be identified by their “nodes” which add to the flexibility and texture of the fabric.

Other samples taken from the thinner prints revealed cotton as a main material. So in both cases we are talking about good quality paper fibres.

Amongst the new accessions we received in June was a 14” Sony ‘Trinitron’ colour teletext television set with remote control. This was manufactured by Sony at Pencoed, Bridgend, in 1995. If you look back to the December blog you will see another television set we acquired recently.

This slate sample originates from Maenofferen slate quarry, Blaenau Ffestiniog. It is a sample slate sent out to potential customers to show the colour and quality of the slate produced in the quarry. There are a number of slate veins in the Blaenau Ffestiniog area, all of which have their own name, such as New or Deep Vein, the Old Vein, Back or Middle Vein, and North Vein. This particular sample is from the middle vein of Maenofferen Quarry.

We have been donated a lovely collection of 91 photographs, the majority of which show the redevelopment work carried out by the National Coal Board at Glyncorrwg Colliery during the 1950s. I have illustrated three views here. The first photograph shows the colliery as it looked on 11 September 1951 before the reconstruction work started. The view is looking north up the valley.

The following two photographs show the reconstruction work. The first showing a circuit gantry on 1 November 1955 and the second shows the reconstruction work progressing on the headgear, and was taken on 6 Feb 1957.

On the 17^th May 1965 an explosion caused by firedamp occurred at the Cambrian Colliery, Clydach Vale killing 31 miners. The colliery had been winding down to closure, and many of the workforce had been transferred, otherwise the fatalities might have been even greater. This image is of the front cover of the brochure commemorating a memorial service held on 17 May 2014. It shows the headgear preserved within a memorial garden. 

Mark Etheridge

Curator: Industry & Transport

Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW

By: Sioned Hughes, Head of Public History

 It’s difficult to imagine that over the next couple of years the old Agricultural Gallery, largely unchanged at St Fagans for 20 or more years will be transformed as part of the Making History project. It will become a space that celebrates the fact that history belongs to everyone. It will be a platform where the museum shifts from being the provider of history to supporting and providing opportunities for others to explore meanings around diverse objects and make their own histories through participation and community curated displays.

Currently called by its working title Wales Is… we aim to display 17 moments in Welsh history using objects from the national collections. It will be a space where we encourage visitors to use historical skills to find out what the national collections can tell them about different moments in Welsh history.

The past few months have seen the Making History core content team work intensively with designers from Event Communications to develop this space. It’s an exciting, creative and intense process that involves looking in depth at our object selection and testing them against this exciting new concept.

To aid our current thinking and to generate discussion, we have stopped thinking about this space as a gallery and have started referring to it as a 3D social media account. Over the next few weeks we will be developing the idea of using social media as a conceptual framework for how the space works and how visitors will behave in it.

So far, we have identified that we would like the space to have followers and that it will follow other institutions or spaces that share relevant collections and opinions. We would like to ask visitors to Like, Share and Comment on what they see and provide opportunities to do this digitally and non-digitally, both in the space and remotely. We would like the space to have its own social media account and we would like its digital identity to develop as the content and the space itself develops – not as an add-on once it is open. We are looking at the possibility of tagging displays and objects so that content generated around them can be gathered and used as layers of interpretation. We want each display to have a social media feed on a screen as part of its interpretation.

The Public History Unit

Key to testing and delivering this space is the establishment of a new Public History Unit within the History and Archaeology Department. As a unit we have already facilitated workshops that support groups to develop historical skills to discover what objects can tell them about the past. These sessions have generated diverse, sometimes surprising, often emotional and occasionally controversial content that adds layers of rich and relevant interpretation to our storytelling.

In the space, we see the content generated around the displays, both digitally and non-digitally, as information that will be curated by museum staff. It will also be part of curatorial practise to manage social media campaigns around displays so that targeted audiences are reached. These campaigns will be supported by a programme of events and pop-up activities that can be used to generate interest and debate.

Suffrage Participatory Workshops

As part of the process for testing the content for Wales Is…the Public History Unit took the national suffrage collection to two schools in the Newport area as part of the Bird in a Cage project with Winding Snake. Within a few hours, over a hundred pupils from Lewis Girls School and Ysgol Gymraeg Casnewydd had seen and participated in a debate around the collections and suffrage movement in Wales. This is an example of how objects can generate content that is as interesting as the objects themselves. It demonstrates how groups and individuals can construct their own meanings around what they see. It also showed how social media can be used to generate interest and debate around a subject area.

The next challenge

The challenge will now be to work with Event to develop a design that can deliver this concept so that the outcomes of a participatory workshop can translate into a gallery context using the framework provided by Social Media. The questions we are asking ourselves at the moment are: is this workable? How can we use the information generated? What would a social media campaign linked to one of the displays look like?  How can we create a framework and strategy to help develop the digital identity of the space?  And most important of all, is this approach future proof? The Agricultural Gallery was popular at St Fagans for over 20 years. This new space will also have to stand the test of time and the changing behaviour patterns of our visitors in the future.