Levels 4-8
NGV Digital Creatives supports the integration of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) with the visual arts and provides an authentic context for developing problem solving, critical and creative thinking skills. Coding activities are inspired by works in the NGV Collection and exhibitions.
The activity uses Scratch – a program which teaches the foundations of coding. Students apply mathematical and computational thinking to get creative with coding.
Learning Objectives
- experiment with key programming concepts including sequencing, repetition, broadcast and receive blocks, variables and if/else statements
- use code to create a digital jigsaw puzzle
Supported by Telstra
Themes and Ideas
Lid From The Inner Anthropoid Coffin of Tjeseb
The NGV Collection includes artefacts made in Egypt thousands of years ago, that give us a glimpse into the life and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. Looking after such old objects takes special care.
The inner coffin of Tjeseb was made in Egypt more than 2500 years ago for a seventeen year old girl named Tjeseb. Tjeseb’s coffin was among the first major artefacts from Egypt to arrive in Australia in the 1890s. By the late 1930s it had come into the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.
In 2005 NGV conservators conducted conservation work and study of the coffin, which over time had broken into pieces. Photographing each piece, they used digital tools to reconstruct an image of the coffin. Seeing how the fragments fitted together was like solving a very delicate 3D jigsaw puzzle.
Workshop instructions
Inspired by the work undertaken by NGV conservators on the coffin of Tjeseb we’ve used the block code program Scratch to create an Egyptian themed digital jigsaw puzzle.
Part 1: Look Inside
Part 2: Level Up
Resources
A transcript containing all the instructions from this activity is available to download.
Access the video transcript