Year 7 History Excursion

According to the historians (students) . . .

On the 30th of August, three Year 7 classes of Fort Street High School went on a journey to become historians.

Firstly, we went to Petersham station where we boarded a Waratah (train, not plant) to Circular Quay. During this journey, some of the class were debating the rankings of Sydney Trains from best to worst, which landed on The Sydney Metro, Waratah B sets, Waratah A sets, Oscars, Millenniums, Intercity trains, K sets and finally the sad Tangaras. After the train arrived at the desired station, the Fortians walked to their destination, which was The Big Dig Site.

When they arrived at the Big Dig, we received historical artefacts and observed them to piece together hypothetical information about the artefacts. This task allowed to unlock the Archaeologist achievement, which was a huge stepping stone to becoming true historians.

By Harry

As a tray full of peculiar objects was handed to us, we all looked on with confusion. Broken porcelain babies? A flat rock? An old weight? What was there to learn from these? At first it seemed impossible to glean any information from these, but as we looked closer, the stories began to become clearer. Porcelain babies? We saw a small piece of text printed onto the baby, it said ‘Germany’! This helped us learn that these babies were widespread children’s toys in the 19th and 20th century, and that many were manufactured in Germany. The piece of rock? By itself, it was simply a rock, but with context, we realised that you could write on them with slate pencils! It was a piece of slate! Our hypothesis was that it may have been used by children to draw or write on. The old weight? Closer inspection revealed to us that it was made in Birmingham. How did it get here? Was it sold, was it a family item? Our hypothesis was that it may have been used in scales to find somethings weight! Even if we weren’t fully correct, that day we learnt that history is all about looking at evidence to create a hypothesis about the past.

By Leo

We arrived at the school at around 8:20, and soon found my friends. After a painstakingly long wait, we walked to Petersham station. Soon we were at Circular Quay, and we headed towards The Big Dig Archaeological Education Centre. We quickly got to the site, and we met our tour guides. They taught us the questions historians ask when studying an artefact to piece together its history. We were given a basket of artefacts which we chose four from and answered those questions. I chose a doll, a brass pipe of some sort, a part of a bottle and a nail. We learnt how to think of uses of objects, ownership and time of use. We then formed ideas and talked about the history of sites near the Big Dig. We finished off by making a timeline of cards given to us (we broke the record for time), we had lunch, and then looked for information at Hyde Park. We investigated places and signs to determine answers.

By Hayden and Ayaan