Inspiration from above

Students look on as the CFA and "scientist" inspect the fallen rock. Picture: CONTRIBUTED

By Bonny Burrows

The Pakenham-Berwick Gazette responded to reports of a fallen meteorite at Bunyip Primary School recently.
The ‘space rocks’, which ‘crashed’ into the school’s basketball court on 8 November, were part of a creative writing exercise aimed at stimulating student interest in writing.
Students arrived at school to see the police and fire brigade on scene as part of the mock-incident, and quickly came to conclusions about what the mysterious space rocks may be.
“I thought it was real from space,” one junior school student said.
“It was so exciting.”
Throughout the day, the students paid a visit to the scene of the crash, and were encouraged by teachers to write stories on how the meteorite came to be at Bunyip Primary.
‘Scientist’ Hayley, a university science student, was also on hand to inspect the fallen rock.
While some students were disappointed to eventually learn the meteorite was a fake, many praised Grade 3-4 teacher Kelly Smith for her creative idea.
Ms Smith and her colleagues were at school from 7am creating the fake meteorite landing.
“I really, really, really like the idea and even though I was disappointed that it wasn’t real it made my writing 100 times better,” one middle school student said.
“The effort was amazing. Bunyip Primary School is amazing because they put a lot of effort into making our learning fun,” was another response.
Another student said they were “really inspired” by the school’s creativity.
“It made me feel wow and I enjoyed writing about it,” the student said.
Principal Jenny Dowsett said the activity created a lot of buzz around the school.
“This event went amazingly well and generated a lot of excitement for the children and the adults. We especially appreciated the support of our local police and the CFA, who played their parts convincingly,” Ms Dowsett said.
“How amazing to have a whole community wanting to create something great for our students.”
While parents were informed the event was staged when asked, Ms Dowsett said the school did not promote what they had planned within the community as “we wanted it to appear genuine to the children”.
“A huge round of applause to our literacy leader and Grade 3-4 teacher, Mrs Kelly Smith, for coming up with this idea,” she said.