• Target Keystage(s): Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4,
• Curriculum Subject(s): Art and design, Citizenship, Cross-curricular (all), Geography, History, PSHE: personal wellbeing, Religious Education, Science,
• Who Do We Think We Are Theme(s): Britishness, national identity/values & 2012 Games, History/Settlement, Relationships, belonging and faith,

Above: Front cover of the teachers' resource pack.

The forgotten histories of black Africans living with skin pigmentation conditions in the 18th and early 19th centuries were explored through a recent exhibition at the Hunterian Museum titled 'A Visible Difference: Skin, Race and Identity 1720 - 1820'. The exhibition was part of the wider Exhibiting Difference project and was developed to commemorate the Bicentenary of the Parliamentary Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the British Empire.

On display were two rare paintings of enslaved black African children. The little-known portraits depict Mary Sabina, who was born in South America in 1736, and George Alexander Gratton, who was born in St Vincent in 1808. Both children had piebaldism - a rare genetic skin pigmentation condition causing extreme white patches on the skin. George and Mary were among many black African men, women and children with similar conditions who were exhibited at public fairs and in private "curiosity collections" as freaks of nature. These paintings illustrate the popular fascination with unusual bodies.

During the Enlightenment period when new theories about the nature of human races emerged, these skin conditions challenged established definitions and conventions. As social outcasts and medical phenomena, black people with spotted, patched or white bodies became a sought after commodity.

The exhibition sought to find out how much of this history has changed and through the contemporary voices of individuals living today with skin pigmentation conditions, whether people are not equally as curious about visible differences now, as they were two hundred years ago.

Following on from the exhibition the Hunterian Museum developed a learning resource pack for schools - titled 'A Visible Difference: Skin, Race and Identity 1720-1820.' This FREE resource supports the exploration of issues relating to identity, self-image and cultural distinctiveness in modern society and provides access to information and learning activities that enables young people to examine their own attitudes and behaviour towards people with a visible difference.

The pack comprises copies of images from the exhibition, a teachers' guide to the exhibition, an inspiration toolkit and cross-curricular materials on the following themes:

• Geography journeys of difference
• PSHE living with different skin
• History a history of difference
• RE less than human
• Science the genetics of difference
• Slavery and Race

The section on 'Slavery and Race' also provides an opportunity to broaden current awareness of the history of the Transatlantic slave trade through the history of medicine.

To download a FREE copy of the learning resource pack please select the following link to the Hunterian Museum website at the Royal College of Surgeons:
http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/exhibitions/archive/exhibiting_difference/resource_pack.