This week, we continued with Sir Edmund Hillary, Jean Batten, and Ernest Rutherford — three amazing New Zealanders who changed the world.

We found out about the incredible things they did:

• Sir Edmund Hillary was the first person to climb Mt Everest, and he helped build schools and hospitals in Nepal and is on the New Zealand 5 dollar bank note
• Jean Batten was a brave pilot who flew all the way from England to New Zealand by herself!
• Ernest Rutherford was a scientist who discovered important things about atoms — he even split the atom!We talked about how each of them inspired other people and made a big impact on future generations.We also mapped Jean Batten’s flight path on a world map and saw all the countries she flew over. It was really cool to see how far she travelled!

  Then we chose one of the three people and made a fact file about them. We wrote about who they were, what they did, and why they were important.

  For our STEAM challenges, we got creative!

  • We designed a survival tool or shelter, thinking like Sir Edmund Hillary on an expedition.
  • We designed paper airplanes to test which would fly the furthest, like Jean Batten

We also built a structure to keep an ice cube from melting. We had to think carefully about materials, insulation, and design.

💡 What We Learned:

• We learned that one person can make a big difference in the world.
• We practised teamwork, problem-solving, and design thinking.
• We used science and creativity to build and test our ideas.
• We gained confidence in sharing our learning in different ways — maps, writing, building, and presenting.

It was an exciting week full of challenges, learning, and fun! We’re proud of what we created and how much we discovered about these inspiring New Zealanders.

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Our timeline digitally and on paper-Famous New Zealanders

This week in STEAM, we did this really fun activity where we became researchers!

In groups of 3-4 we were given a famous New Zealanders to research about.Some people learned about Jean batten, first person to fly across the Tasman sea! Others had Sir Edmund Hillary, first person to climb Mount Everest.While others were learning and researching about Ernest Rutherford who split the atom!

In my group we had Te Rina, Siobhan and I we worked as a team to find important times and events in this persons life-like when they passed when they were born of we their lives changed forever. We put all our facts together in order to make a timeline on a big sheet of paper. It was like retelling this persons life as a story!

Then we turned our awesome timelines into a digital timeline on Canva. We added shapes and pictures even colours to make them really stand out and make them look even more awesome!

We learned:

-How to work as a team

-How to research properly

-How to add shapes and pictures on Canva

It was really fun learning about all these amazing kiwis. We think they would love our timelines!

I didn’t know Jean batten flew across the ocean

I didn’t know Ernest Rutherford was a scientist

I didn’t know that Edmund Hillary was on the five dollar bill

We can’t wait to learn more about this in STEAM and share it with you next time!