On August 6, Mrs. Corcoran surprised our Geography class with a great activity involving a Skype connection with a Geography class in Mumbai, India! This was a great experience that our class will certainly not forget. While we were waiting to connect with the class in India, we talked about what we would like to learn from these students and we decided to ask questions relating to Mumbai’s climate, time zone and natural hazards. A sensation of excitement passed through the room as we saw each other face to face. One by one, we were able come up and ask our questions and as a class we enjoyed hearing their responses. They told us about the wet and sticky weather they were experiencing because they were in the middle of monsoon season. When we asked about natural hazards in India, they discussed the floods and landslides that frequently devastate parts of their country and how a whole village just outside of Mumbai was recently buried by a massive landslide. We were then able to share stories of the bush fires that engulfed the Blue Mountains last summer.
On a lighter note, when one of the Mumbai students asked us to sing a popular Australian Christmas carol, we all agreed to sing Jingle Bells. Then when we asked them to sing a popular Indian carol, guess what they sang? Jingle Bells! It was at that moment that I realised that even though we live very different lives, we are also very similar in many ways. After saying goodbye to the Mumbai class, Mrs Corcoran then set us the task of using the information we had gained from the Skype session to come up with a formula of how to calculate time zones. Since we were in the middle of learning about latitude and longitude it didn’t take long to work this out. We are also in the process of trying to understand why India’s climate is so different to ours. Mrs Corcoran has promised us that we will keep in touch with our new friends in India with regular Skype sessions and she is currently working on getting us connected with a class in rural Japan. Overall, it was a great learning experience and we hope that this becomes a regular part of our Geography classes.
Patricia Schwarzkopf (Year 7)
