Day 6: Morning: Clay Models of Equipment

This morning we studied photos and diagrams of different types of equipment, which are used on board research vessels to collect samples for studying. Each research group studied a piece of equipment that would be used for their particular area of research. We then used clay to make models of the different pieces of equipment. Some of us found the 3D modelling quite a challenge, and there was a lot of working out how best to use the clay to get it to stand on its own!

We then made labels to go with our piece of equipment that described what they were used for and how they were used. Different groups used different computer programmes to make the labels, some used Comic Life and some used Keynote.


Sedimentary Trap: Lowered into the sea for several months at a time to collect phytoplankton and microscopic zooplankton samples.
Model by: Helena and Georgia.


DTIS: An underwater digital camera that takes photos of the sea floor.
Model by Tim.


Side Scan Sonar: Travels alongside the boat and collects information to make a 3D map of the sea floor.
Model by Max and Tom.


MOCNESS: Multiple opening and closing nets that collect samples from the sea at different depths.
Model by Lucy and Zoe.


CTD: This piece of equipment is lowered into the sea to collect water samples to measure the salinity, temperature, and depth of the water.


CPR: A Continuous Plankton Recorder. This instrument is towed behind the boat to collect plankton samples.
Model by Samantha and Rosa.


A Multicorer: Takes shallow cores, about 30cm deep, from the sea floor.
Model by Mia P. and Sally.


Life Jacket, Steel Cap Boots, and Hard Hat: Safety gear to be worn while working with any equipment on deck.
Model by Mia W.

Day 5: Afternoon: Reflecting on our Learning

This afternoon we did some preparation for being interviewed by Muritai TV about what we have been doing on Mondays in the Green Room. We reflected on what we had learnt about Mantle of the Expert so far and we discussed the positives/minuses/and interesting things about this type of learning. We also came up with some key sentences about what we have learnt in our research. For homework we are going to have a go at sharing these key sentences with someone in our family.

These are the key sentences that each research group came up with this afternoon:

Group 1
Zooplankton can be different sizes some are microscopic and some are as big as jellyfish.
Plankton means wandering or drifting.
Zooplankton don’t swim very far they mainly float in the sea currents.
Krill is a type of zooplankton.
Krill is very important, nearly everything in the sea eats krill.
Zooplankton is an animal type of plankton, they eat phytoplankton and other plankton.

Group 2
Pythoplankton is a type of microscopic plant that lives in the sea.
Plankton means drifting or floating.
Phytoplankton is moved by the currents, it cannot swim on its own.
Plankton needs nutrients and sunlight to grow, just like plants on earth.
Phytoplankton breathes carbon dioxide and breathes out oxygen.
Phytoplankton make their own food, they are at the bottom of the marine food web.

Group 3
Antarctic Silverfish and the toothfish are part of the notothenioidei fish family.
Silverfish are a type of fish that can live in freezing cold waters, there blood doesn’t freeze.
Silverfish are endangered because they grow under ice sheets and the ice is melting.
Penguins are dying out because the silverfish are dying out.

Group 4
There are volcanoes and sea mountains on the sea floor.
There are different types of muds and clays on the sea floor.
There are fossils on the sea floor like phytoplankton, and zooplankton such as krill.
There are risen bits of land on the sea floor such as the Chatham Rise.

Group 5
Cores are drilled from the sea floor to find different layers.
There are different depths of ocean around New Zealand.
There is a current called the circumpolar current that comes from Antarctica and its cold.
There are currents called the tropical and subtropical current, and these are warmer.
The oceans around NZ are the Atlantic, the South Pacific, and the Tasman Sea.

Group 6
The drill pipes on boats drill into the sea floor and collect tubes of earth to study called cores.
Cores can contain rock, sediments, and fossils.
Cores have a lot of history, different layers can have different fossils.
Fossils can tell you about what was alive in different times.
Cores have different layers from different times.
The layer at the top is the newest.
The deepest layer is the oldest.

Day 5: Mid Morning: Some New Tasks

After morning tea we went into role and had a team meeting. We received an email from management asking us to include some more things in our new foyer display design. These were to include a history of the NZ COSSA company, some information about the diving work done on board The Aumoana, and finally some information about life on board The Aumoana. We reviewed our progress on our research projects and decided to spend a day focussing on these new jobs. We decided we could only afford to spend one day of time on it though! So we divided into 3 working groups to tackle these new tasks.

One group created a historical timeline for our company. They interviewed everyone about when they joined the company, put together the dates on the newspaper articles, and decided on some key moments in the history of our company. Using drama we agreed to believe that the timeline recorded the history of our fictional company.

Another group worked on researching about diving equipment and procedures for diving in Antarctica. We received another email from management reminding us that we all needed our diving certificates renewed, and that involved proving recent diving experience and having all diving equipment checked. After doing their research, this working group decided to lead the whole team in a diving equipment check and then took us all on an imagined dive in Antarctic waters.


Diving Equipment Checklist.



“Just some advice, when you put your flippers on walk backwards so you don’t trip over….my assistants Julius and Robbie have their equipment on correctly so watch them…” Max talking as he led us on a team dive and diving equipment check.



“Diving in Antarctic is very dangerous because it is below 1 degree Celsius. You need to drill two holes in the ice because a seal sometimes uses one up! There needs to be two people to help one person diving. The rescuers need to be ready in their diving equipment to dive in and rescue if they need to. They need to have an extra layer so that they’re warmer! Not like normal diving!” Write up by Max.

The third working group did some research about life on board a research vessel. They then used drama to put together a ‘filmed’ interview with 3 scientists about the work they did on the boat, the gear they had to wear, what the food was like, and what their favourite thing was about living on the boat. We agreed to believe that we were watching a filmed interview as this group performed their interview to us. Next week we will try to make a real recording of this interview.

Day 5: Morning: Company Mission Statement and Key Values

This morning we talked as a group about having a mission statement for our company. We talked about Muritai School’s mission statement ‘Muritai Students will be the best that they can be’, and we identified and discussed some of the school’s key values, which included values of working well together, respecting and caring for each other, looking after the environment, and respecting things Maori.

We talked about why the school values things Maori and we had a great discussion!

“It is part of our culture”
“It is important in New Zealand”
“The Maori were here first…and we signed a Treaty”
“If we didn’t use the language in New Zealand it might become extinct”

We learnt that in New Zealand many companies value things Maori to help protect the Maori language and culture, and to honour the Treaty of Waitangi.

We brainstormed ideas for a mission statement as a whole group, worked in small groups to try and put our ideas into one sentence, and then had a small working group to pull everyone’s ideas together to come up with our final mission statement. It was a big job to get all the words just right, but we are all really pleased with what we have come up with.

NZ COSSA’S Mission Statement:

‘We explore and investigate so that the sea world around New Zealand can be protected for the future.’

Key Company Values:
• We work hard to be the best scientists we can be
• We research and give people information about the sea around New Zealand so that is can be protected.
• We do our best to look out for endangered species of fish.
• We work as a team and respect each other.
• We respect things Maori because it is part of New Zealand’s culture and the Treaty of Waitangi.

After talking about valuing things Maori in our company we talked about ways a company could reflect this value. We thought we could use the online Maori dictionary to find Maori words to express some of our key company values. We found a number of Maori words to do with protecting, cherishing, and caring for the sea environment.

Georgia suggested we email Mr Chadwick to see if he could put some of the Maori words we chose (‘tai’ meaning sea, ‘taonga’ meaning treasures/things we cherish, and ‘kaitiaki’ meaning caring and protecting for the future) into a sentence to be a part of our mission statement. We are looking forward to hearing back from him!

Some of us are also going to have a go at designing a logo for our company.

“A logo is a picture or a symbol, which represents what company it is.” Tim.

We are looking forward to seeing some designs next week.

Day 4: Afternoon: Drilling Our Core.

Adding a New (Holocene) Layer to our Sea Floor Model.


Our Core


'Drilling Our Core'


Next we did a core drilling experiment and agreed to believe that this represented the core we had headed to the Chatham Rise to drill on board The Aumoana. Ms Gain had created a sea floor model that had different layers, made up of cake slices and coloured playdough. Some of us took turns to add/deposit some new, recent layers to our sea floor to help us understand that the top layers in a core are the newest. We then used a long plastic tube to 'drill' a core sample. When the tube was lifted out we could see the different layers of our core. We talked about how the deepest layers of a core are the oldest and the top layers are the newest. We then looked at the Geological Time Scale and talked about how geologists can describe the different time periods the different layers are from. For example a layer of a core that is dated to 160 million years ago (done by testing fossils found in the layer) can be described as coming from the Jurassic period. The most recent material deposited on the sea floor today is described as being in the Holocene period. Some of our group has been researching how cores can tell us stories about the past, including the story of the KT boundary. In cores that have been drilled around the world there is a common layer of ash, which has been dated to 65 million years ago. This layer of ash, which seems to have covered the earth's surface, is thought to be evidence of an asteroid that hit the earth in the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago. It is thought that this event led to the extinction of dinosaurs, and in fact many creatures. There are many fossils found in layers below this ash layer that are not found above it.

Day 4: Mid Morning: Diary Writing

Next we imagined that we were on another scientific venture on board our research vessel The Aumoana. In contrast to our last imagined trip, this trip so far had been smooth sailing. We imagined that this venture was to the Chatham Rise Region where the team had planned to drill a core. There were now experts in our group who could tell us some details about the Chatham Rise and show us the area on a map of the sea floor. Ms Gain gave us the longitude and latitude co-ordinates of where we were heading to drill our core and we all had a go at marking this on a map. This was something new for all of us and a good challenge!

We went and sat in our own spaces on the field to help us get into role for this writing. It was a beautiful day and the flat green field became our sea! For this diary entry we tried to include sea life that we might see on the boat and details of the science work we would be doing. After our writing we shared our favourite sentences to each other as a group. Here is some writing from our diary entries.

'It is a beautiful morning and I am very pleased to say that we are launching our drill pipe tomorrow, very exciting. I hope we find lots of fossils. Our boat has already fished up lot of plankton, silverfish, and phytoplankton […] The best thing about living on a boat is the sunrise. There are no hills in sight so around 7 o’clock the sun goes down and reflects on the water. It is the most wonderful sight in the world, it is awesome'. Mia W.

'Another beautiful morning on the Aumoana. A pod of dolphins are passing us as I write. I named one Splash and another Cloudy. The boat is surrounded by crystal clear waters but the wind is still strong when I’m out on deck. I’ve just seen a pesky seagull eating someone lunch but I left him to it because he was so skinny. He came back for my lunch but that time I didn’t leave him to it! […] The stillness of the water goes blood red from the sunset. The sunrise is just as good!' Sally

'It is just morning and I am the only one up. All of the others are asleep apart from me. It is so quiet being the only one up and I just saw a big whale squirt water out of its spout.' Lucy

'I left Wellington 2 days ago and I am just about at the Chatham Rise to drill a core…I can see no hills so the sun goes down by the water. The colour of the sun is kind of orange and red mixed'. Tom

'Tomorrow I’m going to be in the lab all day. We counted fish and plankton yesterday. Tomorrow we will be measuring things […] We wear warm clothes like overalls and woollen hats.' Zoe

'There is an albatross flying around the boat and a blue whale chasing some krill that we want to catch for our science. Tomorrow we are going to drill a core, which I am excited about.' Mia P.

'The sunrise is amazing. I smell seaweed pulling up the nets, it is hard work.' Julius

'It’s lovely weather. Not there yet. Been doing lots of sampling, which is fun, but I miss my family. I’ve been on the deck lots.' Rosa

'Sunny days, great food, fun games, and amazing discoveries. The weather is great. Last night I saw a shooting star. The boat is quite rocky but I don’t mind.' Tim

'It is a very hot day today. I have been sampling very hard and I am very tired, we have been on our boat for two days.' Samantha

'It’s warmish its about 12 degrees and pretty sunny too […] When we put our clothes on we have to put on lots of layers.' Robbie

'Very smelly because of all that plankton I’ve been allowed to spray my room with perfume because it’s so smelly.' Georgia

Day 4: The Morning: Researching and Poster Design Work

Today we got stuck straight into researching for our foyer display project. In our teams we continued to find answers to our research questions. We also started to think about how we were going to put our information on our posters. We started to think of some good attention grabbing titles and headings for our poster. In our research teams we had to decide how many headings we were going to have on our poster to show our research clearly. We started to think about what diagrams, images, photos, and pictures we would like to include on our poster. We have also had to start thinking about how we are going to record the references of where we have got our information from. We have all chosen different programs for publishing our posters including Comic Life, Keynote, and Word.