Yesterday, year 4 - 8 students from St Joseph's school Queenstown, visited the Lakes District Museum to learn about Wakatipu War Heroes!

Split into 3 groups, students visited during the morning and the afternoon to listen to a talk about the qualities of being hero and then to learn about our own history of war heroes in this region. Soldiers and Nurses were discussed as well as living conditions in the trenches. At the end of the talk students were able to view some WWI artefacts which included a helmet and trench art - a very unique opportunity as these artefacts will be on display in our own WWI exhibition later this year! (WWI and the Wakatipu opens the 20th of October, with LEOTC programmes available for students to book into).

After listening to the talk, students then walked up to our war memorial on Soldiers Hill with our educator Denise. At the war memorial students used critical thinking and discussion to discover why memorials are built and why the Arrowtown war memorial has been built high up on a hill that overlooks the town. Students also had the opportunity to view the Turkish field gun which is on display beside the war memorial, which was a great discussion point for learning about how changing technologies affected the equipment used during the war.

Why do we build war memorials?

What did you most enjoy during your visit?

How are you going to try honour our Wakatipu war heroes back in the classroom?

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!

Thanks for visiting St Joseph's!