Humanities

As part of the VCE Geography curriculum and their study of 'Tourism', students from the Year 11 Geography classes guided by their teachers - Mr Owen Lalor and Mr Sam Kelliher - went to Brighton Beach boxes on a Fieldwork excursion.

Students were examining the characteristics of tourism in the area, as well as the impact this has had on the natural environment. Students were able to collect valuable data to assist them in their final SAC for the year prior to their examinations; it was also a good opportunity for students to demonstrate their learning from the last 11 months, in a practical sense. 

The Year 9 History classes also undertook an excursion to the Mentone RSL to participate in a ‘Remembrance Day’ service. Year 9 have been learning about Australia’s involvement in WWI, and the excursion was a good opportunity to explore the impact that war has on a community not unlike our own. Students also visited the College Chapel, which has a list of past St Bede’s students and staff who fought for Australia in war. Below is an extract from the service, where students shared the following:

Today we lay a wreath of Red Poppies which we have created as a class. The poppy became a symbol for Remembrance Day after people read Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae poem ‘ In Flanders’s Fields’. The day before he wrote his famous poem, one of McCrae's closest friends was killed in the fighting and buried in a makeshift grave with a simple wooden cross. Wild poppies were already beginning to bloom between the crosses marking the many graves. Unable to help his friend or any of the others who had died, John McCrae gave them a voice through his poem. It was the second last poem he was to write. 

According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. "In Flanders Fields" was first published on December 8 of that year in the London magazine Punch. Flanders Fields is a common English name of the World War I battlefields in Belgium and France.

We will now conclude our ceremony with a reading of ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae:

Ms Meaghan Ryan 

Learning Area Leader Humanities (History and Geography) Mentone