The sun had not even greeted Auckland with its presence when Sancta Maria College’s Year 11 geography class had to wake up for their trip to Rangitoto Island.
The 28 students of the class woke up bright and early on Monday morning to rush to school and meet the departure time of 7:15.
From the school, they caught a bus to Auckland City and then rode on a ferry to Rangitoto Island. Once they set foot on the island, the students were able to be passengers in a 4 wheel drive as they were taken up to the volcano. They were accompanied by a tour guide who explained some basic information about the place and how it came to be.
The ride up the volcano was insightful and intriguing for many, “On our way up, we saw many trees and lots of the lava fields from the volcano.”
A climb up to the top of the island did, however, leave many students exhausted and out of breath, “There was a point when we had to get off (the vehicle) and climb up these 365 stairs in order to get to the top of the summit…climbing up to the top was tiring as there were so many stairs.”
However many students were able to forget about the tiresome climb once they saw what greeted them at the top of the island, “When we got up to the top of the summit, we were able to see the whole city…the amount of stairs we climbed up was worth it. You could see everything so clearly.”
The purpose of the school trip was to allow the students to gain a deeper understanding of how Rangitoto came to be, “the trip was relatable to what we are learning as we are learning about volcanoes and the internal and external processes that led to the formation of Rangitoto.”
The trip definitely proved to be very beneficial for the students’ upcoming assessment, “we learnt more information about Rangitoto that would be useful to add into our assessment.”
Overall, it was a well-balanced, educational yet enjoyable, trip for many of the students, “I found it really fun because we were learning about Rangitoto outside of the classroom and because we got to see the view.”
Zoe Chou
