Te Pahu Challenge TREE - update

Today Nardene and Liz helped us prick out our seedlings into bigger pots. It was great to see the growth but it was a reminder about how slow natives grow and how when we walk through bush the things we step on could have been growing for months or years! Here are a few photos of today's work.

Outdoor classroom opening

Te Pahu School has been involved in the developing of the Pirongia Lodge Outdoor Classroom. Previous students helped source native plants and then helped plant the area around the classroom. Earlier this week the Outdoor classroom was offically opened by the Mayor. This years student council attended as representatives from Te Pahu School. It was great to see how much the plants haven grown already. Here are some of the photos.

Talented writers

We have lots of talented writers in room 7. We did some more creative writing this last week and here are a few excerpts from some of them.

The cold, still war hospital was silent. Not a sound filled the room. Pain filled my throat like broken glass. The red spots kept creeping up my body. They gradually filled my face. I looked down to see half my leg had turned purple from the wound. I felt myself breathing heavily trying to keep myself alive. I heard the squeak of the metal trolley scrape against the cold floor. The metal spoon touched my lips cold. But the sweetness trickled down my throat like honey and cleared the broken glass quickly. Laura Tosse

This thing had yellow skin, green blood, red eyes, and fangs two inches long! It collapsed with the gleaming twelve inch machete still embedded in his or her scaly back. Then it slowly started to crawl away, it’s menacing red eyes piercing the darkness as it faded into the shadows, still clutching its latest victim. Thomas Edger

It was the middle of the night. An uneasy darkness filled the room. All was quiet apart from the soft snores from patients down below. I looked down at my mattress to see an intense yellow pool circling my waist. The smell of urine filled my nostrils. I needed to wash myself and the sheets before everyone woke up. I tried to sit up but pain surged through my body. I lifted my sheets to see an awkward tangle of legs and toes. My emotions quickly turned from depression to anger. I was stuck here in a hospital bed not able to move, lying in my own pee. "I can't do this anymore," I thought to myself, "I have to get our of here." Logan Burgess

Overpopulation

We are having a fascinating inquiry into our world's population. We are looking at a number of graphs, videos, and articles to help us get our heads around this issue.

There are lots of surprising things being learnt such as the average family size dropping world wide from 7 - 2.5 in 50 years. That it took thousands of years for the worlds population to get to 1 billion, but then only another 200 years to get to our current 7 billion (as a result of the industrial revolution). By the end of this century it will peak at 11 billion. However, the population of children has already peaked at 2 billion.

We are looking at what the effects will be and what needs to change in order for us to survive the increase. Some information shows some people are really worried about the earths future where as others are more positive about our ability to cope. The students are writing articles about what will need to change for our earth to survive overpopulation.

Here are some interesting sites and videos:

World-o-meters - Live world statistics
Gap Minder - amazing statistical website

Maths - compasses, protractors, angles!

We have been exploring shapes and angles. The students constructed triangles using protractors and compasses and we discussed the different types of triangles and angles. We explored how the interior angles of triangles always add up to 180 and exterior angles add up to 900.

Square challenge for parents
We had a challenge of drawing an accurate square only using a ruler, pencil and compass. This was challenging (for me too) but we had a few clever thinkers who managed it. Talk to Sophie if you can't work it out. There was some great learning around accuracy of angles and intersecting compass points.

Clothing Industry Inquiry

For literacy over the last couple of weeks Room 7 has explored the clothing industry and how we can get clothes so cheap in our shops. It was a surprising and hard hitting inquiry into something most of us knew hardly anything about. The students got a glimpse of the human cost to our cheap clothes. However, we explored both sides and realized how it is such a tricky issue as the alternatives to the factories are often worse.

Over the next while we will be exploring a number of world and social issues with a focus on:

• Research skills - Note taking, compiling information, and appropriately selecting content.
• Persuasive writing structure
• Forming an opinion and backing up arguments with rational, moral and emotional arguments

The students are in the process of transferring their written pieces to their blogs so look out for them. A key video we watched was The True Cost, available for rent online or it is on Netflix too if you want to see it.

Our next issue is overpopulation so look out for some convincing articles on this too.

Speeches

A massive congratulations to Sophie, Nicholas, Ellen and Bradley for getting through to the Lower Waipa Speeches. You spoke so well and we were all very proud of you. A special congratulations to Bradley who not only won the Year 8 boys division but also became the overall Year 8 winner. A powerful and inspiring speech. Great to get Te Pahu on the Hall of Fame again!