The Pipeline CY O'connor Built

The Pipeline CY O’Connor Built Joy Lefroy & Diana Frylinck with illustrations by Marion Duke The Pipeline CY O’Connor Built tells the story of the Mundaring to Kalgoorlie pipeline designed by Engineer-in-Chief CY O’Connor. The pipeline carries fresh water from the hills on the outskirts of Perth to the eastern goldfields of Western Australia, across a distance of 560 kilometres. It took five years to build and was completed in 1903. It is still in use today and supplies water through 8000 kilometres of pipe to almost 100,000 people and 6 million sheep throughout the goldfields and surrounding agricultural areas. From Joy Lefroy Since first hearing about CY O’Connor I have been intrigued by his story. The more I heard, the more I realised what an amazing person he must have been. He contributed to the development of Western Australia at a time when the state was growing faster than it had in any other period. When I began working as education officer at the National Trust on the Golden Pipeline project, I wanted to find a way of telling the story of the pipeline to as many people as possible. It was easy to engage older students and adults, but how could I help younger children understand how important this man and his work were to the development of our state? My colleague Diana Frylinck helped me to grasp the bigger picture and pointed out a range of resources that could engage interest. I knew that a picture book would be a great way to tell the story to a younger audience. The inspiration for the story style came when Diana suggested the picture book describe the evolution of the pipeline in terms of The House That Jack Built. The project grew and grew until the water finally flowed into Mt Charlotte, Kalgoorlie on 24 January 1903. Many, many people were involved in the construction of the pipeline, and new technology had to be invented to address the problems that arose. In the book it was easier to show these in pictures than to describe them in words. As it followed the building of the pipeline, the story, through the text and Marion Duke’s illustrations, became a book that grew and grew. In order to make this a story that children could relate to, I felt the book needed a character 1 of a similar age to the reader. Clara isn’t introduced until almost the end of the book, but she offers the reader a personal connection and someone to identify with. Children around the world understand the need for fresh clean water and Clara represents that child from the past, present and future. She reminds us that it is up to every individual to value our limited resources. Errata: In the overview of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme at the end of the book, a mistake has been published in the first edition. Originally there erew eight pump stations and twelve reservoirs, not twelve of each as printed. A Resources and Activities file is available from the National Trust The file contains a full chronology and background to the Goldfieldsater W Supply Scheme. It offers activities with Western Australian Curriculum Framework links to Society & Environment and to all other learning areas and includes a bibliography of additional resources. To order your Resources and Activities file phone the National Trust on 08 9321 6088. Visit No 1 Pump Station Half and full day workshops are available at No 1 Pump Station, Mundaring Weir. Workshops are interactive and include a history session, a tour of No 1 Pump Station, a walk to view the weir and a choice of workshops linking to other curriculum learning areas. Workshops are conducted by National Trust education staff. For more information or to make a booking, phone the National Trust on 08 9321 6088 or email [email protected] All visits to No 1 Pump Station link to the Curriculum Framework Society & Environment Learning Area. Workshops also link to other Learning Areas As well as visiting No 1 Pump Station, try some of the following activities in your classroom. 2 ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS Early Childhood: Searching for gold Due to the lack of water, prospectors searching for gold in the Western Australian goldfields used a process called dry blowing. Look at the picture showing ‘a digger looking for gold’ in the book. Equipment: • Bowl of dry sand • Garden sieve • Trowel • Pieces of ‘gold’ — spray-paint small pieces of gravel or other stone Method: • Bury pieces of ‘gold’ in the bowl of sand. • Students trowel sand from the bowl into the sieve, then shake the sieve until the sand has dropped through and the gold can be seen. Discuss other ways of searching for gold and why it is valued. Links to Curriculum Framework — Society & Environment (Resources). 3 Early and Middle Childhood: Saving Water In the book, the men from the east are sharing one bowl of water. This picture, based on a photograph taken on a Sunday in Coolgardie, shows them sharing the water to shave, wash and have a haircut. Activity • Discuss other ways people on the goldfields would have saved water and what they would have gone without because of the lack of water. • Monitor and record how much water you use in a day and consider what savings you could make. • Links to Curriculum Framework — Society & Environment (ICP, Resources); • Maths (Measurement). Locking Bar Pipe Without the steel locking bar pipe invented by Mephan Ferguson, the pipeline would have been far less efficient and more expensive to build. In the days before welding, this locking bar allowed the two semicircles of steel pipe to be joined along their long edges without rivets. Rivets slow the flow of water as well as having potential for leaks. Activity • Study the diagram showing the locking bar joint on the endpaper in the book. Look carefully at the Before Closing and After Closing joints. The locking bar joins the semicircles to create the lengths of pipe. • Make your own locking bar pipe and test it for water efficiency. Directions • You will need a plastic A4 sheet cut in half. • Using plasticine or similar moulding clay, shape a length of locking bar as long as the sides of your A4 sheet of plastic as shown in the ‘Before Closing’ diagram in the endpapers of the book. Fit one sheet of plastic into each side of the plasticine locking bar joint and bend them round to fit into the second plasticine locking bar joint. Close the locking bar joint by pressing it with your fingers to secure a atertightw joint as shown in the ‘After Closing’ diagram in the endpapers. Test the pipe by pouring water through it to check for leaks. • If you have time, find a way of joining the pipes you and your friends have made to create a longer pipeline. Test for watertightness. Links to Curriculum Framework — Society & Environment (Resources); Technology & Enterprise (Process). The Route of the Pipeline Look at the map on the front endpaper of the book showing the original pipeline route 4 and steam pump stations. Today the Goldfields and Agricultural Water Supply Scheme supplies water to approximately 33,000 rural and town services, from outer metropolitan Mundaring, through the Wheatbelt area, to the Goldfields. It supplies aterw as far north as Dalwallinu and to Corrigin in the south. All pump stations are now electrically powered. Activity Make contact with students from one of the schools today receiving water from the Goldfields and Agricultural Water Supply and begin a correspondence by email or letter to find out how you each value the water you use. Links to Curriculum Framework — Society & Environment (Culture, Active Citizenship); English (Processes and Strategies, Writing). 5 Middle Childhood: Gold! Gold! Gold! The pipeline was built because so many people were living on the eastern goldfields of Western Australia, looking for gold, and there was no reliable supply of fresh water. In 1892, in the first recorded gold find in Western Australia’s eastern goldfields, Arthur Bayley and William Ford found 80 ounces on their first day around what was to become known as Coolgardie and 554 ounces in total before staking their claim. In 1893 in one day, Paddy Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Dan Shea found 100 ounces when they were fossicking at what would later be Kalgoorlie. Activity 1 Work out the equivalent weight of the gold in kilograms and find out how much their finds would have been worth on the gold market today. Use the internet or daily newspa- per to find today’s price of gold per ounce. Activity 2 Research gold and gold mining through history and around the world. In particular, find out how and when gold was formed, where it has been found, what it is used for and why it is so precious. Links to Curriculum Framework — Society & Environment (ICP, Resources); Maths (Working Mathematically). Biography Activity • Draw a time line down the centre of a page (or pages) and on it mark the life spans of Sir John Forrest and CY O’Connor. • Your time line will begin in 1843 and will finish in 1918. • Use a different colour for each life span. • On your time line label important events in the lives of Forrest and O’Connor. • Illustrate to add interest to your time line. Links to Curriculum Framework — Society & Environment (ICP). 6 Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence: Health Many people on the Western Australian goldfields died from diseases such as typhoid and dysentery. In 1895 fever wards in Western Australian government hospitals documented 357 deaths from typhoid.

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