Day One: Photo Of The Team

Day One: Collective Mapping Of Our Research Vessel

After we had discovered that we were going to be marine scientists on board a research vessel we had to design our boat. We looked on the website for our fictional company, NZ COSSA, and found a fact sheet for The Aumoana, our research vessel. We also looked at some photos and you tubes of other real research vessels including The Joides Resolution (an international research vessel) and the Tangaroa (the local research vessel of NIWA here in Wellington). This helped us imagine what our research vessel might look like. We learnt about different decks on a boat (including the bridge, tween, upper, trawling, and bottom decks), and different types of equipment such as winching equipment to lower scientific equipment into the water. We had to think about what the people on the boat would need to live on the boat for weeks at a time including cabins, cafeterias, medical rooms and lots more! We divided into groups to read the fact sheet for The Aumoana and then in these groups we chose an area of the boat to map. We all had a go at mapping using a birds eye view, which was a good challenge! Each group then shared back to everyone all the details they had added to our boat.

Day One: Exploring Our Fictional Workplace

One of our first tasks was to look around the room for clues about our imaginary workplace. We looked for clues about what kind of people we were going to pretend to be, and what kind of work we were going to be doing. We read newspaper articles and looked at photos about marine research in the Southern Ocean, which were on a newsboard. We also looked at renovation plans for our workplace building, folders of classification cards for different types of plankton and other animals in the marine food web, and different types of maps including deep sea maps, world maps and maps of Antarctica.

Day One: Building Belief In Our Fictional Company

What we ‘saw’ as we walked through our imaginary work place, the NZ COSSA building. We decided that the building was in Days Bay and on Moana Road (because that meant ‘sea’ and was like the name of our boat). We were keen to have it on this side of Wellington Harbour! Together we created a mental picture of our imaginary workplace.

Standing outside the building:
• “I see blue walls with paintings of maps on it.”
• “There’s a sign in block letters…it says NZ COSSA and underneath ‘New Zealand Centre of Scientific Sea Avtivity’…it is in red writing.”
• “There’s security!”
• “The door has a combination lock…an alarm pad…the code is ‘*,*,*,*’.”

In the entranceway to our building:
• “There’s a big tank of fish.”
• “There are waves of dark blue on the walls and then there is light blue…”
• “There’s a map of the depths around New Zealand.”
• “There’s a room for waiting.”
• “There are peachy coloured, sand coloured couches.”
• “I can see a couch that has lots of toys on it like dolphins on it…for children to play with if they visit.”
• “There is a reception. There are two ladies…Amelia and Charlotte!”

In a science lab:
• “We are outside a science room.”
• “There are teeth from a killer whale, seal’s fur, fish teeth, shark bones,”
• “Microscopes...”
• “A film of penguins swimming in Antarctica….”
• “I can see a computer with lots of science things on, fish and sharks and things.”

In a storage room:
• “There are scuba diving suits…and breathing gear”
• “There are life rings”
• “There are underwater cameras”
• “Survival containers and emergency food”
• “And spearguns”
• “There’s first aid”
• “Jars for putting fish in”
• “Life jackets”

Upstairs: (using the lift!)
• “Lots of comfy chairs and desks with computers.”
• “There’s a kitchen. There’s milk and weetbix if you come to work really really early.”
• “There’s a coffee machine.”
• “There are a couple of beers in the fridge.”
• “There is a biscuit tin and lollies for children visiting school children.”
• “A dishwasher”
• “A toilet room…male and female…and they are really really clean….with bunches of flowers in them!”

Looking at carpark out the window:
• “There’s a garden.”
• “There’s a little pond with fish in it.”
• “There’s a motorbike.”
• “There’s a van that you can make your weetbix and eat it in your van”
• “I come to work in a Ferrari”
• “There’s a trailer with lots of storage space on it for the equipment….and my van.”
• “There are things to life heavy boxes and things onto the trailer.”
• “There’s a space to load everything.”
• “There’s a boat room with fishing nets.”