Motueka South School

50 Years of Learning

Room 9’s Research Process

Planning and exploring:

What did you do to start this inquiry?

Step 1 - Planning

We did a round robin activity where we had to come up with as many answers as we could to the question:

How has life changed over the last 50 years?

From this we came up with several topics that we wanted to find out more about, then we split into our inquiry groups.

We did a key questions sheet to plan out what questions we should search on the internet or ask people, and what key words we should use to find useful information. Then we searched the questions online and using books, and also asked people what they knew about our topic.

What questions did students ask?

How have children's activities changed over the last 50 years?

What did children and adults do to entertain themselves?

How has teaching and learning changed over the last 50 years?

What was the equipment that kids used to help them learn?

What are some of the most memorable world events?

What were some of the most memorable events in New Zealand?

How has behaviour management changed over the last 50 years?

What methods were used for discipline?

How has fashion changed over the last 50 years?

What sort of clothes were fashionable back then?

How has family life changed over the last 50 years?

Were families different? How?

What did families do together?

Where did students find their information?

Step 2 - Exploring

The internet, asking people and in books. We also had a visitor (one of our dads - Darren Bisley) come and speak to us. He went to our school in the 70s and it was really interesting hearing about his memories of life at school and in the community at that time.

One group went into town during a lunch hour and interviewed members of the public on video. People in town were really friendly and were happy to answer their questions. They then made it into a movie using Moviemaker (including bloopers) and shared it with the class. They had lots of fun producing this movie.