Research process
Our class has been completing an inquiry about animals and their unique characteristics and what makes an excellent enclosure. We decided to base our inquiry learning about wild canines. While we were finishing our designs for different wild canine enclosures our teacher brought to school the story about Paddy the Wanderer. After hearing about Paddy’s story we started to wonder what Wellington was like in the 1930s and why Paddy became so important to the people of Wellington.
Questions we asked ourselves were...
- What made Paddy so special? Why was he not like any other stray dog?
- How has Wellington changed?
- What was the Great Depression?
How did we answer our questions
- Our teacher read the journal story about Paddy to the class.
- Lola, Ngaronoa and Grace read the novel Paddy the Wanderer By Dianne Haworth. The girls identified the main important events in Paddy’s life. We used these events as a class to make collage artworks.
- The girls found images of Wellington in the 1930s and then went out into Wellington City to photograph the same places now. They also visited the Museum of Wellington City & Sea where there is a section about Paddy and his memorial.
- At school we found out what the Great Depression was, how it started and how it affected people in Wellington.
- We then put what we found on this Living Heritage website.
