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THIS BLOG IS MAINTAINED BY EDUCATION STAFF AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA
Friday 5 February 2010 (Kalgoorlie)
Today Peta, Western Australian Museum Education Officer, and I presented a professional learning information day with four participating Snapshots teachers - one each from Kalgoorlie Primary, Kalgoorlie School of the Air, Coolgardie Primary and Grass Patch Primary.
Our venue was the Western Australian Museum in Kalgoorlie which has exhibitions including a Gold Vault, a miner's cottage, the British Arms Hotel and the Ivanhoe Headframe.
The regional exhibtion for the Snapshots project will be held at the Museum's British Arms hotel, a heritage listed building 
claimed to be the narrowest pub in the southern hemisphere.
Like Sue at Menzies Remote Community School and the teachers at Tambellup Primary, the teachers today shared their enagaging and exciting plans for the project.
From restoring a school history lost in a school office fire, reconnecting with stories of parents and grandparents to using a local Town Hall as a school exhibtion venue and learning about the process and practice of photography, the students from these schools are in for a great year with Snapshots!
Following our time with the teachers, Peta showed me the KCGM Superpit, an open pit gold mine which will eventually be 600 metres deep and 3.8km wide. From the lookout, we could see a range of trucks and digging machines, as well as layers of colour striated through the current 450 metre depth of the mine.
Back to Canberra tomorrow via Perth, Ned and I are looking forward sharing our adventures with our team at the National Museum. We're also excited to see the photos, artworks, stories and histories created and uncovered aas part of Snapshots 2010.
Thursday 4 February 2010 (Albany, Kalgoorlie, Menzies)
Today's travel began with a flight from Albany to Perth then a second flight (537km) from Perth to Kalgoorlie. Ned and I were met at the Kalgoorlie-Boulder airport by Peta, Education Officer at the Western Australian Museum Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
In the air again - Albany to Perth and onto Kalgoorlie-Boulder
A brief stop at the Museum was followed by a 130km trip out to Menzies, north of Kalgoorlie, to meet the Principal, Sue, at Menzies Remote Community School.
This school of 57 students is one of five
Snapshots schools in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder region,
accompanying the 
five schools supported by the Western Australian Museum Albany.
After visiting Menzies, we ventured a further 51km to Lake Ballard to see one of the most intriguing art installations in Australia, the Inside Australia sculptures by Anton Gormley.
51 scupltures modelled on residents of Menzies are arranged in a 7 km radius in the middle of the salty Lake Ballard.
In addition to the incredible changing colours of the landscape as the day faded into night during the return trip to Kalgoorlie, strong impressions from today include the ribbons of road unrolling endlessly into the distance and the stillness and soft, rustling wind in the trees around the Lake.
Fading light, Lake Ballard
Wednesday 3 February 2010 - Albany and Tambellup
Today Ned and I met Jenny, Education Officer with the Western Australian Museum Albany. Jenny gave us a tour of Albany with a special focus on the Museum.
Albany has a large inland harbour which made it a safe place visited by many explorers. European settlement began in 1824 as a convict settlement that was part of the colony of New South Wales. A couple of years later, Albany became part of the new Swan River colony.
We learnt that the Indigenous language name for Albany is Kinjaling which means place of rain. We also discovered that the suffix 'up' which is used in many towns around Albany (eg, Tambellup, Kendenup and Jerdacuttup) has the meaning'place of' while in other regions, the suffix 'in' (eg, Kondinin) has the same meaning.
Looking down the main street, York Street, towards the harbour The Western Australia museum documents the local natural, social and maritime history and the cultural heritage of the local Aboriginal people.
Images from the Museum: the One Teacher School, the Eclipse Lighthouse exhibition and the Marine Discovery Centre.
The Museum includes the Residency.
Operated by the Albany History Society, next to the Museum is the replica of the Amity, the brig which brought the first European settlers to Albany in 1876. You can go below deck to see how people lived while travelling on the ship.
Replica of the Amity, Albany
After exploring the Museum, it was time to hit the road and drive to 2010 participating school, Tambellup Primary. 125 km from Albany and home to 100 students in a town of 450 people,Tambellup Primary is bubbling with great ideas for Snapshots of Remote Communities.
We're really looking forward to seeiing the snapshots of students from Tambellup! Thank you to Jenny and Malcolm from the Western Australian Museum Albany and to the staff of Tambellup Primary for an interesting day.
In 2010, the National Museum of Australia's outreach project, Snapshots of Remote Communities, is being conducted in partnership with the Western Australia Museum Albany and the Western Australian Museum Kalgoorlie-Boulder and a number of schools in both regions.
Snapshots is a photography and storytelling project through which students learn about their communities, local history and how museums work through developing an exhibition to showcase their learning and experiences.
Students' photographs will become part of an exhibition at their school, at their partner museum and online at the National Museum Snapshots page. Past exhibitions of Snapshots can be seen here.
To commence 2010 project activities, project mascot, Ned and I, a Senior Education Officer with the National Museum, are travelling to Western Australia to meet our museum partners and some of the participating teachers.
Along the way, Ned and I will be taking some of our own snapshots to document this part of the project...we are looking forward to the trip!
2 Feb 2010 Canberra to Perth to Albany, Western Australia
In transit - Ned taking a coffee break during our stop over in Sydney airport before the 3337km flight to Perth.
Names and places in WA - checking departure times at the Perth airport...
Ned thinks Cloudbreak is a great name!
Buckle up - Ned straps himself in for the 375km flight from Perth to Albany.
From the air - snapshots of the changing landscape from Perth to Albany: mines, farmland, river courses, red dirt tracks...can't wait to see some of this from the ground (and maybe the sky!) through the students' snapshots this year.
Arriving in Albany - the welcome from the Amazing Albany airport.
Albany is the oldest European settlement in Western Australia and was established shortly before Perth in 1826. 400km from Perth, Albany hugs the Southern Coast of WA.
Tomorrow we'll be visiting the Western Australian Museum Albany and travelling to two of our Albany schools.
Our venue was the Western Australian Museum in Kalgoorlie which has exhibitions including a Gold Vault, a miner's cottage, the British Arms Hotel and the Ivanhoe Headframe. 
claimed to be the narrowest pub in the southern hemisphere. 
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