Zuiderzee Museum

A Dutch fishing village from before the sea was tamed

Take the museum ferry across the IJsselmeer and your students step into another century. The Zuiderzeemuseum is an open-air village of more than 140 authentic buildings, brought together from around the shores of the former Zuiderzee, with craftspeople working at their trades among them.

 When the Afsluitdijk closed off the Zuiderzee in 1932, the salt inland sea became a freshwater lake overnight. Students see what that world was, and get a real sense of what change on that scale costs the people living through it, which is a side of water management the engineering sites do not cover.

The museum runs curriculum-linked education programmes led by its own museum teachers, with clear ties to geography, history, citizenship and social studies.

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Image credits: Mariël Kolmschot, Guillaume Groen and Studio Merike, all Zuiderzeemuseum