Power Alternatives

This week the Tui reading group have been investigating different sources of power. In inquiry we have been learning that it is the way that humans are using resources that is causing global warming and our issues with pollution. The tui students had to investigate power alternatives and make a poster to share their learning with the class.

Check out Telesia's poster about Tidal Energy.

Moana's Morning Tea

In food technology today the year sixes created the recipe that they had found the previous week. This recipe had to be healthy and easy to eat as it was designed to be eaten as a snack by an active student.

As it was our first time in the kitchen, we started by discussing health and safety rules. We learnt how chefs wash their hands and stay hygienic in the kitchen. We also discussed how to stay safe around the hazards such as knives and the hot stove.

We then began creating our healthy banana cake. This didn't use sugar or butter and it was made with honey, banana, coconut oil and whole wheat flour. We each had a couple of cupcakes and make a loaf for our year 7's to enjoy with their milk when they returned from technology.

Getting Wastewise!

In room 8, we are determined to be wastewise. Our monitors Anita, Tumanako and Po do a great job of taking down our rubbish everyday and managing our compost. We are getting much better at making sure all of our rubbish goes in the correct bin and we make sure that we do not take rubbish outside at morning tea and lunchtime.

However, rubbish still ends up in our school grounds. This is concerning as we have learnt that this rubbish can take hundreds or thousands of years to breakdown and it can end up in our drains and rivers.

Today we decided to go on a clean up of the school and to see how much rubbish we could find. To make it a challenge, we split up into our six table groups to see who could retrieve the most rubbish. We did an excellent job and the school looked very tidy once we had finished!

Water Safety

In swimming this week room 8 have been focusing on water safety. Today we discussed water safety when on a boat or when fishing. Some points that we discussed were:

• ALWAYS wear a life jacket - you never know what could happen
• Let someone on land know when and where you are going and how long you intend to be out for
• Get into the H.E.L.P position if you are stranded
• Use the huddle position with others to keep safe and warm

We then acted out some scenarios where we needed to get into the H.E.L.P and Huddle positions before swimming 140 meters to get back to shore.

Food Technology

Today in technology the year 6 students in room 8 were asked to support some of the younger classes to use their netbooks. They did a fabulous job supporting the other students and acted as true leaders.

Head chef Anita preparing the fruit

When they returned to the classroom, the students had time for a short technology lesson. We looked at the process that food technologists take to create new recipes and products. We were then given a brief and asked to create a recipe for a healthy morning tea.

Creating the fruit kebabs

One of our recipes will be selected to be created during next weeks technology lesson, but in the meantime, Miss Stone gave us an example of a recipe that would suit our brief - fruit kebabs.

Taste testing!

We had a great time creating and eating the fruit kebabs, our head chef Anita did a fabulous job!

Soil Erosion

Today room 8 headed down to room 10 for science intensive with Mr Nath. In this science intensive we learnt all about soil erosion and the effects of deforestation.

Check out Davarni's slideshow to learn more!

Science Intensive: Air Pollution

Today room 8 headed to room 9 for a lesson about air pollution with Mrs Sigamoney. We learnt that although we can't always see the pollution (except when we see the exhaust pipe of a car) it is all around us. In some countries like China, this is much more visible.

Air pollution is caused by the gasses that are released into the air, these include the exhaust released from cars, the gas from factories and even the gas produced when cows pass wind (this contains methane)!

To see the effect of air pollution for ourselves, we took paper towels and rubbed objects inside, before going outside and rubbing things like cars. Check out the difference between these two types of objects!

Paper rubbed on objects inside                                                               Paper rubbed on objects outside