Thank you 9LDO 2024 for:

• keeping me challenged
• keeping me thinking and inventing
• keeping me humble
• making me laugh!

My favourite moments this year have probably been in the science lab, for example:

• Flaming hands and making the gum container hit the ceiling (fuelled by aspro-clear reacting with water) and giving Kiahn a fright was fun.
• I enjoyed everyone’s reaction to the lung dissection and, of course,
• having fun with dry ice

I have been blown away by how well 9LDo did with group maths problem solving – there is a lot of shyness and awkwardness to overcome, and everyone got there – I am proud of you guys 🙂

You are a great class and your next years teachers are going to appreciate you.

Thanks for letting yourselves be pushed and learn.

Time for a break now – go well the very last 9LDO whaanau!

In Health the other day we read a news article called “Get Your Daily Dose of Nature“. The article talks about the mental health benefits of nature, even something as simple as looking at trees or birds, let alone getting in and amongst it.

In Taranaki we are lucky to have access to natural spaces close by. Think about all the the different natural environments we have in Waitara!

Your task:

1. Choose one location near you that gets people out into nature
2. Research what different activities or facilities are available at the location
3. Describe THREE ways in which this environment could positively impact Hauora
4. Create a poster promoting your chosen space – using pictures and colour!

I chose Merrilands domain as my spot….I have been going there since I was a kid, I took my kids there when they were little, we have tyre tubed the Waiwhakaiho river several times, we even had a 21st birthday there!

It’s one of my happy places and I still go for a summer dip after school or after gardening in the weekends.

I used google slides to make my poster – my poster did get a bit overcrowded and might need a bit of tweaking to get it right. I wonder if google drawing would have been a better way to go.

PLEASE POST YOUR POSTER ON YOUR BLOGS.

And 

WRITE ABOUT WHY YOU CHOSE THIS SPOT TO MAKE A POSTER ABOUT

As a class we have watched ‘The Power of One’ and ‘Uproar’. These two movies delve into the issue of social justice and what individuals may find themselves doing to stand up against injustice.

We have used quotes from the movies paired with images that support the meaning of the quote to make static images.

I chose this quote: ” The loneliness birds began to circle again” – which is something that Peekay from The Power of One says when he loses the people he loves. He has been lonely and alone before and he is afraid that he will go to that place again.

• I used black and dark grey colours as the background to signify darkness (I couldn’t decide which one I liked best)
• I used white birds as a border (so they would show up against the black).
• I made a circular, scribbled tunnel to make a ‘black hole’ representing a lonely and isolated feeling.
• I placed an image of a lonely person stuck in the middle of the tunnel.

We have been learning a lot about the different types of energy that exist in the universe.

We have been especially noticing how one type of energy can be transformed into another type of energy or transferred from one object to another.

The latest energy experiment has involved trying to unleash the chemical potential energy from food by making it burn and using the heat energy to heat up water.

We could never get all the energy from the food into the water (some energy is always ‘wasted’) but we could tell that there was more energy in a peanut than in a piece of popcorn.

CHALLENGE QUESTIONS FOR MY MAHI POINTS.

Email Ms D (ldo@waitarahs.school.nz) with your answers:

1. How is some of the food energy ‘wasted’ in our experiment?
2. How could we tell from our experiment that peanuts had more energy than popcorn?
3. What do we know about peanuts and popcorn that also tells us about the amount of energy in each?

Remember you will get added My Mahi points if you remember a greeting and a sign off in your email 🙂

To finish off the term in science AND because we have been learning about burning and combustion we set fire to our hands! (kind of).

Bring on the 9LDO Ghost Riders / Human Torches / Phoenix Force / Firebirds / Johnny Storms etc

This photo shows the spark that you get when you strike steel against flint.

We have been learning about the fire triangle and how if you have fuel (something that burns) and oxygen (the gas in the air) you might get a fire (if the fuel gets hot enough).

Check out the student blogs to see some of the different ways to light fires by getting a heat source other than a lighter or matches.

Here are some photos of the work we did in class discussions about the early Polynesian explorers and what it would have been like on board a waka hourua back in the day when there was no plastic, no life jackets, no gas cook stoves, no raincoats, no sunglasses!

We have been learning about how heat travels in solids (conduction) and how heat travels in fluids (convection)

Here is a photo from science on Tuesday 21st May. This group managed to get a very clear result and not spill or disturb and mix the 2 different temperature jars when they tipped one onto the other.

Please email Ms Dohig: ldo@waitarahs.school.nz with your answer to this question:

Why does the hot water stay in the top jar and not mix with the cold water?

(My Mahi points are up for grabs!)

We were privileged to have workshops running over two days to give us some hands on experiences of ten different cultural practices from Te Ao Maaori.

Talking about how things were done in the past (compared to the present) makes history come alive. It is interesting and kind of mind blowing to imagine the lives of people before we had electricity, metal tools, cars, glass ….the internet!

It is also interesting to find out about how our tutors express their culture and identity and how they became experts in their field.

Maybe the workshops have even planted some seeds for some Foundation students who might pick up a new hobby or craft or passion because of them.

Here are some images from our workshops:

Thanks to Lloyd and Kaya Barbarich (whakairo|carving), Dave trinder (bone taonga), Toumairangi Marsh (taonga puuoro|musical instruments), Dylin Bailey (mau raakau|martial arts), Terri Totowera (tukutuku), Whiringa Totowera (poi), Mako Jones (harakeke), Raniera King-Cassidy and Hemi Chapman (taa moko), Liam Wong (sports & games), and Haoro Hond (art & design).

As we continue our learning about particles in science, we have played around with diffusion.

So far we have seen the difference between diffusion of potassium permanganate  in hot water and in cold (much faster in hot water), diffusion of water across the membrane of an egg and, last of all, diffusion of the food colouring particles on skittles and M&Ms.

Here are some photos of what that looked like. We noticed that the diffusion happens fast and the colour diffuses towards the middle of the plate.

We also noticed that even gently disturbing the water (when the table wobbled or when we blew across the plate) starts the mixing process and the patterns become uneven).

Why does the colour move towards the middle of the plate and not sideways?

(Hint: the answer lies in the concentration of particles)