Digital Workshops

Our digital workshops offer schools the opportunity to explore our collections without leaving the classroom.

You may wish to come along to the museum and choose one of our Onsite Workshops instead.

If you don’t see anything to suit your class in the options below, get in touch with our team to discuss other options: learning@dltrust.uk.

African Object Handling

This session will bring the museum to your classroom digitally!

This short workshop will engage your class with real objects from the museum collection, using them as a tool to explore our shared history with Africa, We’ll also discuss the geography, culture and languages of the diverse African continent. Through photography, music, video, and verbal description, we’ll engage all the senses to emulate the experience of museum object handling – without leaving the classroom!

By the end of the session, you will:

  • Know more about Africa and David Livingstone.
  • Feel inspired by the historical objects in our collection.
  • Understand more about how museum objects can help us understand the past.

Curriculum Links

  • LIT 0-01a / LIT 0-11a / LIT 0-20a I enjoy exploring and playing with the patterns and sounds of language and can use what I learn.
  • SCN 0-15a Through creative play, I explore different materials and can share my reasoning for selecting materials for different purposes.
  • SOC 0-02a I can make a personal link to the past by exploring items or images connected with important individuals or special events in my life.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Costs: £30 per session.

Digital Workshops

Booking Request Form

COP26 Legacy and Climate Activism

This digital session will begin with a discussion around the COP26: outcomes, successes and failures. We will then consider our own role in climate change and how we might make a difference through engaging in activism. We’ll use David Livingstone’s passionate campaign against the East African Slave Trade as a springboard from which to explore global citizenship and our personal responsibility to the planet.

The workshop ends with a zine-making activity; we will introduce the class to zines as a means of activism and provide you with the tools you need to make your own zines on the climate crisis and COP26.

By the end of the session, you will:

  • Understand better the outcomes of the COP26 and how this relates to Scotland and the wider world.
  • Feel empowered to act against climate crisis and have the tools to do so, through creative expression.

Curriculum Links

  • SOC 3-08a I can identify the possible consequences of an environmental issue and make informed suggestions about ways to manage the impact.
  • SCN 3-05b I can explain some of the processes which contribute to climate change and discuss the possible impact of atmospheric change on the survival of living things.
  • SCN 3-20b Through research and discussion, I have contributed to evaluations of media items with regard to scientific content and ethical implications.

Duration: 45 minutes.

Costs: £60 per session.

Digital Workshops SOC 3-08a SCN 3-05b SCN 3-20b

Booking Request Form

David Livingstone & Global Scotland

In this session, a member of the David Livingstone Birthplace learning team will introduce your class to Livingstone’s life, work, and legacy – from a child worker in Blantyre Cotton Works mill, through his travels across Central and Southern Africa, to international fame.

We’ll also explore Scotland’s links to the rest of the world through trade, empire, and exploration. Did you know that there is another Blantyre in Malawi? Or that the Blantyre Cotton Works used to be part of a global trade network with Africa and America? This session will look at Scotland’s connections with countries in Africa through object handling, original source analysis, historical investigation and class debates.

By the end of the session, you will:

  • Know who David Livingstone was, why he became famous and have the opportunity to analyse his history with a critical lens.
  • Know more about our own local history through a global perspective.

Curriculum Link

  • SOC 2-03A - I can investigate a Scottish historical theme to discover how past events, or the actions of individuals or groups have shaped Scottish society.
  • SOC 2-06A - I can discuss why people and events from a particular time in the past were important, placing them within a historical sequence.

Duration: 45 minutes.

Costs: £60 per session.

Digital Workshops SOC 2-03A SOC 2-06A

Booking Request Form

Introduction to Cultural Careers

This digital session aims to inspire your pupils to consider the cultural sector as a viable, attainable and attractive option for the future.

We will give your class a behind the scenes glimpse of what it’s really like to work in a museum. The session aims to demystify the cultural sector, challenging commonly held myths about who belongs in the arts and in museums, and what kind of experience or education you need to succeed in this field.

The workshop includes follow up resources and a Q&A session, where we’ll answer all questions about life at the museum, our own personal career journeys, and what inspires us!

By the end of the session, you will:

  • Know more about what it takes to work in the cultural sector.
  • Have more of an idea of what a role in a cultural organisation like the David Livingstone Birthplace is like.

Curriculum for Excellence

This session is developed with Scottish Government’s Career Education Standard in mind. David Livingstone Birthplace Museum has worked closely with the Lanarkshire branch of DYW to develop resources to develop the local young workforce.

Audience: Fourth level/Senior level.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Costs: £30 per session.

Digital Workshops

Booking Request Form


We are very grateful to our key funders the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic Environment Scotland and the Scottish Government for their support in helping us deliver the Birthplace Project.

National Lottery Heritage Fund
Scottish Government
Historic Environment Scotland
Note: Please note that David Livingstone Birthplace (and the David Livingstone Trust) is no longer part of National Trust Scotland (NTS). NTS members will therefore no longer receive discounted/free entry to the Birthplace Museum.

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