11 Geography Earthquake Fact Gathering Trip

On Tuesday the 28th of July, 11GEO went on a field trip around town. 

Two classes were on the field trip, Mr Skinners and Mr Howells. 

The classes walked through the central city looking at the long-term effects and the different responses of people from the February 2011 earthquake. 

Mr Skinner gave us a 100-question workbook to answer whilst on our  walk. 

This field trip was very interesting because I learnt a lot about the features of the place I call home. Throughout the city, there are many points of interest we looked at and through the help of Mr Howell and Mr Skinner’s knowledge, we learnt a lot. Stuff that we will use in the NCEA Externals at the end of the year.

The Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial was one of our first stops, it is the crown's official memorial for those who were killed during the February 2011 earthquake. We stopped and laid flowers here as mark of respect for these people.

Quake City, was the main stop, where 50 of our questions needed to be answers. Quake City is Canterbury Museum special exhibition, dedicated to the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. It explains the science behind the earthquakes and the liquefaction that followed, burying streets and buildings. It features some of the pieces from the city that help define Christchurch today, including the spire of Christchurch Cathedral and the clocks from the now-demolished former railway station. It also features first-hand stories from the heroes that put their life on the line to save others, it also shows real footage CCTV footage of when the earthquake struck. At the beginning of the exhibition, Quake City shows a timeline of earthquakes in and around Canterbury from over 100 years ago. Quake City explains very interesting details about these earthquakes including how long it was, the Mercalli intensity, and even how a local beer company had to put a higher alcohol percentage in their bottles due to the water reduction. One exhibit, Mr Wright (fresh out of retirement to help us), looked like he’d been on display in the Museum for a while though!

The best stop was  Margaret Mahy Playground. This is an all-age playground in the Central City on the banks of the Avon River. It is a part of the governments ‘recovery plan’ for the 2011 earthquake as a ‘city-wide playground’. The playground opened to the public on the 22nd of February 2015. One week before the playground opened CERA released a press statement saying the playground cost $3 million to build, but within a few days, it had become clear that $3 million was only a fraction of the total cost. The Press reported that the playground’s cost was more than $40 million, although the playground itself was $3 million. Here we meet Mr Howell’s class for some kai and to play. Of course Mr Howell had to point out the Geographic base of the playground – the contour lines on the ground, something I had never notice before.

After an awesome pizza lunch at Margerat Mahy playground, we continued on our tour of the Earthquake Points of Interest, stopping at New Regent (first shopping district to reopen after the 2011 Earthquake), Turanga (brand new Central Library with Playstation!), Cathedral Sqaure (to discuss why its taking to long to rebuild), One Central (Fletcher’s new City Apartments – two bedrooms for under $500,000 but not many people living there yet), Cardboard Cathedral (where the cardboard is just for show), the CTV Building Site (sad sight where most victims were), 185 White Chairs, new Christchurch Mutli-Use Arena site, through the SALT and EPIC districts of the city to Little High, The Greenway, past Unlimited and Discovery City Schools, and the HOYTS EntX and City Bus Interchange.

All in all, it was a very good trip.  We learnt a lot, we ate a lot and had a lot of fun. Ticks all the boxes!