Pandemics Through Time

The Pandemics Through Time Project was a chance for us to find an effective way to document our experiences of Covid-19.

This exhibition provides us with an opportunity to show our lives during Covid-19 to future generations. It is important to view the pandemic as a time with positive and negative impacts.

The project also gave us the opportunity to explore possible career paths, and discover how archives can be used to find out about the past, in particuar historical pandemics.

As a group we were not expecting to witness and climb as many hills, to create a "cure" for Cholera, or to examine a pair of 'Murderer's' socks!

The project involved far more than just sitting in the classroom.

To find out more about our wonderous adventures scroll down now.

Day 1:

When we visited Newcastle University we did many exciting things and had so much fun.

In the morning we visited the Philip Robinson Library to explore the Special Collections and Archives. These are old and unique books and documents. The books were very intriguing and we had a great time admiring them.

In the afternoon we visited the labs in the School of Biomedical Sciences, where we wore lab coats, gloves and eye goggles to keep us safe.

We made different types of medicines to "cure" Cholera - one people could drink and one that could be applied to the skin.

Then we used microscopes to work out which "patients" had Cholera. After that we tested the medicines we made to see how they affected cells.

Overall, we really enjoyed our fantastic day at Newcastle University and learnt many new things that could help us in the future.

Day 2:

We went to Durham University, where we split into two groups. The first group stayed downstairs to listen to a speech, given by two people about how they became archivists. The other group went upstairs to look through the archives, including accounts of the Black Death and the Plague, as well as maps of the river Wear and even a document written in code.

Then we joined together to study maps of the North East, and compared past maps to present day ones.

After lunch we walked to one of the Colleges, the Castle, where we learnt about how students live there whilst at university. We were also told about how the sides of each door were painted white, so that students could find their way in the dark during the Blitz. One of the windows was painted to trick them!

Then we walked up two hills to get to the Oriental Museum. Here we looked at historical objects from different countries, including an astronomical clock from China.

Day 3:

An artist that works at the Hatton Gallery at Newcastle University, taught us new watercolour techniques, including "wash", "wet on wet" and "cross-hatching".

We used these new skills to create a booklet and word page describing our lockdown experience.

We then catalogued these and put them into a Pandemics Through Time archive box.

Day 4:

First we picked items which were specifically used during the Covid-19 pandemic to include in our archive.

We then practiced caption writing, which included learning how to condense information into a memorable sentence.

We planned the layout and content of this online exhibition, to show what we did during the project.

After lunch we then planned and rehearsed our group presentation for our end of project celebration event.