Self-guided Trails Learning Resource

Enhance your self-guided Museum visit with our self-guided trails.

Students will find significant objects within our collection, discover stories, and cover cross-curricular topics such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures and sustainability within the galleries. Topics covered in these trails can be linked back to classroom discussion and utilised as a debrief tool after your visit.

Each trail will take approximately two hours to complete, allowing 30 minutes in each gallery.

How to use these resources:

Prior to your visit
Download and print your trail.  Trails are printed on an A3 sheet to fold into an A4 double-sided booklet. Flip the page on the short edge when printing. Boola Bardip Bingo is a single sided, A4 sheet. 

At the Museum
Bring trails with you. Divide your class into groups and spread out across the galleries to reduce congestion. Each trail covers four galleries and can be completed in any order. Boola Bardip Bingo can be across any galleries you wish, but is still recommended across multiple galleries and in groups. 

Boola Bardip Bingo Trail | Years 1-6

Visit the galleries you choose and see if you can find all the items listed on the card to get Boola Bardip Bingo! This bingo card can be completed by individual students, groups of students or groups led by an adult. 

Galleries Visited: you choose! 

Download the Boola Bardip Bingo trail

Then and Now Trail | Years PP-3

Explore Boola Bardip and the topic of 'Then and Now' with this self-guided trail. It provides an introduction to the many links to the past that can be made at Boola Bardip. This trail compliments and supports our facilitated 'Then and Now' program for PP-3. 

Galleries visited: 1 on each level of the museum

Download the Then and Now trail

Connecting Trail | Years 3 – 6

This trail highlights connections found in the world around us, from connecting to the past through fossils to Australia’s connections with the world. Stories of first contacts are included, as are opportunities for students to make connections from our collections to their own lives.

Galleries Visited: Ngalang Koort Boodja Wirn, Reflections, Wild Life, Connections

Download Connecting trail 

Diversity Trail |Years 6 – 8

From biodiversity and adaptations in nature to farming methods and diversity within our society, this trail covers many stories of diversity from within the museum’s extensive collection. This trail allows students to identify objects with powerful stories and make connections with them while considering some of the ‘big questions’ about the diverse world that we live in.

Galleries Visited: Ngalang Koort Boodja Wirn, Changes, Wild Life, Connections

Download Diversity trail 

Movement and Change Trail | Years 7 – 10

This trail focuses on many aspects of change, both environmental and social. The objects included in this trail provide students with background information to many stories, from the felling of forests to migration statistics, and ask them to consider the impacts of this movement and change. Questions on this trail can also be used as prompts for follow-up discussions at school.

Galleries visited: Changes, Origins, Wild Life, Connections

Download the Movement and Change trail