Home schooling Trip this afternoon

This afternoon we went with our reader/writer (Jules) and the local homeschooling group to The National Aquarium of New Zealand.  They had a behind the scenes visit and the draw card for Billy was that they were going to do some lab work.  Recently Billy and his reader/writer have been doing (amongst other subjects)  ph levels in science for NCEA 1.

filter system and we also saw the quarantine tanks 

Jules pointed out to us that one of  them were pregnant  

this is above the shark and fish tank

croc skin

shark skin

testing ph levels

testing salinity levels

took temperatures of  the samples

filled in a form to identify  which of the mystery water samples came from which tank 

some sharks can rest on the bottom of the tank others can never stop moving

after seeing the sharks being feed by the diver we saw this 100 year old diving suit which required 2 men to pumped air into via the machine and an air tube and  if  they  didnt turn it the diver wouldnt get air 

The continuing saga right outside our backyard

Today we witnessed a further development to this story and this story.  Which lead to this story :(  Might be good to read these first :)

Today the man who owes the land put a house back on the section.  This is up a STEEP driveway which is SLIPPERY in the winter.  We werent sure the house was going to make it to the top.  My neighbours and I had real reasons to believe they might have lost the lot into our backyards.  However s l o w l y inch by inch they got it up to the top, took 7 hours.

As I was watching this afternoon I thought I should go and get Daniel.  Its not everyday you see this happening up so close and personal.  This is a learning experience too :)  He missed one hour of school.

TAKE NOTE of the steep vertical climb that the house would need to make

All photo credits go to Jules Cunningham and Billy Hendry