Humanities

Margaret Marton

Year 8 Humanities Teacher

A Polynesian meal, singing, coconut husking and lots of family stories: a fun way to celebrate learning!!

On September 17th, 2020, the Year 8 Humanities History classes participated in “A Taste of Polynesia” activity in the College Green Leaf Café. Although it was a rainy day, and there were visiting schools at a large football carnival and the area was busy, the event was an excellent finale to the term. During the previous three weeks students had been investigating the Polynesian Expansion across the Pacific. For a fun way to extend that learning Helena, our College Chaplain, and Mr Eddy Tutoe, our VET trainer and assessor, explained many aspects of Tongan life. As well, Mr van Dam, the chef at the Green Leaf Café, cooked sweet potato chips with corn beef and gravy followed by beautiful banana and coconut cake. So, eating Polynesian food, singing Polynesian chants, watching coconuts being husked and listening to lots of stories about Polynesian family life was a fantastic way to celebrate our Polynesian learning.

We thank Ms Helena, Mr Tutoe and Mr van Dam for their wonderful efforts to make this such a great College event.

Some student comments about this learning celebration

Emily Edwards said: “I loved the food: it was delicious so I would love to eat again. I really like how we learnt the clapping and I thought it was cool how they break open coconut”.

Bella Franze said: “The food tasted fantastic! I especially enjoyed the coconut and pineapple/peach smoothies. The mixture of flavours with the meat, potatoes, sweet potatoes and gravy was really nice.  Everybody was enjoying the food and being around others. The feeling of community when we all sang and clapped in time with everyone around us was enjoyable”.