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Friday, 11th September 2015


Junior Geologists!

Monday, 9th June 2014

Junior Geologists!

Leroy from the Jade Factory talks Pounamu  

  • Junior Geologists!Leroy from the Jade Factory talks Pounamu
  • Junior Geologists!Examples of greenstone boulders sawn in half.
  • Junior Geologists!Leroy shows the students a pounamu mere. A couple of hundred years ago, this would've taken a few years to carve.
  • Junior Geologists!The students were allowed to handle the pounamu boulders to feel their weight.
  • Junior Geologists!Justin from the Gold Shop explains how gold is formed!
  • Junior Geologists!Justin let the students pass around gold nuggets!
  • Junior Geologists!This nugget was worth $15,000! The rushing rivers of New Zealand wore it down and smoothed it out.

Year 2 students from Arrowtown are turning into Junior Geologists with their topic unit on the Geology of the surrounding area!

Planned visits were made to the Lakes District Museum & Gallery, where I introduced students to the geology of the Wakatipu region by reading a story which covered the information about Gondwanaland , the formation of New Zealand, tectonic plates moving, the ice age, schist, gold, quartz, and pounamu.

I then took the students to visit Justin at the Gold Shop, where Justin spoke about the geological formation of gold and its uses. He also let the students handle some very expensive gold nuggets and jewellery! One nugget was worth $15,000! The gold was really heavy and very bright.

The students then went on to visit Leroy at the Jade Factory. Leroy explained the characteristics of pounamu such as how hard it was. He demonstrated this by smashing his hammer against it. It made a loud sound, and when he showed us the hammer, it was flattened!

We then returned to the museum, where I showed students more rocks which had been found in the Wakatipu region. Some were about 30, 000 years old! In these rocks we saw shells (molluscs) and a sharks tooth. The students also got to handle some schist rocks and quartz stones.

Helping Arrowtown students learn about geology has been wonderful. One student came up to me at the end of their visit and said they thought rocks were really exciting!

What are the four rocks and elements you learned about during your visit?

Which rock or element do you like the best? Why?

What did the Maori use pounamu for?

What did the settlers use gold for?

What are some other interesting things you learned during your visit?

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!