Our Archivist Anne grew this massive potato in her garden!

It weighs 2kgs, so we think it will be able to make a lot of french fries... yum!

What are some other GIANT things you have seen?

Comment below!

Yesterday, Year 13 History students from St Bede's immersed themselves in the Lakes District Museum's archives finding information for AS 3.1 & 3.2.

Students had a wide range of focusing questions from women, to the Chinese, to the impact immigrants had on the economy. The students enjoyed extracting information from our very precious primary sources, such as our old court case books.

During the visit we also took St Bede's on a historic walk of Arrowtown where students got to check out our Miners Cottages, the Old Gaol, and Saint Mary Mackillops cottage. This was followed by a visit to the cemetery, to help students understand the living conditions these miners faced during the late 1800's. A tour of the Chinese settlement, also brought forth new information for how the Chinese settlers lived and reasons for why they came to New Zealand, as well as why they ended up staying.

We hope you have lots of valuable information St Bede's, comment below about your visit and interesting facts you learned with us!

Year 5 and 6 Students from Makarewa School visited us today! Their visit was spread over TWO WHOLE DAYS! So it was an information overload for a lot of these students!!!

These are the activities all the students did with us here at the Lakes District Museum & Gallery:

• A frightening lesson in an 1800's school room with Miss Gray (we learned about how technology has made learning a lot easier)
• A historic walk of Arrowtown which included a visit to the Old Gaol (we learned how buildings used roof lanterns to get light before electricity)
• A museum visit which included handling artefacts (objects like the Moa bone and pounamu mere explained to us how people used to live)
• A tour of the Chinese settlement where we heard about a scary ghost story! (The Chinese huts were made out of Schist stone and wood)
• And gold panning!! Some students played a trick on me and had purchased gold flakes from the Gold Shop which they put into their pans! I was gobsmacked when the students came rushing over to show me the gold they had "found"!!!!

Phew - what a busy month!

Who found gold?

Do you think gold panning is easy or hard? Why?

Do you think learning in an 1800's school room is easy or hard? Why?

Who was Marry Cotters tree named after?

Who was the first person to discover gold in the Arrow river?

Why did the Chinese settlers come to Central Otago?

What was a pounamu mere used for?

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!

Year 5 and 6 students from Tapanui school visited us on their camp! Their topic theme at school is Toursim, so having a camp in Queenstown was a great way to learn more about different aspects of tourism.

This is what we learned today:

• A presentation in our conference room covered the positive and negative effects of tourism. We also learned about why people visit the Queenstown area, which was for our CULTURAL and NATURAL tourist sites. The session ended with the screening of an old film that the NZ government used to market Queenstown overseas, whilst students designed T-shirts to promote Queenstown.
• A tour of the Chinese settlement helped students understand that it was a cultural tourist site. Students also learned about the importance of sustainability, and steps the local council has taken to ensure tourists keep visiting the Chinese settlement.
• A historic walk of Arrowtown allowed the students to see more cultural tourist sites such as the miners cottages, the Old Gaol, and Saint Mary MacKillops cottage. Students also learned about the gold mining history of Arrowtown and saw some of the negative effects tourism had on our historic buildings.

Tapanui school ended their visit by skipping around Mary Cotters tree three times for good luck!

What are the positive effects of tourism in the Queenstown area? What are the negative effects?

Why do people visit Queenstown?

What was your favourite tourist activity on your trip to Queenstown?

What is a cultural tourist site? What is a natural tourist site?

We hope you enjoy the rest of your school camp Tapanui!

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!

Last night staff at the Lakes District Museum & Gallery were invited on a Maori Culture Boat Cruise around Lake Wakatipu.

Whilst we were on board we visited a typical polynesian style canoe, and learnt about Maori New Zealand history, as well as why Maori visited and lived in the Wakatipu region. We learned a lot and it was a fantastic experience. During the trip we also received performances of a local haka, waita, and viewed a Moa bone and other artefacts to do with Maori history.

Teachers - if you're looking for something extra for your kids to do whilst on camp, I highly recommend the Maori Culture Cruise as it provides a fantastic platform for learning about Maori culture and legends for around New Zealand as well as focusing on the Wakatipu region!

To learn more or to make a booking, visit their website HERE!

94 year 7 and 8 students from Arrowtown visited the Lakes District Museum & Gallery to learn about the design and concept processes for setting up museum exhibitions.

We covered a lot of information - as I outlined to the students professional expectations for museum displays that would be applied to their own research projects based on Peace and Conflict.

Here are some of the key ideas I shared with students about creating effective museum exhibition displays:

• Make your displays image rich - use lots of pictures
• Use headings, bylines, and make your first and most important paragraph a larger size than the rest of your text
• Think of what colours, fonts, and other styles can contribute to the theme of the information you are displaying (e.g. red for poppies, white for the white crosses, or dark grey and blue colours to help create a sombre effect)
• Your information must be written in your own words and be simple, respectful, and informative
• Make the size of your text a large size, as most of your audience will be standing when they read it

We also looked at some display panels from our previous exhibitions and noticed how the text, images, and the how the panels overall were displayed. The Gold 150th panels looked old fashioned with a grey back ground and the title "Gold" in a swirly decorative font. The tourism panel looked bright and inviting by using yellows and orange colours along with an exciting text font!

This followed onto research ideas that students could use for their projects. We all agreed that by starting with something the students already knew about or were really interested in and then linking this to WWI, would be a fantastic way to start their research! Another great suggestion was for students to do profiles on family members who might have contributed to the Great War.

The presentation finished with ideas on how students could display their information - such as making their displays look like telegrams, diaries, postcards, or letters, maps, camouflage, and lots of other exciting things!

To help inspire your research, I found this old film which shows soldiers in the trenches - check it out!

Click here to watch a short film to see what New Zealand soldiers experienced in the trenches in WWI!

What are some of your ideas for your research project?

What was something new you learned about museum displays?

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!

I can't wait to see the posters and projects everyone will end up producing - what a great way to celebrate WW100!

We had 28 students from Riverton School visit the Lakes District Museum today! It was a fantastic day as all the students were very inquisitive and asked fantastic questions. This is what we got up to:

In Miss Grays classroom, students were frightened out of their wits by grumpy Miss Gray. Miss Gray had a cane on her which she used to cane naughty children. The schoolroom was very bare, with the desks and chairs made out of wood and a chalk board that Miss Gray wrote on.The students learned a poem, practiced their handwriting, and did a physical drill. Then poor young Daniel got a caning because the class was so naughty!

In the Museum, students got to explore the Museum. Everyone saw the long drop (the lavatory), the Grog Shanty, and the blacksmiths. The streetscape of the Museum was everyone's favourite place to visit. Everyone learned a lot, as they moved in groups and looked at specific displays.

We finished the day with gold panning. Students learned about different methods for gold panning, and about Jack Tewa who found the gold in the Arrow river in 1862. Some kids even gold! Were YOU lucky enough to find gold?

Why don't we have a blacksmith anymore?

Can you remember what the Grog Shanty looked like? What was it used for?

What did you use for handwriting in Miss Gray's classroom?

Do you think learning was harder 150 years ago? Why?

Is it easy or hard to go gold panning? Why?

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!

On Friday the 31st January we had 18 kids come spend the day at the Museum to celebrate Chinese New Year and to welcome in the year of the horse. It was a fantastic day, with everyone having a really great time.

We started the day with making Chinese masks, which we then took down to the Chinese settlement where we had local ODT reporter James Beech take some photos of the kids! You can check out the pictures and read what James Beech wrote here!

After the photo opportunity we had an information treasure hunt, with everyone getting into groups and reading the interpretation panels and exploring the huts at the settlement, to discover what life was like for the Chinese settlers in Arrowtown.

After a quick lunch break, we all went gold panning in the Arrow River - some kids were even lucky enough to find gold! We then watched a Chinese brush art demonstration by Stan Chan, which was really impressive.

We finished off the day by playing some traditional Chinese games such as "Catch the Dragons Tail" and "Cat and Mouse", and then watching the movie Illustrious Energy which was based on the hardships the Chinese Miners experienced when they came to New Zealand.

Happy Chinese New Year!

What was your favourite thing about the Museum Fun Day?

What was something new you learned about Chinese New Year or Chinese Culture?

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!