Lockdown #2

Having to go back into lockdown for the second time this year isn't really fun, but I fully understand that it's for our safety. As a country if we would like to go back to when we were clear of the disease disappeared, you should get tested if you show any symptoms of corona and immediately quarantine yourself. 

It truly is sad to see lives being taken away because of the Coronavirus, so the best thing we can do is keep social distancing and always wash your hands! Stay safe and make sure to protect yourself :)

Volleyball 2020!!!

Yesterday some students went and represented our school in volleyball. Our tournament was held inside the Barfoot & Thompson Stadium at Selwyn College. The fact that we won more games than we lost without having any reserves, I'm proud of the year 7 & and 8's.

Our volleyball team manager was Sebastian's mum. She would help us during our break to practice on what needed to get better and always encourage us. I really enjoy playing volley because I get to use different skills and I forget about the things I'm worried about.

Grow Green

Recently we went back to tech, instead of working with sugar this time our experiment had to do with plants specifically leaves. We talked about the structure of a leaf, the ones we are able to eat and how they grow. 

For our experiment we each used different leaves we could find outside our classroom and then boiled them in a tube of alcohol to see the colour drain out! From one tiny leaf there was definitely a lot more pigment than I would have expected. Some of us even got the chance to find out the meaning of words like photosynthesis!

Working With Sugar

For this weeks lesson we were working with sugar, talking about the different types and getting the chance to experiment with some coke.

Apparently, we are only supposed to be consuming 5 to 6 grams of sugar but instead we decide to have more sugar and end up having about 96 grams per day. Too much sugar can give you type 2 diabetes! Type two diabetes is when you have to get insulin shots to keep your blood sugar normal. Type one is when it comes from your genes. 

During the experiment we boiled the coke in a beaker, around 15 minutes after the coke evaporated we could see the amount of sugar that we have in one cup of coke.

Alert System For White Island

A senior studying at the University of Auckland is one of some scientists who came up with this new alert system. This system was designed for White Island's volcano, only because in the last decade it has erupted numerous times and has caused major damages. About 16 hours before the volcano erupts a signal will be sent to warn everybody. Now scientists are looking to get the same system installed in Ruapehu and Tongariro.

Personally I think that installing a system to notify you when an eruption will happen is really helpful, because in that period of time citizens have hours to leave the grounds and get to a safe destination.

Bones & Skeletons x2

This week we were labeling parts of a skeleton and sketching. We had to cut out each part, glue it in our book to look exactly like the human skeleton and label using either the scientific name or common name. Before we got around to gluing the teacher had to check and see if the bones were in the right place.

After completing the first task our next instruction was to sketch one of the bones Mrs Sharma let us borrow. I was quite nervous because Mrs Sharma said that some of the bones were real but didn't tell us know which ones. Personally I'm not the best drawer so I went with the classic easy dog bone.

Bones & Skeletons

Last week in science our topic was bones and skeletons. As well as watching clips and finding out information we got to look at a fake skeleton and see all of the different bones.

I recently just found out that the longest bone is in our leg and the smallest is inside our ear. The fact that bones are actually alive and decrease as we grow makes me feel quite uncomfortable. Other than that bones are helpful because they hold our body up and make us not look sluggish.