Milford Primary School

Operation Phoenix North Shore

Research Process

We researched our topic in a variety of ways.

First we wanted to find out more about Sri Lanka, one of the countries in which the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami happened. To do this we worked in groups. We looked at photographs in the Sri Lanka Lonely Planet Guide and then we wrote down everything we wanted to know about Sri Lanka. We sent these questions to Mrs Kusuma Gunuwardane, a Wastewater Engineer, at the North Shore City Council. She grew up in Sri Lanka.

We learnt how to be 'photo detectives' and analysed some of the photos taken by David Keay, Noel Williams, Ben Watson, Sanjaya Attanayake and Lyn Potter, while they were in Sri Lanka. Then we wrote captions for the photographs.

We read the articles about the tsunami in our local paper, The North Shore Times.

We got information from the Civil Defence Department in North Shore City about tsunamis, and how to keep safe if one should happen here.

We asked Noel Williams and Ben Watson to come and talk to us about what it was like in Sri Lanka after the tsunami.

We made contact with school children in Sri Lanka who had experienced the tsunami. We told them about ourselves, and asked them to write back to us.