The Year 13 Biology class went on a field trip to Orana Park Wildlife Centre. The focus of the visit was trends in human evolution, which is a topic that they are currently studying at school.

The day started with looking at features of primates, studying the large collection of replica primate skulls and observing the real ones at the park! We watched lemurs, spider monkeys, siamang gibbons and the fabulous gorillas.

The students then applied their knowledge and observations of the primates to the replica hominin skull collection – seeing the trends in the features and how they evolved over time, from the very early Sahelanthropus tchadensis who lived approximately 7 million years ago, through to Australopithecus afarensis (nicknamed Lucy!) from 3.7 million years ago and then to the familiar Homo sapiens from 200,000 years ago to the present day.

It was a fantastic day which really helped to back up the learning in class.