By JO HARRISON
Caption: From left, back: Ian Stephenson from the UNE Heritage Centre, Moyna Grant from the Armidale Folk Museum and Year 5/6 teacher at the Armidale Waldorf School Joanne Lowe. Front: Year 5/6 students Josie Flint, Tumi Thorsteinsson and Tom Lehman in front of a presentation on Booloominbah.
STUDY of the settlement of Australia has given Year 5/6 students at the Armidale Waldorf School a unique insight into the lives of early settlers, in particular, the lives of those living in Armidale through the study of local iconic buildings of historical significance.
To help them navigate their way through early life in Armidale, the students enlisted the help of local historians. A special luncheon was held last Thursday at the school to thank local historians and to present their work.
Year 5/6 teacher at the Armidale Waldorf School Joanne Lowe said the wealth of knowledge and advice provided by the historians gave the students a greater understanding of just how significant some of the local historical buildings played in the development of Armidale over many years.
“All of the children were given a local building to research, and we took advantage of the fabulous local resources at the UNE Heritage Centre, the Folk Museum, the Armidale Library and the Tourist Information Centre,” Joanne Lowe said.
“We tried to focus on buildings that were built towards the end of the nineteenth century including the courthouse, post office, lands office, railway station and Richardsons building with many children also studying the history of their own house and those of their grandparents.”
The project, which took around two and a half weeks to complete, helped the students build skills in interviewing, finding the differences between primary and secondary sources of information and understanding proportion during the sketching of their building.
“It tied in with many elements of English, HSIE and art, and just the cultural history that is so relevant to them,” Joanne said.
“Many of them live in houses that are old and you can forget that it actually has a history that is different to our own personal history.”
