Year 7 student, Sam Wallace, describes a recent Social Science field trip to the Auckland Museum.
“Come on, is it time yet? Can we board the bus yet?” We all barge down the pathway to the buses, jostling for the best seats at the back of the bus. As we all find a seat, the engine starts and our expedition begins!
We step into the foyer of the museum and shelter ourselves from the biting cold wind outside. The entrance is vast and as I look up a large beehive-like structure fastened to the ceiling greets my eyes, while to the side a winding staircase reaches higher and higher upwards, grasping at the second-floor entrance. We follow our class groups and journey deeper and deeper into the museum, different exhibitions thrusting themselves at us. My eyes were itching to be set upon all of the knowledge waiting to be read. We split into groups and the guide of our group led us to the section informing us about the Maori – we heard in detail about how the earliest Maori from Polynesia journeyed across the Pacific Ocean to a new land that they called Aotearoa or ‘Land of The Long White Cloud’. We were told about the key things that they took with them on their waka. The matoe, a fishing hook made from coconut fibres and bone, the hue, a jug or gourd used to hold water, and the niu, a coconut bowl used for eating food or drinking water from. Next, we ventured to the Marae and were told the story of creation of the gods and children of Rangi and Papa. We were then split into girls and boys – us girls were taught how to use a small wooden club or ‘Patu’ and the boys were taught how to use a long thin stick, perhaps used as a spear of sorts.
We ended our trip with a hunt for key exhibitions and information to be written in booklets given to us to fill out. As we stepped outside into the modern world again, our minds full to bursting with information across all subjects of our country’s ancestors, we knew that this trip and all it provided was likely to stay in our minds for a very long time.
