From the students...

By Hayun and Dejon

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On September 16th, Tumu Hub (year 5&6) went on a field trip. We went to the Canterbury Museum because we are learning about innovation. At the museum, the educators told us how Moari people used innovation in their everyday life. We learnt about the materials they used to make tools and then how they used these tools in order to survive.

We went inside the museum and it looked very new and outside it looked so old. Then this man called Anthony came and said hello and was our teacher for the workshops.

Anthony told us a story about a taniwha and after that we looked at old fishing nets, weapons and cloaks that Maori people used. I also found a little picture of an extinct tree, which was cool. We learnt about Maori technology and how they worked and made things. After that we had a break and then we had to follow Anthony again. He took us into this cool room that had things that are made from pounamu which is greenstone in Maori. We did rotations for 3 minutes each. There were 6 rotations:

Rotation Activities:

1. Hollowing wood with a greenstone axe.

2. Using an old, traditional type of drill.

3. Smoothing sandstone.

4. Carving wood with greenstone.

5. Re-drawing old paintings from the 1600 or 1500's.

6. And last was making a fire with a stick and this piece of wood that has a hole in it.

After that we had free time and we got to do anything in the museum with our groups. We looked at arctic animals, extinct animals, fossils, giant crystals/quartz, dinosaur bones, mummies, we also we went through a dark mini cave at the entrance and studied other things that are related to history. There was also a big tree and we were allowed to climb it at lunchtime. Everyone was playing a game called 'the floor is lava'.

Everyone had a great time and learnt a lot.