Session 3 - December 5th - Voyages of Discovery

Mrs Heywood led a fabulous History session on explorers of the world.  The girls learnt how chocolate, cinnamon, potato and coffee were 'discovered' by explorers centuries ago.  The girls were then split into teams and sent off on a treasure hunt around the school to find clues on their chosen explorer before sharing the information with the rest of the group. 

Following a cookie break the girls mixed up the teams to share information and debate who, in their opinion, was the best explorer.

We learnt that Captain James Cook wanted to claim land for Britain and on his travels he discovered a variety of plants and animals, he found the East coast of Australia, New Zealand and the Cook Islands.  Sadly Captain Cook was killed when his ship was attacked.  

Group 3 taught us that Sir Francis Drake was a brave risk taker, however, he also stole gold from the Spanish and attacked the Spanish fleet in its harbour.  

We found out that Sir Walter Raleigh made a number of safe voyages and explored an area he named Virginia, he discovered potatoes and tobacco. However, he angered King James I when he failed to discover El Dorado and was executed!

Many of the girls knew more information about Christopher Columbus, however, we found out that he was a very brave man sailing out in to the unknown, he discovered the Caribbean Islands, which he thought was India so they were named the West Indies, this discovery encouraged others to explore North and South America.

Finally we were found out lots of information about a much lesser well known explorer Henry Hudson, he set out to discover the North -West passageway, although he explored many areas of Canada and found Hudson Bay he failed to achieve his goal, his crew put him in a boat with no oars and he was left to die!

The girls debated who deserved the best explorer award and following a discussion, everyone agreed that as Sir Francis Drake was a pirate and a thief he was out the running.  The girls made a unaminous decision and chose Captain James Cook because he discovered over 1,000 types of plants and explored the East coast of Australia, they felt he deserved the award as he was the bravest and best explorer and they felt that discovering the plants was of vital importance as the plants could have been used in medicine and his exploration of the East Coast of Australia, the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Hawaii and helped to create maps of the area. 

Thank you to Mrs Heywood for a great morning.