282
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
[No. 7

Further lessons might be given outside on the action of water and the drainage of the earth’s surface; river channel, source, mouth, tributary, wearing-away or denudation of the surface and deposition of alluvium (the terms “denudation,” “deposition,” “alluvium,” need not necessarily be used); the formation of deltas.

More extended and more accurate plans of the neighbourhood should be drawn to scale, observations and measurements being made by the children. There should be in every school a map, on a large scale, of the town or district, and a map of the education district or of the provincial district in which the school is situated. The children should know three or four of the most important places and geographical features within that district; but it is not desirable that any name should be known merely as “a name on the map”: every name (and this is true throughout the whole course in geography) should be introduced to illustrate some principle, or in association with some interesting fact. Pictures of places or geographical features not known to the children should always be used, if available. The map of the district should be laid flat upon the ground with its north towards the true north, and the children should be led to connect the information it gives with the knowledge they have already acquired, and with the plans they have drawn. This method might then be extended to the map of New Zealand, the positions of, say, twelve places in other parts of the colony being known in relation to the education or provincial district in which the school is situated.

Standard IV.

The work of Standard III. is to be extended—e.g., the action of rain and of rivers should be more fully treated, especially as regards denudation of the earth’s surface, and the deposition of alluvium in the lower course of a river, or at the inside of a bend in its course, or at its mouth, and the formation of bars and deltas.

The relative rapidity with which pebbles, sand, and clay are deposited may be observed from experiment, or from the action that takes place in a pool, in a small stream, or by cutting a section with a spade through the sediment left in a large puddle (the section, of course, should be cut when the water has run off or evaporated); or experiments might be made in the playground, or with a wooden tray and clay, sand, and shingle, as suggested in Standard III.

A fairly complete study should be made of some river known to the class or to most of the individuals in it; comparison should then be made between this river and two or three other rivers in New Zealand, and also, if pictures can be obtained, between the given river and, say, one river in each of the great continents.

The children could then infer from the map of New Zealand the general slope of the surface, and could construct rough relief maps of the North and of the South Island. The same process might be applied in a general way to the continents, of which, also, very rough relief maps could be made.

The process of evaporation should be demonstrated practically—first, rapid evaporation, as when water is boiled; next, slow evaporation, as of a small quantity of water in a saucer in front of a fire, or in the sunshine, or even anywhere in comparatively dry air; next, the formation of vapour clouds, the deposit of water on cold surfaces, the formation of dew, &c.

Plans of the playground may again be drawn, and distances and areas calculated therefrom. This should be followed by the drawing of more extensive and more accurate plans of the district around the school than have been made in Standards II. and III.; the rough measurement of distances might be computed therefrom.

The following work may be done either in this class or in Standard V.: By means of an upright stick, post, or block, the children might be taught to find the altitude to the nearest degree of the sun, at noon at the equinoxes (in 1904, 21st March and 23rd–24th September), and at the solstices (in 1904, 22nd June and 22nd December); to note approximately the length of day and night, checking their observations by reference to the times of sunrise and sunset as given in any almanac.

Some very useful work might be done in the direction of the discovery by the children from their observations of the nature of the movements of the earth and of its form. It would, for instance, be quite possible for children at this stage to be taught to recognise a few of the brightest stars, to notice that those in the northern sky, on any given evening, seem to be moving from right to left, and that the Southern Cross seems to be turning round in the same direction as the hands of a clock. Hence, by a general but simple inference, they might be led to the idea