The starting point for the project at Hilgay was an approach the school made to the Sainsbury Centre for help in setting up their own museum. This led to thinking about the history, environment and culture of the village, with its unique relationship to water, land drainage and river transport. Pupils were sanguine about the future for Hilgay, enjoying the idea, for example, that in future houses might be built on pillars or stilts, and that jet skis might be a normal mode of transport.The school was visited for two consecutive days, and work was initiated based on stimulus from a range of artefacts from Papua New Guinea. The children were able to make connections between life in PNG and life in the UK, especially in connection with ideas about how climate change might affect Hilgay's future. The past was also evoked via an invitation for the BBC to visit the village to interview older local people, helping young people to understand how ways of life in the village had changed. At the end of the summer term the children performed 'mystery plays' to friends and parents, having developed their responses to the Sainsbury Centre objects into costume, make-up and performance.
