Museum and River Trip

On Tuesday the 11th of August Room 8 visited the Gore Museum and Mataura River.  We did this to enrich our learning about our local river, which is a part of our inquiry about water.

Firstly we started at the Museum.  Stephanie Herring our trusty local historian provided many details and information about the history of the Mataura River.  We learnt many new things, like the great 1913 flood that swept through Gore and destroyed many buildings and houses. We also learnt about Lamprey eels, that suck blood off other hosts out at sea and then come to the Mataura River to spawn.  Apparently they can be seen around September/October jumping up the Mataura Falls to get into the upper course of the Mataura River.  We also learnt about early Maori and how they used the river to catch and transport food so they could 'barter' with other tribes.  It was very interesting.  Room 8 are now writing reports about what they have learnt, to be published as newspapers.

Listening to Stephanie Herring - our local historian at the Gore Museum

Looking round the Museum

A smaller model of the Gore Brown Trout

When we left the Museum we had lunch at the Gore Brown Trout!  Here we are having hot chips!

We also climbed on our local icon... The Brown Trout!

 After lunch we went to the Mataura River where met up with Pat and Mark from 'Environment Southland'.  It was an incredible day because we learnt so much about our river.  Through experiments we discovered new information, for example the temperature, clarity, PH (alkaline/acidity) and animals in the river.  A big thank you to all the parents who helped on this day.  It would have been impossible to do this activity around the river without all the support!  

Here are the experiments that we did on the day...
TESTING THE CLARITY OF THE WATER:  We looked through a long cylinder and moved a black tag along the long cylinder.  When the black tag was no longer visible, that was how many centimeters in clarity there is.  On this day there was about 62 centimeters of clarity.

MEASURING THE TEMPERATURE AND PH OF THE RIVER:  We put thermometers in the river, the temperature was about 4 degrees.  We put PH strips in the river, the PH was about 7, which is neutral.

SCANNING THE RIVER FOR ANIMALS:  We used nets to scoop up gravel and water.  Along with this came many insects!  It was exciting to be a scientist for the day and to identify the different types of animals we got.  We got mayfly, worms, stonefly etc.  One class even got a small fish!!

 We really enjoyed out trip to the Museum, Trout and Mataura River!  Thank you to Mark and Pat from Environment Southland!!

Enviroscape Model

Enviro-scape Model – Water Inquiry

As part of our learning about water, on Tuesday the 4^th of August the senior school at Gore Main had a visit from Pat Hoffman.  Pat works for Environment Southland.  She came along to talk to us about pollution in the Mataura River.  She brought along a 3D Enviro-scape model which helped us visualise how pollution occurs in our environment and how it easily gets into the waterways.  It was fun building up a 3D landscape with towns, cars, dirt, grass, trees and animals and then having a rain storm with real water!   We observed how oil and detergents flow into our river through the storm water drains after it rains and how dirt runs off unplanted hills into rivers causing brown unhealthy water.  We talked about ideas that could be implemented to stop pollution, such as planting more trees on hills or digging holes before the river so that pollution could flow into them instead of entering the waterways.  We enjoyed the Enviro-scape model and it was a different way to learn about the serious issue of pollution in our waterways.

Did you know that soil is the number one pollutant in our waterways? 

Room 8

Maori Cultural Day

From the 27-31st of July it was Maori Language Week.  Gore Main celebrated this event by holding a Maori Cultural Day, on Friday.  Every classroom at Gore Main offered different activities for the students, like baking, weaving or traditional Maori games.  It was a great way to share some Maori Culture and for children to move around different classrooms interacting with various teachers.

Here is Room 8 baking Maori bread.

A BIG thankyou to Angela Cox who helped Room 8 to cook their yummy bread that tasted like deep fried donut!!  DELICIOUS!!