Sovereign Hill Experience!

The Grade 5 students have been learning about the Gold Rush through their Inquiry unit. To extend their understanding they went on an excursion to Sovereign Hill. Here are some reflections on the day:

On the 27^th of the May 2019, I went by bus to Sovereign Hill, Ballarat with the parents and teachers from Cana. It was a cold, wet and windy day and we were trying to keep warm. We went because we wanted to explore more about the gold rush and what happened. In the morning, we participated in the Red Hill mine experience. We broke up into groups I was with Miss Fato’s group. We went about 10 meters underground. When we went down it was really dark. As we travelled through the mine at one point the roof started to lower but it thankfully got bigger. We also saw all the wooden structures to hold up the rock so it didn’t fall. It was really dusty and a little wet. About half way through there was a hologram movie that showed the suffering that the miners had to go through before they found a large piece of gold. After we ate our recess we went panning in the river.  It was really fun. Some people like Kacper, Kyrone , Miss Castleman and Briana found gold but sadly I didn’t. The gold was very shiny and small. The river was cold and dirty, you would be very lucky to find gold. We used a pan and shovel. We used the shovel to scoop up a pile of rocks and water and put it in the pan. Then I had to shake out all the big rocks from the pan until there was tiny little pieces of rock, then look through to see if I could find gold. At the end of the day I learnt a lot about the gold rush and what happened

By Mya 5F

Yesterday, Monday the 27^th of May 2019, all of the Grade 5’s went to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. We went to Ballarat because, in Inquiry we are learning about the Gold Rush and Australian history (the First Fleet). We learnt many different things such as, how the people in the 1800’s used to live, how to mine for gold and lots more!

The drive:

We got on the big bus and started our 1 hour drive to Ballarat that took AGES, I felt like I was on a plane going to another country. While we were driving the windows fogged up, I have NO IDEA how the bus driver could see. On our drive we all saw snow, because outside it WAS ICY! Everyone had lots of layers of clothes on like, beanies, scarfs, gloves and jackets/raincoats. It was a low of 3 degrees and a high of 8 degrees.

Gold pouring:

As soon as we got out of the bus we all said “IT’S SO COLD”! Then we rushed over to the café to eat our snack because we were STARVING! We excitingly rushed into a room, where a man with an apron stood. At the start the man did not seem too happy, I’m not sure if he was acting or not. First the man explained a few things about Gold pouring, then he demonstrated how Gold pouring worked. He pulled out a cylinder shape jar from a fire, then he poured the liquid (which was gold) in to a bar shaped metal object. He explained the temperature of the gold which was 1200 degrees. After that the man got a thick, hard wooden stick and took out the gold, he banged the stick on the gold and…… the gold was ROCK HARD! It got solid SO quick! He scraped the wood on the gold and the gold fired up, it was still 900 degrees! The man with the apron had a big tub of cold water, he put the HEAVY, Solid gold in the water and smoke came out because fire and water does not mix. The man let some people hold the HEAVY gold and take a picture with it.

Red hill mine:

After the gold pouring, we went to the Red hill mine. It was a shelter with lots of tools used in the gold rush. There was a man that talked to us about some gold digging information. Outside was stairs, which looked like it was going underground. The man told us that we will be going 20 metres down, walking down those stairs. He said, “half of you will go out this gate and go down those stairs, the other half of you will stay here with me for 6 minutes until they come back. I was in the second half and the man told us a riddle while we waited 6 minutes for the other half to come back. After they were back, we went down the 52 stairs and 20 metres underground. When we went underground I noticed that it was cold, dusty, creepy and dark. We went up a long ladder and came to a fence, which a projector was projecting on it. We were all just having a walk around and exploring this place. On our way out, we saw a replica of the Welcome nugget. We all got out safely and all had LOTS and LOTS of fun.

By Clarissa