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2001
On Thursday, 2 August, 2001, Years 5G, 5F and 5K went to the Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens and the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium. It was a great day out and the Gardens were as beautiful as always. We were worried this might be our last visit to the Planetarium as there had been talk of closing it. We hope this doesn't happen!! Here's Cassie's report on our excursion:
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| On Thursday 2 August my class was lined up beside our classroom ready to go on a trip to the Planetarium. We had been planning this trip for weeks. We had each paid $13.50 and each had our own booklets to fill out. We waited until the teachers got things ready and then followed the other grade 5 class onto the bus. | |
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| We each had a partner for the trip. Mine was Alex. On the bus we chose seats 21 and 22 to sit on. The bus ride was very long, but we enjoyed it. I saw a long bridge with big arches on both sides that joined together at the top. At last the bus pulled into the carpark of the Planetarium. | |
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| After everyone had gotten off the buses, all the children followed the teachers past a restaurant and onto a sunny patch of grass in front of a large stream. We stopped there for morning tea and to check our booklets so we knew what to do in them. This ibis took one of the boy's sandwiches right out of his hand! | |
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| While we were eating some ibises came and tried to take our food. We also saw a bush turkey and a lizard. The lizard was well camouflaged in the bushes. | |
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| When we finished our morning tea we went back across the carpark and waited outside the Planetarium. Then a lady let us in. She said we could look around. | |
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| There were lots of displays in the room. Some were about the moon and some were about meteors. After most of us had finished looking the lady led us to a dark room with lots of seats. | |
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| We all sat on the seats and watched the pictures that were on the roof while a man told us about the pictures. He told us about stars and how they move and about other planets. | |
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| Here is the projector they use to show the pictures on the top of the dome. After the talk we walked over to a huge lake with a lot of ducks on it. | |
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| There we had lunch. After we finished our lunch we had to fill in the first page of our booklets. The page was called ‘‘Life on a lagoon’’. We had to fill in the names of animals and plants and tick a box if we saw small fish, tadpoles, birds feeding on plants, birds in shade and a dragonfly. | |
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| I found everything. The hardest to find was small fish. Next we went into the Tropical Dome. The Tropical Dome is a giant glass dome with plants in it. | |
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| The dome has tropical air that the plants need. The only hole where fresh air can get in is the door. | |
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| When we had gotten in through the door we began working on a page of our booklet called ‘‘Useful plants from wet tropics’’. While we were doing our booklets we looked around the dome. There were lots of plant-filled gardens that went around a giant lake. | |
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| In the lake were coins that people had tossed in. After a few minutes we went out of the Tropical Dome and sat on the steps outside while the other group went inside it. When they came out we all followed the teachers to the start of the Arid Trail. | |
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| The Arid Trail was white arrows painted onto the ground around gardens. We had to follow the arrows and answer questions that are in our booklets about the plants that are in the gardens. | |
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| We had a great view of the Tropical Dome from the Arid Trail. We had to go around it twice to make sure we didn’t miss anything. | |
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| Next we climbed up some stairs to the Herb and Fragrant garden. The Herb and Fragrant garden is a big area with lots of tiny gardens. The plants that
are in the garden have leaves that are used to make things such as perfume and oil.
We had to choose a plant and fill in the last page of our booklets about it. To smell the leaves, we had to rub our fingers
on them and then smell our fingers. My plant was the Red Ginger Lily and it smelled like perfume. Before we left we went to the Japanese garden and Bonsai House. The Japanese garden is a sunny place full of plants with a lake in the middle. There were lots of stone paths to follow. The Bonsai House was a stone house full of plants in pots. The plants were numbered. After the Bonsai House we walked back to the carpark. On the way I saw another lizard. When we got to the carpark we got on the buses and went back to school. When everyone was back in school and in their classrooms, we marked our booklets. It was a great day. |
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Click here to return to the Year 5 Page. |
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Click here to have a look at our Solar System Page. |
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Click here to go the the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium Home Page. |
These pages are created and maintained by Glenda Crew.
