Sir Edmund Hillary – More Than A Mountaineer
On the 29th May 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of the highest mountain in the world. They were the first people to climb the highest mountain.
On the Top of the World
Sir Edmund Hillary used to be a beekeeper. He then climbed Mount Everest and became an extraordinary person. He liked adventures. He jet boated up the Ganges River and led expeditions to the South Pole.
The Ganges River is a sacred river known as Ganga Ma – Mother Ganges. The Ganges River is 1,560 miles long and it is in Northern India. It starts from the Himalayan mountains and ends up in the Indian Ocean.
Map of the River Ganges
Sherpas are a group of people who live in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal. The word sherpa is also used to describe the local men who are experts in carrying heavy packs and guiding people who want to climb the mountains.
Sir Edmund Hillary set up The Himalayan Trust which built schools and hospitals for the sherpas. He built 27 schools and 2 hospitals. He also built an airstrip which was important as it meant that the planes could carry equipment and food to the sherpas. Before it took the sherpas 17 days to carry the equipment from Kathmandu to their village. Kathmandu is the capital city of Nepal.
Sir Edmund Hillary was an extraordinary New Zealander because he never gave up when his wife and daughter was killed in a plane crash. He helped the Sherpas and changed their lives. Sir Edmund Hillary was a helpful and caring man who loved his family, his friends and the rest of the world.
By The White Group
Photos from Sir Edmund Hillary Photo Gallery – Academy of Achievement
March 11th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Well Done White Group!! You have worked so hard on this. Keep up the wonderful work
March 12th, 2008 at 2:19 am
I think Sir Edmund Hillary is an amazing New Zealander too, we should all be proud that he represented New Zealand is such an outstanding way.
I like the way you included lots of facts – you must have worked very hard to research all of them. I am glad that you did because you taught me some new information about Sir Edmund Hillary. Thank you for being such great teachers!
March 13th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Hi there “White Group”. I really enjoyed reading all that fabulous information about Sir Edmund Hillary, and I like the way you added relevant and interesting pictures to your work. I can’t wait to see what you do next! Keep up the great work.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Well done White Group. You must have worked well together to get all this information. I wonder? Where did you get all your facts from?
March 17th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Dear White group,
We thought your work was fabulous. We learnt about Sir Edmund Hillary in our class too and used the information to contribute to a VoiceThread about Sir Ed. We are a class of Year 5s in Torbay, Auckland.
You have shared a lot of information about Sir Edmund Hillary. Keep up the good work
We will be back to visit your blog again.
From Room 24
PS – We think your Voki is cool.