Last week Stage 3 were given the opportunity to visit the NSW State Parliament House and the State Library. At the NSW State Parliament House we went to both houses, the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Similar to the different houses in the National Parliament House in Canberra, the Legislative Assembly is green and the Legislative Council is red. When we went inside we were amazed by all the artefacts and paintings of previous members of parliament.

Firstly, we went to the Legislative Assembly where the seats were green. We participated in a role play using some of the important positions. We role played the introduction of a new bill that school should be extended to include Saturdays as well!.  We got to sit in the real house and on the seats that our government use when debating bills which was very exciting. Once we finished the role play we went outside and went into the Legislative Council and learnt about what happens there as well at it’s unusual history.

After Parliament House we visited the State Library and saw the biggest book in New South Wales as well as hearing that the collection on display in the library is only one percent of the books that they have. We then went through some very long corridors and explored amazing artefacts (primary sources of information) that the library had in their collection. A few of the artefacts actually came off Captain Cook’s ship, the Endeavour, which is truly amazing to consider.

After looking at all the artefacts we went to the big Mitchell Library. Our tour guide told us that they have all the books published in NSW in the library. After going to the Mitchell Library we went into this dark room. We all read about and explored one of our favourite objects in the room and many of them came from World War 1 and 2. I choose a pair of socks knitted for a soldier by an 11 year old kid. There was something special about those socks, they had a letter in them to encourage a soldier who the socks went to.

We had to collect information and record it onto a paper template that we then folded into a box to represent a brick. After building the boxes we stacked them up on each other to make the Mitchell Library.

This excursion was an excellent way to consolidate our inquiry into how we organise ourselves and our work on systems of government. We were certainly able to ask some great open ended questions and our guides were impressed with our knowledge and inquisitive nature.

Hamish Taylor – Year 6C

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