Learning Resources

These resources help visitors, teachers, families, and community organizations continue the exhibition. They are designed around observation, comparison, storytelling, and ethical discussion—not around memorizing one correct definition of tea culture.

One-Minute Exhibition Guide

Tea travels as leaf, plant, drink, skill, memory, and work. At the Chinese Tea table, look for how one plant becomes many teas. At the Wellness table, follow goji into Edmonton’s river valley and family gardens. At the Bubble Tea table, build a cup and then ask what labour and systems made your choices possible. In the poster gallery, notice how calligraphy, paintings, poems, and city landscapes change one another. There is no single correct route. Begin with what catches your attention.

Tea Travels Passport

Front: BUILD YOUR TEA TRAVELS PASSPORT

• Discover a craft.
• Build a milk tea.
• Find Edmonton goji.

Collect or place one sticker at each stop. There is no single correct cup.

Back: What travels when tea travels? skill · memory · plants · labour · care · something else: ______. Which plant, cup, smell, or word makes you think of home?

Teacher Guide

Suggested level: Grades 4–12, adaptable. Length: 45–60 minutes. Learning goals:

• Distinguish an object from the social relationships that produce it.
• Compare preservation, adaptation, invention, and commercialization without treating them as opposites.
• Identify how migration can change plants, tastes, words, and practices.
• Discuss sources, claims, and uncertainty.

Before viewing: Ask students to draw or describe a drink that matters in their family or everyday life. Who prepares it? Where do the ingredients come from? When is it served?

During viewing: Choose one table and one poster. Record three things you can see and three relationships that are not immediately visible.

After viewing: Discuss when a changing tradition remains a tradition, who gets to call something authentic, how a menu organizes choice, and what responsibilities arise when health, heritage, or community stories are presented publicly.

Activity: Create a “travelling object” card. Trace one ingredient, tool, word, or image across at least three places or people. Mark what changes and what stays recognizable.

Family Looking Guide

Find:

• one leaf with an unexpected shape
• one cup you have used before
• one word for tea you recognize
• one artwork that makes you slow down
• one sign of Edmonton
• one kind of work hidden behind a drink

Talk together: If you could send one cup to someone, who would receive it?

Community Conversation Kit

Length: 45–75 minutes. Open with the phrase harmony without sameness. Invite each participant to name a drink or plant connected with care. Discuss what is gained and lost when a community practice becomes a product, festival display, health trend, or heritage symbol. Close by identifying one way to share a story without claiming to speak for everyone.

Accessible Text Pack

Contents: all main table texts in at least 18-point type; full poster transcripts; image descriptions; glossary; short URLs; educational notice.