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Earth Day and how the museum helps the planet

By Current Exhibition
By Calum Boyde
Youth Council Member

 

Earth Day happens annually on April 22 and raises awareness of environmental issues and concerns while driving positive change in the world. Earth Day is themed this year as Planet Vs Plastic, to promote a reduction of all plastic by 60% by 2040. Here at the museum, we are doing our part in saving the planet. 

We currently have a temporary exhibition running in the museum called Energy for change. It’s all about how the museum can change to be more environmentally friendly. We have worked with the community on various events to do with this project. 

At the museum, we invited Lorraine Johnston, a community champion, who was joined by her beekeepers team and young volunteers and delivered events on wax painting, honey wax candle-making and providing information stands and local honey tasting sessions. 

Fish in danger of extinction was a creative writing and upcycle workshop from Gail McGregor. This event took children imagination to the bottom of the ocean to find extinct fish fossils. The children was tasked to write a story of a fish and through recycled plastic bottles produced art on how the fish may have looked like. The art from this event is currently part of our temporary exhibition. 

 

Our exhibition panels were printed utilising biodegradable materials, while non-biodegradable materials, like the Lego Planet seen in the exhibition, can be reused in future projects. The museum switches off lights and most electronic devices after closing to reduce energy consumption. Solar panels have recently been installed to further reduce energy consumption. 

Recycling program has been set up using recycling bins for cardboard, paper, plastic, metal cans and glass as well as reusing of cardboard, plastic and glass in crafts and exhibitions. To reduce the museum carbon footprint further, the museum has partnered with local businesses to supply most of the cafes food. The museum also has a garden that supplies the cafe with fruits, vegetables and herbs for us. The cafe now offers vegetarian options on the menu. 

These activities are part of our Energy for Change project, funded by Museums and Galleries Scotland. We are currently working on climate change policies to continue improving our environment.  

 

A colourful display of recycled materials.

Climate Change Project Exhibition

By Current Exhibition

The Devil’s Porridge Museum’s climate change project has been involving the local community in a variety of workshops and activities to raise awareness of climate change; highlighting the actions that we can take to reduce our impact on the environment. This includes working with local schools, a bee celebration day and upcycling activities held at The Devil’s Porridge Museum last year. You can learn more about what has been happening as part our climate change project in the exhibition itself.

We are proud to have worked with Riley, The Devil’s Porridge Museum’s Young Curator on this exhibition. Riley designed his own panel for the exhibition. He also helped us to install the exhibition. Below is a photo of him and the panel he designed.

Riley, The Devil's Porridge Museum's curator stood next to the exhibition panel he designed.

A piece of artwork created as an outcome of an upcycling workshop with young people and artist, Gail McGregor is also on display.

You can help us to build a better world by sharing what you do to tackle climate change as part of your visit. From recycling to making sure that you turn off the light when you leave a room, even the smallest of actions can help to make a difference.

Although the exhibition itself may be temporary, we hope that the changes that have been applied with Museum Galleries Scotland generous support will have a lasting permeant impact; helping to make The Devil’s Porridge Museum more sustainable. The Devil’s Porridge Museum has had solar panels installed as part of this project and is proud to recycle were possible. The display panels used in this exhibition are recyclable.

To celebrate Earth Day, The Devil’s Porridge Museum’s Volunteer and Youth Council member Calum wrote a blog post about how The Devil’s Porridge Museum is trying to help save the planet. Please click here to read this blog post>

A huge thank you to everyone who has taken part in the activities run as part of our climate change project.

Below are some photos of our climate change project exhibition being installed.

This exhibition was created as part of our Climate Change Project. A huge thank you to Museum Galleries Scotland for their generous support of this project.

The Devil’s Porridge Museum’s admission prices and usual opening hours apply.

A haaf netter carrying a net across a beach.

Objects for Haaf Net fishing

By Collections blog

This post was written by Lukasz, who volunteers with us every Thursday from Annan Academy.

The Museum currently has an exhibition on display which shows Haaf Net Fishing. On Monday 13th of January 2020, several fishermen visited the museum (see photographs below) one of them loaned us this interesting objects which we aim to put on display soon.  These items belonged to his father and we are delighted to have them on loan.

haaf netters at the devils porridge museum

Haaf Net Fishing is a Norse style of fishing that was adopted by the people of this local area of Solway Firth after Viking settlements and it involves the person going to the middle of the body of water with a big net than the person would place the net under the water then when a fish is caught the net is taken out of the water.

haaf net fishing needles

These objects (photographed above) are what was used to ‘knit’ the net used for this style of fishing because the people of the area had to make their own net out of hemp.  The net would be knitted by the fisherman and his wife. This six objects are three knitting needles (bottom of photo) and three measures (top of the photo).  One measure to make nets catching salmon (top left), one for nets for catching trout (middle top) and one for nets catching baby trout (top right).

For more information on haaf netting, see: http://www.annanhaafnets.org/

New Object of the Month

Object of the Month for January

By Collections blog

This object was recently donated to the Museum. It is an Auxiliary Territorial Service (or ATS) coat from World War Two. It was owned by a young woman called Elizabeth who was originally from Lancashire but was stationed in Stirling during the War. Her daughter, from Lockerbie, donated this coat to the Museum.

New Object of the Month

One of the most interesting parts of this donation was inside the overcoat. On the outside, it is a standard issue military style coat but inside are numerous felt badges from different countries and regiments involved in World War Two.  The donor didn’t know what these badges were, and she was curious to know how her mother acquired them.

New Object of the Month

Some of our young volunteers managed to find out what all the badges were, but we don’t know why Elizabeth had them (they were probably tokens or mementoes from people she met during the War).

New Object of the Month

Here are some of the most interesting badges which she has collected:

Igloo with a star: Exercise Eskimo Badge

Rainbow and flaming sword: Post WW2 U.S. Forces European command

Red gate: British troops in Northern Ireland

3 yellow stripes: Overseas service

Tigers face: British army, South East Command UK

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