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!!