Grades 4-8, 90 minutes+

May and June

Learning about Nova Scotia’s industrial heritage has never been more fun! Students will join the Steam Team, Textile Troop, Computer Crowd, Assembly Line Gang, Inventors Squad, Factory Force, Electric Unit, or the Colliers Crew. Then, the Shift Boss will acquaint the teams with the game rules. Each team will hunt through our fun-filled exhibits for the answers to historical questions and to complete hands-on activities. Put the Museum of Industry on your schedule and put your students into the game!

Grades 4-8, 90 minutes+

Punch in for your first shift at the Museum of Industry and discover the roles children have played in the workforce since the 1880s. The shift boss will orient the students to their first day at work in a factory during the Industrial Revolution. Take part in lots of hands-on gallery activities and an optional quiz on this tour.

Grades K - 2; 90 Minutes

The entire class gets involved assembling a train, complete with conductor and passengers, and then takes a discovery tour of the Museum’s locomotives (including Samson!) and our model railway. The students take away a computer generated picture of themselves as an engineer, ring the bell on a real locomotive and read a story with our program conductor.

Grades K - 2; 90 Minutes

What could be older than dinosaurs? Creatures from the Carboniferous Lagoon, that’s what! Using stuffed pre-historic creatures, images showing fossilization, coal and real fossils, students will journey back 400 million years to the time coal was first being formed on earth and dragonflies were some of the largest predators around. Students will create their own fossil and paper dragonfly.

Grades 2-9; 2 hours

Nova Scotians of the past made many of their household goods and clothing by hand, using materials that were often home-grown, recycled, or locally available. Students will learn about and experience pre-industrial technologies used in the home and the workplace before the emergence of our industrial economy. This completely hands-on program has students learn while doing traditional crafts, such as weaving, mat making, or tin punching.

Ideal for students in grades 4-7, 2 hours

From the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade to the abolition of slavery in Nova Scotia, students will learn about some of our important ancestors through captivating activities. Students will build a time line; map the routes of African slaves to the 13 colonies and the route followed by freed Black Loyalists coming to Nova Scotia. They’ll create a play and act out two key moments in the lives of Boston and Violet King; and become archaeologists for a day, studying objects that would have been used in Black Loyalist homes.

Ideal for students in grade 3; 90 minutes

Build you own structures curriculum around this popular program. Students will explore basic structure theory in a very hands-on way. With fun experiments, they will explore how structures overcome gravity by using the two forces of tension and compression. Students also manipulate materials to discover how different shapes are used in construction to increase strength.

Ideal for students in grade 5; 90 minutes

The wheel and axle, inclined plane, pulley, and lever are presented in a creative program. Students will experiment and analyze to learn how these simple machines are used to make work easier. Students also use woodworking tools to discover the simple machines that are “hidden” in everyday objects.

Ideal for students in grade 6; 2 hours

From people power to water power and steam power to electrifying moments in Nova Scotian history, the Museum of Industry tells the story of the creation and application of the various types of power that have driven Nova Scotian work. This program begins with a 45-minute guided tour of our power exhibits and finishes with lots of fun activities, such as static horse races, making an electric lemon, playing an electrical circuit game, and creating a filament light bulb.