From the Classroom – Year 5 – Sovereign Hill Study Tour

The Year 5 students have been reflecting on their recent trip to Sovereign Hill. This three-day Study Tour provides a rich learning opportunity, where students experience life as it was during the Gold Rush period of the 1850s.

During the Tour, students and teachers dressed in full costume and became part of the live museum experience that Sovereign Hill offers. During their time away, the girls explored the gold mining township through various activities and attended the new sound and light show, AURA.

Students provide their reflections on the Study Tour below:

Chloe McMahon – My favourite activity was going in the Secret Chamber and seeing all of the things miners used to do. We travelled underground on a special tram and it was incredibly dark!

Charlotte Morris – There were so many wonderful activities, but shopping was a highlight of my experience. I looked carefully at all of the shops before I made my decision. It was a lot of fun to time travel back to the 1850s and experience life on the goldfields.

Ellyse Buckley – The playground at Sovereign Hill is amazing! There is a giant slide, some horses you can climb on, and a huge ship called St Catherine’s. I’m pretty sure they named it after us! We also saw the sound and light show called AURA. It was really entertaining and explained how gold appeared on Earth and how it has been used over time.

Scarlett Bertalli – My favourite part was gold panning. We had to search for gold in the river and shout Eureka when we found gold. Our findings are stored safely in a small jar in the classroom.

Coco Thomas – I loved time travelling back to the 1850s. School was different, but very fun. Using the ink to write was tricky and also exciting. Sir was quite strict and we were all very well behaved. The doctor’s visit to the Ragged School was a highlight. He was so funny and made everyone giggle, even the teachers!

Junya Jiang – One of my favourite parts was going to the costume school. I was in the Ragged School and wore a dress, pantalettes and a blue apron. We also had capes on the second day of school, because it was so cold. I learnt a lot of things I had never heard of such as, children should be seen and not heard. We focused on size, slope and shape with our writing. It was a great experience.

Gigi Armstrong – Gold Fever was one of my favourite activities. It was an education session led by one of the Sovereign Hill teachers. In the game we had to pretend we were miners looking for gold in the 1850s. We went to a special area with pretend gold (small metal marbles) and special shallow mines. I was a miner, but some of my friends were bankers and officers. When you found gold, you had to give it to the bankers to see how much it weighed and what it was worth. It was a lot of fun!

Carys Dreaver – One highlight was the Secret Chamber, which was a guided tour of the mines. When we got on the tram, our guide told us we wouldn’t be able to see anything as we travelled down. When we were halfway there, we couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t even tell if I was opening or closing my eyes! When we arrived in the mines our eyes had to adjust to the light. It was a bit scary because we were really deep underground. It was such a great experience!

Anna Roosenburg – We saw a three part sound and light show called AURA. The first part was an indoor 3D movie. We had to wear glasses and it showed us how gold was made. The second part of the show was outdoors. We went on a special train to an outdoor theatre and the movie was projected on to the lake, rocks and land. This section was about Bunjil and the Indigenous perspective of gold. The final part was indoors, but the show was outside. The background and props were all real, but they used recorded films and projected them on to screens. There were some loud special effects, like dynamite and crackers exploding which came out of nowhere and shocked us all. This part of the show told us all about the Ballarat Gold Rush and the Eureka Stockade. It was a really entertaining show.

Miss Kirrilly Wootton, Year 5 Teacher