Junior School News

This week, the Junior School classes headed off to Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary as part of the immersion phase of our Geography Topic Unit and RE unit on Morality and Justice for Term Two.

Led by Ricketts Point educational facilitators, the Prep, Year 1 and 2 students engaged in rich-learning opportunities including:

• Exploring bush and marine habitats and their geographical features,
• Learning about marine creatures and life cycles, 
• Learning how the local area provided the traditional aboriginal owners with their needs, and 
• Formulating everyday actions they can take to reduce their impact on the marine environment.

It was a joy to observe the children's curiosity when exploring this special and protected place, as well as their passion to commit to changes they can make to take care of the world around them.

Thank you to all our wonderful parents who volunteered their time to help us with the excursion! We are so glad that everyone had such a fabulous day.

On return to school, we asked students to share what they had learned or their favourite moment of the day. It is no surprise that many students enjoyed their time exploring the rockpools and finding different sea creatures! Read on to hear more about our learning from the students themselves.

Rockpool Exploration

Patrick, Prep M: I learned so much on our excursion! I learned that sea snails can drill into shells, and starfish eat by going on top of a mussel. My favourite part of the day was finding a crab under a rock in the rockpools!

Rueben, Prep A: I found a crab with my dad in the rockpools! It was a little bit red and orange and it was big!

Monty, 1N: I found a water crab hiding under a rock. The lady helped me pick it up and I got to hold it in my hands!

Beach Box Creatures

Oscar, Prep M: I spotted the Port Jackson shark egg because it's brown and looks like seaweed wrapped around it. I got to hold it. It doesn't look like a normal egg!

Molly, Prep A: We saw a blue-ringed octopus in a jar. It was tiny. They are really poisonous, so if you see one at the beach, you don't touch it!

Bush Treasure Hunt

Charlotte T and Evie, 1N: We had to find lots of natural plants and animals and mark our findings on a checklist. We found them all. It was hard to find the ladybug. There is a plant called a pigface! It was hiding right near the end.

Maxim, Prep M: When we were doing the treasure hunt in the bush, we learned that Indigenous Australians lived in this area. Beck showed us a special tree that they used to make materials to hunt and get food. That's why there are not many of that type of tree there anymore because they used them to make materials in the past.

Habitat Haven

Rui, Prep A: We made sandcastles and we found shells to decorate them!

Noah, 1J: We played a habitat shark and fish game. The fish had to get bags with a surprise in them without being eaten by a shark. Some fish opened their bag and there was food, so they survived. Some fish had junk in their bag, so they died. The junk was nets, cans, and rubbish.

Sea Creature Features

Johnny, 2L: I learned about the Port Jackson shark. They have sharp teeth and rough skin. There are lots at Ricketts Point.

Daniel, 2L: I learned about the blue-ringed octopus. They have 3 hearts and are really dangerous because of their poison.

Our call to action

Eloise, Prep M: Now we need to make sure that we don't put rubbish on the ground because we need to take care of the animals. Also, we shouldn't take shells from the beach because they are homes for hermit crabs.

Ned, 1J: The rules at Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary are 'no taking', 'no littering', and 'no fishing'. No taking means leave everything natural at Ricketts Point, but I think that should mean at every beach because we need to keep all sea creatures natural habitats safe and protected!

Lisa Mclean

Junior School Leader