Our trip exploring legends about Kupe, geology of Wellington and conducting marine metre squared investigations

On Monday 22 February, we went for a school trip past Worser Bay and Seatoun Beach. We stopped along the way at the pou at Seatoun beach. We heard stories about Kupe and the wheke and how his nieces (Matiu and Makaro, the names of the big islands in the harbour) scratched themselves in mourning after they believed Kupe had died so much that they bled and the rocks at Red Rocks turned red from their blood. We walked up the hill to the pa site with another pou and sketched our surroundings. 

Deb (Elliot's mum who is a geologist) talked to us about how the land around us had changed over time and how the big rocks that came from the Hutt river transformed and became smaller and smaller and smoother until they became sand.

Once we walked around the corner from Breaker Bay we set up our metre squared. In our learning groups we laid out our metre squared and looked carefully and lifted up rocks to find animals and sometimes we saw little things moving under seaweed so we moved the seaweed. We recorded what types of sea life we found different types of - starfish, crabs, mussels, baby paua, limpets, sea cucumbers, sea snails and seaweed. We found a lot more life than we expected in 1 metre squared. We were amazed, astonished and proud that we found so much more than we expected to find!

We want to do some more metre squared investigations - you should try it too! Thanks to all the people who came out and helped us to achieve this learning experience.



I learned that there was a pa site above Seatoun - Louise.
I learned that most of the land near the beach was under water before the earthquakes- Raiha.
I learned that the islands were names after Kupe's nieces - Charlie.
I was curious about how snails eat  - Alyssa.

By Louise, Charlie, Raiha, Alyssa and Gabrielle