International Students & ELC

Sovereign Hill 

On Friday 31 May, English Language Centre students had an excursion to Sovereign Hill to celebrate the end of ELC and experience Victoria. We learned about the Gold Rush as well. There were several students participating in this activity - all ELC students, new Year 10 international students, and ELC peer support leaders Amy Sin, Alice Xu and Samantha Martin.

The teacher who guided us was Ms Chang. Ms Garrow drove the mini bus for four hours to get us there and back. We did a variety of interesting things in Sovereign Hill. We went to Red Hill mine first where we experienced miners’ working conditions in the 1850s. 

After that, we rode in a horse drawn coach to tour the town and watch a gold pouring demonstration. We watched a candle making demonstration, which impressed me most. It was the first time I learned how they made a candle in 1851 and that was more difficult than I thought.

In order to enable this activity to be more educational and explored better by ourselves, we were divided into three groups to complete Survivor activity where the winning group received gold nuggets (chocolates) and the losing group had to work in the mines (not really).

Finally, we experienced gold panning which is the most exciting activity. I found flecks of gold after being taught how to pan. I had a wonderful time on this excursion as I have learned a lot of things about the Gold Rush. I also developed friendship with other local students.

Jessica Zhang (Year 9)