Building a Time Tunnel for Dippy the Dinosaur's Visit to Norwich Cathedral

In the summer, Norwich Cathedral had a very exciting visit from Dippy the Dinosaur, who was installed in the nave whilst traveling the UK on loan for the Natural History Museum. 

Norwich School were asked to run a partnerships project for local primary school which would culminate in the creation of a time tunnel for visitors of the exhibition to experience before entering the cathedral nave. 

Aims

The aim of the project was to inspire Norfolk's Primary School children and create an opportunity for them to be part of this historic event. 

Norwich School worked with 5 local primary schools in a series of workshops with classes ranging from Year 2-6, whereby pupils learnt about the Earth during the time of the dinosaurs and made drawings as a response to their findings about Dippy and the evolution of creatures. 

Staff and scholars drawn from Norwich Schools Academic and Art & Design departments travelled to each school to deliver the workshops, with the final drawings providing a backdrop for the time tunnel, which was designed and assembled by the Art & Design staff.

Every pupil who took part in the workshops had their drawing included in the final design, meaning they could be a part of this historic event in Norwich. 

Resources

Along with funding from Norwich Cathedral and a donation of materials from Longwater Construction the school match-funded the cost of the time tunnel to ensure that visitors to the cathedral had an engaging first experience when visiting Dippy. 

10 hours of workshops were delivered, with staff and pupils spending 1 week of their time for the installation of the time tunnel. Assistance was provided by 4 members of staff and 9 pupil scholars. 

Impact

The project involved 235 Norfolk Primary Children from 5 schools. In total 234,605 people came to see Dippy in the Cathedral and experienced the time tunnel as part of their visit.