A special THANKYOU to all of the parents and staff who attended our Canberra Tour. Your assistance was greatly appreciated by all involved.

Transcription

1 Canberra Tour 2017 A special THANKYOU to all of the parents and staff who attended our Canberra Tour. Your assistance was greatly appreciated by all involved. The Australian Institute of Sport Written by Henry and Benny On Tuesday the 7th of February, the Yr 6 students of St Kilda Primary 2017 went to the Australian Institute of Sport. It was fun. Our group went to visit training areas first. We saw the old and new gymnastic stadium. We also went in the volleyball training academy. We went to a room called sportex, which basically was a sport simulator room. Australian National Botanical Gardens By Sienna, Sophia and Alyssa When we drove in, we were bewildered by the plants and animals on either side of us. When we met our guides, we were excited for an adventure filled with nature. We saw two male kangaroos boxing over two female kangaroos. It was a spectacular sight! We also saw a swarm of over a thousand soldier beetles. They were flying all over us. Overall, we saw lots of lizards, possums and lots of amazing plants. This is a trip we will remember forever. The High Court By Daniel and Liam In the heart of Canberra lies the biggest Australian, the High Court. Walking in you could sense the security and great history of the building. There was a case going on at the court at the time, a case involving Senator Day. Mr Day breached Section 445 of the constitution, which means he had a conflict of interest. We saw the case, despite our limited time in court. It was a great experience, a true highlight of our trip. Questacon By Matthew and Ariel Questacon is a place we ll never forget. We thought Scienceworks was the best, until we went to Questacon! The moment we even stepped one foot into that place, we were amazed! Questacon taught us about science, gravity and how the world works. The Electoral Education Centre By Frankie and Meshwa At the Electoral Learning Centre, we had heaps of fun and learned that every vote counts. Year 6 learnt how to vote and that you must do it all correctly or else the vote is invalid. We also learnt what the referendum and the constitution are. We are going to vote when we are 18 and we are excited about that! New Parliament House and Question Time By Leo and Jackson When we went to Parliament House, we learnt how bills are passed. Firstly, the House of Representatives comes up with the bill and the house votes if it should be passed. The majority wins the vote. Then the senate votes. If it gets passed by both Houses, the Governor General signs it off. Then we saw Question Time. At Question Time, we saw Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten and Michael Danby. Later we met Michael Danby and we asked him some questions. He told us that he represents our electorate and if we have questions or suggestions, to go to him. That was our trip to Parliament.

2 Australian War Memorial By Eli and Mael As we walk up to the huge screen and sat down to watch a short film we hear Arm the machine guns, launch the planes, screeched the lieutenant. The planes flew off into the clouds and in the distance they saw the enemy. The battle started and 1 by 1 the enemy started retreating, until another wave of enemies came by and started attacking. When the Australians saw they were outnumbered, they fired their last bullets and flew back to base. That was the end of the short movie. National Gallery of Australia by Gwen The National Gallery was an amazing experience. The tour guide started off by showing us sculpture from all around the world. One sculpture looked like a fusion of crystals and glass. Another sculpture was of a buddah. Most of the gold had chipped but it was still beautiful. Next we moved to paintings. One of the paintings was the Blue Poles. The tour guide explained that the person who painted it used so many different styles of painting. We also saw a painting/collage of Germany after WW2. It was a picture of two intersecting train tracks with a burning village in the background. When I first saw it, I thought it was the train track to the death camps in WW2. It wasn t too far from the truth. When we were heading out we had a look at Sidney Nolan s works of Ned Kelly. It turns out the Sidney Nolan went to SKPS. It was an amazing experience which I would do again. Questacon - Ex-space By Hugo Ex-space is a fun learning section of Questacon. It houses many fun features, so here are some of my favourites. Robot hockey Is a normal air hockey table with sensors to guide a robot to hit a puck. The Slide Is a vertical drop that turns into a slide at the end. 4 Way Hockey Is like two air hockey tables combined into a cross with a rotating disc in the middle. The air pipes Use suction to blow fabric sleeves around a maze of plastic pipes. There are a few smaller activities that I have not mentioned, but these are the main features of Ex-space. National Capital Regatta Point By Fergus I m going to be explaining about the capital city and how Canberra was designed. In 1901, Federation happened. Australia needed to decide where they would have the capital city. Our first thoughts were to keep the capital city either in Melbourne or Sydney. Melbourne because it was modern, or Sydney, because it was the oldest city. We decided it wouldn t be Sydney or Melbourne, but in 1908 we decided it would be a new city named, Canberra. Australia couldn t think of a good design for Canberra, so in 1911, Australia decided to give out an entry for architects around the world to design Canberra. In the year 1912 two architects from Chicago designed the whole of Canberra and their design was built. The main ideas for Canberra were to have lots of round roads and round parks. Australia liked their ideas, so it got picked as the design for Canberra.

3 Questacon By 6E On Thursday, 9 February 2016 the Year 6s went to Questacon in Canberra. We went to the shop first because there was a media event and the shop would be closed later. After the shop we went to the different chambers. In one of them we were building boats and seeing how many grams the boat could hold. When we got there, there had already been another school and they had used all the useful materials that could float such as sponges, paper cups, egg cartons and plastic containers. The next chamber we went to was probably one of the best chambers. There was an earthquake building, where we had to build houses and see if they could last an earthquake. The first chamber we went to was the best chamber out of all of them. There was a smoke machine, and a slide that went straight down and then curved. The slide was the best. You had to put a huge suit on so you didn t get hurt. You hold on to a bar and let your feet hang, and it was so scary. There was a robot that you could play air hockey against. The Year 6 s trip to Questacon was the best trip ever! The High Court of Australia By Oscar Visiting the High Court of Australia was mind blowing. First of all we visited Court Room 4, which was great looking at how the court was set up. When we entered Court Room 3 it was a bit different from Court Room 4. My favourite part of the trip around the Hugh Court was seeing a court case, live in action. I was stunned to see a real court case live at the High Court of Australia. After that, we sat on the grass and had our lunch next to the lake in Canberra. Australian National Botanical Gardens By Flynn and Pepper The most popular tree in the Botanical Gardens is the fern. The pine trees have little flowers that you can hardly see. The pine s flowers are not attractive to small bugs and insects because they are not pretty. The wind collects their pollen instead. In the gardens, there are animals too. On the trip we saw millions of soldier beetles covering the ground and half a tree. The guide thought this was because of the extremely hot weather that Canberra had been experiencing. We saw two kangaroos fighting. The tour guide said that she had been working at the Botanical Gardens for twelve years and this was the first time she saw kangaroos fighting. New Parliament House Canberra By Lewis We went to Parliament House and some people thought that was where the government lived. Our group did a role-play first. It was very funny when one person in our group said, It s Mr Speaker! Next we learnt about how bills get passed in parliament. After that we went into the gallery to watch the House of Representatives during Question Time. The Australian Institute of Sport By Judie and Anthony The AIS stands for Australian Institute of Sport, which is where elite athletes go to a training area for a certain amount of time, to compete for an event. When we were at the AIS, we went on a tour which included the workout gym, the pool, the gymnasium and the volleyball courts. At the end of the tour we went to a room where we played and competed with each other in multiple sports. We really enjoyed our time at the AIS and it was definitely one of the highlights of our time in Canberra.

4 National Gallery of Australia By Chelsea The NGA is located in Canberra. I think it ia a great place to go to and see all of the beautiful artwork. It is a very inspiring place. There are amazing paintings there like, The Blue Poles. There is also a Ned Kelly section and all of the paintings are by Sidney Nolan. One of the paintings is where Ned Kelly shot a policeman and got sent to court. He said to the judge, You re going to die. One week after that, the judge died! When we were coming out of the NGA, we saw all of these aboriginal digeridoos with dot paintings on them. They were amazing and they probably took ages to do. Government House Canberra The Australian Government recognizes the importance of all young Australians being able to visit their National Capital as part of their civics and citizenship education. To assist our families in meeting the cost of the excursion, the Australian Government contributed $30 per eligible student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER) program. We would like to thank the Australian Government for their support of this program.

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