Year 9 ANZAC Memorial excursion

At the start of term 2 Year 9 history students participated in an excursion designed to give them a greater understanding of the experiences of those who served in World War One and how Australians have commemorated the war. The excursion involved a visit to the ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park where the students watched a play, were given a guided tour and participated in a letter writing activity. They also watched the movie Gallipoli to see a dramatic representation of the problems that beset the Gallipoli campaign. This is what some of the students thought about their excursion: 

The most interesting thing I saw was the role play of the nurse inside the new memorial building. I thought that the nurses paying their own fee to help in the war effort was outrageous and the fact that they were abandoned overseas after the war was over was also outrageous.

The tour of the memorial was another one of my favourite parts of the excursion. There was lots of symbolism all over the place representing different war perspectives. I love how the sculpture made us look down towards the dead soldier and how the stars on the roof made us look up

Another interesting part of the excursion that stuck with me was the soil from places all around New South Wales and from across the world. I feel this made the memorial more personal and showed the stark variation of homelands. 

The activity that I found the most interesting was the nurse’s play as it revealed a lot of information about the journey and experiences of the nurses that helped out during the war. I found this interesting as we tend to learn and focus more on the experiences of the soldiers who fought in the war rather than the medics who also played a crucial role in saving the injured soldiers. 

The most interesting thing that happened during this excursion was to see the war memorial itself. I did not expect it to be that big and the interior was very interesting. The room with the hollow ceiling with all the soil from warzones and soil from where soldiers enlisted in one room was quite cool to see. In the museum part there were many artefacts regarding WW1 like letters and uniforms. It was fascinating to see the raw items left behind and the context behind it.

I learnt things from the movie, which showed what life was like at Gallipoli, and problems the soldiers faced.