Mel Thompson is the Content & Facilitation Lead for Te Papa Learning's online course pilot. She has a background in science, coordination, research, and communication.

Mel works with curators and subject matter experts to create engaging, educational, and meaningful short online courses for the lifelong learner. Our courses leverage the taonga, stories, and knowledge in Te Papa's significant collections to bring the individual stories of Aotearoa New Zealand into focus within a larger national history.

Our mahi strives to make our history and identity more accessible to learners in both Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. Our courses have a focus on social learning – our learners are a community, and through that their learning experience is vastly deepened and broadened.

We think this channel offers unique opportunities to meet our manuhiri (guests) where they are, to dive deeper into big topics, to meet the education needs of our changing nation, and “to understand the past, enrich the present and meet the challenges of the future.”