WORK FROM 6/5A

CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION BY AEREEN AND HANNAH

YEAR SIX WORK FOLLOWING THEIR EXCURSION TO CANBERRA

In 1978 the Fraser government decided to proceed with a new building on Capital Hill and the Parliament House Construction Authority was created. Parliament House is the Centre of Australian politics for our nation and is situated in our Nation’s Capital Territory, Canberra. The two main chambers of Parliament House where our politicians sit are the House of Representatives and the Senate. In these two chambers politicians have their say about how our nation runs and make all the laws that our nation lives and governs by. The heart of our country’s Capital is in Parliament House and the space taken up by a fountain.

Parliament is in Canberra on Capital Hill.

The Politicians come to the Parliament House to have debates on various topics. The Parliament House is also a tourist attraction with many tourists coming to visit the wonderful House. Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia, comes to the Parliament House to talk about problems and things in Australia.

Parliament House itself is built of enough concrete to build twenty five Sydney Opera Houses. That’s a lot of concrete! As well as being built of concrete, Parliament House is also made of expensive surfaces of marble, granite and fine Australian timbers. Parliament House was opened by Her Majesty the Queen on May 9^th 1988. Before this another building was used to accommodate our Government. That is now used as the Electoral Education Centre.

The forecourt in front of the building features a dot tiled mosaic featuring approximately 90,000 hand-guillotined circular pieces of granite. This recognizes the important history of Australia's Indigenous People.

by Niki and Daniel 6G

QUESTACON

Questacon – the National Science and Technology Centre, is located on the southern shore of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, Australia. It is a large centre with more than 200 interactive exhibits relating to science and technology.  The centre is split up into seven galleries on different floors, accessed by a spiral ramp. The seven galleries are: Measure Island, Wonderworks, Awesome Earth, Mini Q, Sideshow,  Mechanics Alive and Eaten Alive.

• Measure Island is about measuring. They have many activities to help you learn how to use measurements for many different things.

• Wonderwork is a chance to explore our fascination of scientific phenomena – from the harmonic motion of a pendulum to light playing in a hologram.

• The Awesome Earth gallery is a way to experience all the natural occurrences on the Earth. You could experience lightning, an earthquake and a cyclones, and best of all, live to tell the tale.

• Mini Q is the place for children 0-6 years old to learn about magnetism, magnification, mass, fluids and polarised light.

• Sideshow looks at the culture and history, biology, psychology, physics and maths behind the fun of sideshow alley.

• Mechanics Alive is puppetry, science and technology. It features mechanical characters that can be brought to life with a push of a button.

• Eaten Alive is a range of techniques predators use to find and capture prey. It teaches how animals hunt for food in the wild.

In addition to the permanent exhibits there are also non permanent shows that you can watch. Science Time: Science of the Circus is a fun and interactive half-hour learning experience for little scientists aged between 2-6 years old. Perception Deception is a show that will be shown in July. Perception Deception is for anyone who owns a brain!  Explore the world inside your head and discover that 'reality' isn't what it seems. Change size before your eyes, feel a phantom limb or be unable to speak because of your voice.

LAKE BURLEY GRIFFIN

Lake Burley Griffin is an artificial lake in the centre of Canberra, the capital of Australia. It was completed in 1964 after the Molonglo River—which ran between the city centre and Parliamentary Triangle—was dammed. It is named after Walter Burley Griffin, the American architect who won the design competition for the city of Canberra.

Because of many interventions, the target water level was not reached until April 1964. It was formally inaugurated on 17 October 1964.

The lake is an ornamental body with a length of 11 km; at its widest, it measures 1.2 km. It has an average depth of 4 metres and a maximum depth of about 18 metres near the Scrivener Dam. Its flow is regulated by the 33 metre tall Scrivener Dam, which is designed to handle a once in 5,000 year flood event. If required in times of drought, water levels can be maintained through the release of water from Googong Dam, located on an upstream tributary of the Molonglo River.

CAPTAIN COOK MEMORIAL JET

The Captain Cook Memorial Jet is located in the central basin of Lake Burley Griffin, directly in front of the National Capital Exhibition Centre.

The jet sends out water to a maximum height of 147 metres, pumping it from, and returning it to, the lake. About six tonnes of water is in the air at any one moment when the main nozzle is in use, pumping 500 litres of water per second.

The Jet has two pumps, each pushing 250 litres of water per second from the lake.

The Captain Cook Memorial Jet operates daily from 2 pm – 4 pm. It is often turned on or coloured for special occasions and the best spot to take photographs from is Regatta Point.

THE NATIONAL CARILLON

The National Carillon, one of Canberra’s most striking landmarks, is also a unique and versatile musical instrument. All styles of music are represented, from compositions specially written for the Carillon, to popular song arrangements and improvisation.

It is located on Aspen Island in Lake Burley Griffin.

The Carillon was a gift from the British Government to the people of Australia celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the nation’s capital.

THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL

The idea of building a memorial as a tribute to the Australian men and women who fought in war, was conceived by Charles Bean, who was the official war correspondent of the 1^st AIF (Australian Imperial Force).

 Originally it was intended that the Memorial only be dedicated to the First World War, but, with the advent of World War 2, it was expanded to also cover this conflict and then subsequently all conflicts.

 The Australian War Memorial was opened in 1941. It sits at the top of Anzac Parade and looks down on Canberra and Parliament House. It is open to visitors everyday.

 The War Memorial in Canberra is considered the nation's greatest and is home to a large collection of displays pictures, media and information about the War, personal and public records and more.

 The collections held in the Australian War Memorial reflect all wars and other armed conflicts in which Australia has contributed across the world. These include WWI, WWII, Korean War, South African War, Gulf War and more.

The memorial hosts a range of activities, a vast collection of information and pays tribute to over 102,000 Australian men and women who died serving their country here and overseas.

It also holds little wreath laying ceremonies every week at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier within the Memorial. Often schools will take up the opportunity to participate in this special ceremony.

INTERESTING FACTS ON CANBERRA

About 340,400 people live in Canberra.

Canberra's name is meant to mean "meeting place" derived from the Aboriginal word Kamberra.

Parliament House is one of the largest buildings in the Southern Hemisphere. It has 4,500 rooms, the flagpole is 81m tall and more than 3,500 people work at Parliament House.  

Walter Burley Griffin won a competition to design the national capital in 1911. Marion Mahoney was Griffin's wife, an architect herself who worked with her husband. Lake Burley Griffin was named after him.

The largest inland city in Australia, this is a cosmopolitan centre and offers a high quality of living for its residents. Canberra is actually known as “bush capital” given the large areas of green parkland and open space that was built into the design of the city on its formation in 1911.

After a lengthy dispute over whether Sydney or Melbourne should be Australia's national capital, the final decision was to build a new capital between the two cities. Canberra replaced Melbourne as the capital of Australia in 1908.

The National library has more than 6,000,00o books, maps drawings, films, photographs and audio tapes.

The Australian National Gallery has more than 125,000 artworks from around the world.

Canberra covers 805 square kilometres.  Its average sunshine per day is 7.2 hours, its average winter temperature is 10 degrees and its average summer temperature is 26 degrees.

OLD PARLIAMENT HOUSE

Old Parliament House, formerly known as the Provisional Parliament House, was the seat of the Parliament of Australia from 1927 to 1988. The building was opened on 9 May 1927 as a temporary base for the Commonwealth Parliament following its relocation from Melbourne to the new capital, Canberra, until a grander building could be constructed. In 1988, the Commonwealth Parliament transferred to the new Parliament House on Capital Hill. It also serves as a venue for temporary exhibitions, lectures and concerts. On 1 May 2008 it was made an Executive Agency of the Deputy of the Prime Minister

Designed by John Smith Murdoch and a team of assistants, the building was intended to be neither temporary nor permanent – only to be a ‘provisional’ building that would serve as a parliament for fifty years. The design brief extended from the building to include its gardens, décor and furnishings. The building is in the Stripped Classical Style, common in Australian government buildings constructed in Canberra during the 1920s and 1930s. It does not include classical architectural elements such as columns, entablatures or pediments, but does have the orderliness and symmetry associated with neoclassical architecture. The building's design was, and is, considered a success because of the clarity of shape, regular composition, dazzling whiteness and pleasantly human scale.

Old Parliament House lies at the foot of Capital Hill at the centre of the Parliamentary Triangle, which itself forms the heart of Walter Burley Griffin’s design for Canberra - an open vista of Lake Burley Griffin, Anzac Parade, the Australian War Memorial and Mount Ainslie beyond.

Old Parliament House is open everyday between 9.00am-5.00pm, and you can either join a guided tour or follow a self-tour, simply following the maps and information sheets along the way. The tour is definitely worth following, and tells you plenty of information about the history of Australia's Parliament. It is possible to visit nearly all areas of the Old Parliament House. As you wander along the guided tour, you will pass Kings Hall, the House of Representatives Chamber, the Corridors of Power, the Ministerial Party Room, the Prime Ministers Office, the Cabinet Room, the National Portrait Gallery, the Senate Chamber, the Suite of the President of the Senate, the Senate Club Room, the House Gallery and the Strangers Gallery.

By Kate and Felicity, 6G

The Australian Senate typically sits for 50 to 60 days a year. Most of those days are grouped into 'sitting fortnights' of two four-day weeks. These are in turn arranged in three periods: the autumn sittings, from February to April; the winter sittings, which commence with the delivery of the budget in the House of Representatives on the first sitting day of May and run through to June or July; and the spring sittings, which commence around August and continue until December, and which typically contain the largest number of the year's sitting days.

The senate has a regular schedule that structures its typical working week.

All bills must be passed by a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate before they become law. Most bills originate in the House of Representatives, and the great majority are introduced by the government.

The usual procedure is for notice to be given by a government minister the day before the bill is introduced into the Senate. Once introduced the bill goes through several stages of consideration. It is given a first reading which represents the bill's formal introduction into the chamber.

The first reading is followed by debate on the principle or policy of the bill (the second reading debate). Agreement to the bill in principle is indicated by a second reading, after which the detailed provisions of the bill are considered by one of a number of methods (see below). Bills may also be referred by either House to their specialized standing or select committees. Agreement to the policy and the details is confirmed by a third and final reading. These processes ensure that a bill is systematically considered before being agreed to.

The Senate has detailed rules in its standing orders that govern how a bill is considered at each stage. This process of consideration can vary greatly in the amount of time taken. Consideration of some bills is completed in a single day, while complex or controversial legislation may take months to pass through all stages of Senate scrutiny.

All bills must be passed by a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate before they become law. Most bills originate in the House of Representatives, and the great majority are introduced by the government.

One of the functions of the Senate, both directly and through its committees, is to scrutinize government activity. The vigour of this scrutiny has been fuelled for many years by the fact that the party in government has seldom had a majority in the Senate. Whereas in the House of Representatives the government's majority has sometimes limited that chamber's capacity to implement executive scrutiny, the opposition and minor parties have been able to use their Senate numbers as a basis for conducting inquiries into government operations. When the Howard government won control of the Senate in 2005, it sparked a debate about the effectiveness of the Senate in holding the government of the day accountable for its actions. Government members argued that the Senate continued to be a forum of vigorous debate, and its committees continued to be active. The Opposition leader in the Senate suggested that the government had attenuated the scrutinizing activities of the Senate. The Australian Democrats, a minor party which has frequently played mediating and negotiating roles in the Senate, expressed concern about a diminished role for the Senate's committees.

Reported by Fiona and Dean

YEAR SIX ART

The first day of school could not have been merrier,

The teacher turned out to be a fox terrier

Who taught us to leap and taught us to bark

And chase little birdies all over the park.

For the rest of our lives we still had the spark

From the first day of school.