A short video capturing the highlights of the Museum Links workshop, showing students exploring their neighbourhood, learning from elders, and reflecting on their experiences, along with voices from participating pupils and teachers.
Young Detective Squad: Exploring the Past of Bang Phlat – Wat Chatkaew Chongkolnee School
29 May 2025
In this one-day Museum Links workshop, the students of Wat Chatkaew Chongkolnee School became young explorers of their own neighbourhood. Guided by museum educators and local elders, they set out from the school to trace the hidden history of Bang Phlat–Bang Ao, once a landscape of orchards, timber rafts, and wooden houses along the river. Using simple walking maps, they observed the temple grounds, old orchards, a traditional wooden house, and riverside life, noting sights, sounds, and questions about how things have changed. In the afternoon, these field discoveries came together around large aerial photographs from three different decades. They compared past and present, linking what they had seen to patterns of urban growth and change, and ended with colourful clay models, each group presenting its vision of a future Bang Phlat once the Kiakkai Bridge opens. The experience made history tangible and inspired the students to see their community with pride, curiosity, and a renewed sense of belonging.
Young Explorers on the Trail of Bang Phlat’s Past
The programme opened with a lively and engaging talk, “Bang Phlat–Bang Ao: My Changing Community,” that brought the past vividly to life. Through stories of orchards, timber rafts, and riverside trades, students began to imagine what their neighbourhood looked like long before the roads and high-rises arrived. The stories gave them a sense of how the river once shaped everything around them.
Then came the most anticipated part of the day: heading out as explorers. The group split into two teams, each following a different route. One team set out along the temple grounds, tracing a path to the riverside community and up to the construction site of the new Kiakkai Bridge. They paused often, looking closely at how new structures and wider roads were changing the landscape. The second team took a very different path, venturing into a rare patch of remaining orchard land. Here, among the trees, they stepped back in time and listened as local elders described what life used to be like, surrounded by gardens and the smell of fruit. At an old wooden house, these stories took on a tangible form, turning into living memories.
Armed with their hand-drawn “walking maps,” the students became detectives. They jotted down everything: the colours of the houses, the way the wind moved through the trees, the smell of the riverbank, and the questions that popped up with each step. Their notebooks filled quickly.
When they returned to the workshop room, the discoveries of the morning became the material for the afternoon. Spread out on long tables were large aerial photographs from 1970 and 2025. In groups, the students gathered around these images like puzzle solvers. They circled the places they had just visited, marking what had vanished and what had grown. It was an eye-opening exercise, linking their field observations with changes they could now see from above.
The Impact: New Eyes on Old Places
The day closed with a burst of creativity. Out came colourful clay, and the room transformed into a miniature city studio. The students sculpted their own visions for Bang Phlat after the Kiakkai Bridge opens: neighbourhoods with more green spaces, places to gather, and a community that values its roots even as it grows. When they finally presented their models, each group proudly shared their ideas with everyone in the room. The excitement and pride in their voices showed just how deeply the day’s discoveries had inspired them.
The workshop sparked excitement among students, with over 85% reporting that they enjoyed exploring real locations and hearing local stories. Many discovered new aspects of their community for the first time and expressed surprise at how much had changed. From listening to elders' personal memories to presenting future visions with clay models, students engaged with their surroundings through observation, creativity and teamwork.
The session on reading aerial maps showed their enthusiasm for spotting change, though it also revealed that such analytical tasks can be quite complex for primary school learners. This observation will guide future programme design to scaffold these skills more gradually. Overall, students came away seeing Bang Phlat not just as home, but as a place full of stories worth remembering—and retelling.
