Year 11 Geography trip to Waimairi cemetry

The year 11 geography classes went on a trip to Waimairi Cemetery to help us gather data for our research project. We took the short walk down to the cemetery at lunch and spent our lunch walking around the cemetery looking at graves and collecting data. We were recording the birth and death dates of people in the cemetery to see what year people were born and what age people were dying at.

We were comparing the ages of people who died before the 1950s and after the 1950s and seeing if there was a difference in how long they lived. Our aim was to figure out whether or not people live longer today than they did before 1950 and also whether women live longer than men and if so, does this affect the provision of social, housing and recreational facilities.

This was a fun trip which provided useful information that will help us a lot with our project and it was very interesting to go and look at graves.

It was also sad to see many graves of very young children and babies.

Overall it was great to do this as a class and compare our notes on the data.

By Isolde Johnson