Blog Action Day

Today I will be writing about a issue that I think needs changing:

Environmental Issues: 
CARS

Cars are everywhere we drive around town, cruise in the passenger seat and go on road trips. A modern diesel car pumps out more toxic pollution than a bus or heavy truck, according to new data, a situation described as a “disgrace” by one MEP.

The revelation shows that effective technology to cut nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution exists, but that car manufacturers are not implementing it in realistic driving conditions.

Diesel cars tested in Norway produced 4 times the NOx emissions of large buses and lorries in city driving conditions, according to a report from the Norwegian Centre for Transport Research. A separate study for Transport for London showed that a small car in the “supermini” class emitted several times more NOx than most HGVs and the same amount as a 40-tonne vehicle.

“It is crackers,” said emissions expert James Tate from the University of Leeds. His own research, which uses roadside equipment to measure passing traffic, also shows the latest diesel models cars produce at least as much NOx as far heavier buses and trucks.

The issue of NOx pollution, thought to kill 23,500 people a year in the UK alone.

As you can see from this News Report from The Guardian cars are a threat to not only the wild life but us as well.

We Did This

We are the main cause of pollution. 

Emissions from industries and manufacturing activities

We built factories with chimneys, built high into the air, with lots of smoke and fumes coming out of it. Waste incinerators, manufacturing industries and power plants all emit high levels of carbon monoxide, organic compounds, and chemicals into the air. This happens almost everywhere that people live effecting them and the environment.

Household and Farming Chemicals
We crop dust, fumigate homes, use household cleaning products or painting supplies, over the counter insect/pest killers, fertiliser dust all emit harmful chemicals into the air and cause pollution. In many case, when we use these chemicals at home or offices with no or little ventilation, sometimes we will fall ill when we breath them in.

What I am most worried, sad and angry about is the fact that WE did this, that WE are being effected by pollution and that WE let it get this far.  I think we need to Raise Our Voices. Everyone says how bad pollution is, but whats being done about it? Together we CAN make a difference. 

Exhibition Review

The Exhibition was a big process that we went through over 8 weeks. We learnt a lot about the inquiry process over the course of Exhibition:

We documented most of this in our books.

My group worked well through out Exhibition although towards the end we got a little tense and started arguing, but it was probably because of the tension. I think my group was pretty successful in spreading awareness of Child Abuse.

Thank You, to the Teachers for helping us with exhibition.

Exhibition Day

On the 23rd of September the day had finally arrived, Exhibition Day. As the time for presenting drew closer my group was ready.(Left to Right): Me, Renee, Brooklyn and Rachel.




 

We had set up a station with our Video, Book, Poster and Hand Outs ready to go. When the school came through we played our video and talked about our book.

 

We identify 4 different forms of child abuse which is:

• Emotional Abuse
• Neglect
• Physical Abuse
• Sexual Abuse

 

We wanted to focus on Emotional Abuse because  most people ( from our survey below ) and included our group think that this form of child abuse is the most effective form. We wanted to inquiry into why it’s hard to carry out and how can we help.

 

This is our survey.

 

Which form of child abuse do you think effects them the most and why? (Please Comment)

	Name/ Room	Forms	Reason
1	Miss Thompson	Emotional	It effect on most people.
2	Mrs Hogg	Physical	Emotional is too big too explain.
3	Paige J. Rroom 8	Emotional	We have more ideas.
4	Connor Room 8	Physical	It happens the most.

 

Emotional Abuse

 

It can be more harmful than physical abuse because it is something that we can’t see. Emotional abuse can happen anytime. It can come from the words or attitude of the abuser.

Effect on children’s feelings and health.

Children feel upset or discomfort when they are around others because of what they been through. It takes their trust away from trusting others.

 

What the children been through not just affecting their mind, it’s also affecting their health. When they hurts and upset sometimes it could makes them don’t want to eat.

 

No matter who you are or what you work you do, you have opportunities to  support and help keep children safe. The sooner we reach out, the sooner they can get help.

 

Look out for:

• parents stress or unhappy
• parents not enough money to raise children
• drugs
• medical issues eg. mental illness

Some ways to help:

• Provide encouragement and offer practical support
• talk to someone experienced, for a different point of view or ideas for helping

DID U KNOW

 

- New Zealand and the fifth worst child abuse record out of 31 OCED countries.

 

- On average one child is killed every 5 weeks

• Most of these children are under five and large group is less than a year old.

 

- Near 9,000 children per year are born at risk ( 1 in every 30 )

 

- Studies have found abused not neglected children to be at least 25 percent more likely to experience problems such as; delinquency, teen pregnancy, low academic, achievement, drug use and mental health problems.

 

- In 2014 there were 9,499 children who were emotionally abused.

 

- In 2014 there were 3,178 physically abused .

 

- In 2014 there were 1,294 sexually abused.

 

OCED

The organization for Economic Co-operation and development ( OCED ) is an international economic organization of 34 countries, found in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade.

 

 

 

Little Valley Farm

Over the holidays I have had a series of showjumping lessons with Mike Lamb (An Eventer) over the 3 lessons I have learnt a lot:

• To stay off of Georges back, George speeds up and rushes when I 'sit on him' so I need to remember to keep 80% of my weight in my stirrups.
• Keep my reins long. George tends to over bend and not understand the jump, then refuse if I hold onto his head.
• Something Mike kept saying to everyone over the 3 days is 'Release over the jump' for everyone else it was at the jump but for me it was 2 strides out.

Little Valley Farm has an AMAZING cross-country course that ranges from Pre-Intro (45cm) to Open (1.05m) So after my lesson was over me and my friends would gallop from field to field jumping as many as possible. Some of them are to big but I can now Jump the 85cm jumps! Here are some picks of me and George on the cross-country course:

Photos

On Sunday it was raining so I decided to take some photos here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Some of them were taken outside in-between showers.

Now here is a photo from Monday after I rode George, he is picking up a bucket with his teeth:

 

 

 

Child Abuse in New Zealand Report

Save Our Children 

Do you know, have or even are a child? Child abuse is a sad reality, a real and big issue which affects lots of children all over New Zealand. Can you imagine you or any child bruised  and broken, thinking they are stupid and dumb? Why is this happening to the younger generation?

Raw Child Abuse

Child Abuse is sub categorised into 4 sections; Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Neglect and Emotional Abuse. Physical Abuse consists of  beating, biting, kicking, punching, burning and throwing. Sexual Abuse is: being forced into sexual activity (rape) or touched in a sexual way also photographing inappropriately. Neglect is failing to provide the necessities such as food and water or leaving a child unattended for long periods of time (days) it is also medical neglect (Failing to provide the medical help needed) and emotional neglect (Not telling the child that  you love them.) . Emotional abuse consists of getting bad thoughts into the child's head and making them stay: e.g Telling the child that they are stupid, dumb, not good enough, irrelevant.

Who Can Help?

There are a lot of organisations in New Zealand that are working towards a happy place for kids to live. The main group is Child, Youth and Family (C.Y.F). Visit C.Y.F’s website: http://www.cyf.govt.nz. There is lots of other companies around to help such as Every Child Counts and Child Matters . All companies are working towards a child abuse free New Zealand although this may never happen the least we can do is lower the child abuse rating as we have the 5th highest child abuse rating in the world. 

Help Us Stop Child Abuse

My group consists of Renee (Year 9), Brooklyn (Year 8), Rachel (Year 9) and Me (year 8).  One of our first ideas we decided was to include ‘handouts’ in out display, we also agreed that we should spread awareness of how terrible child abuse is. For the handouts we would put how to get help if you suspect child abuse, the handouts would be hand shaped and painted red and blue. The next step was to decide how we would get the stats and information across, it needed to be an expression of creativity. Finally we decided to create a book, a big book. Another idea was to create a persuasive video, we decided to this as well. Our next question was; will our Video and Book rise awareness of Child Abuse? We finished the video and decided to do something else the other thing came in the form of a backdrop, the backdrop was a sad house with ‘help us’ written on the wall. Our last added idea was to tape our mouths shut and write on the tape ‘Stop Abusing Us’, ‘Abuse Can Be Silent’ or ‘Why Abuse’.  Our intention was to spread awareness and persuade others to report Child Abuse. 

Final Thoughts

I believe that no child should be abused because, why should it hurt to be a child? Although we can’t help every child but the least we can do is report child abuse, don’t be the person who hears a cry in the middle of the night and turns out the light. Be the person who hears the cry and picks up the phone and calls: 0508 FAMILY (0508 326 459).

Free Rice

http://freerice.com

Free Rice is an online trivia game with a twist.
 For every question you get right you donate 10 grains of rice.
Here's a challenge: Donate at least 100 grains of rice then do more and comment below with the number of grains you donated.












Every post I will do a 'Blog Of The Day' here is todays:

Brookes Blog

I really like Brooke's blog because she her posts are regular and interesting, I also like the new background and font. You can see she take pride in her work through her blog.

P.S. Thank You to Mrs Hogg for keeping me motivated with my blog. Check out Our Class Blog Here.

Soccer

On Friday we played sakkaa.

English: Soccer/ Football
Japanese: Sakkaa

Lots of people in my class play soccer and so does my brother and sister. Rachael plays for the Tamahere Tornados and Paul plays for the Cambridge.... Ummm well here are some shots of them playing:

Science Fair Sum Up

1. The First Step of science fair is deciding your topic.  Make sure you choose one you are passionate about and will enjoy doing. 
2. Once you have decided your topic craft your aim. Start with - To investigate- then add what you are investigating. 
3. Next write a background statement, say why you choose the topic (Make sure to elaborate on why).
4. With your hypothesis make sure you have done research on you subject before jumping to conclusions.
5. Write a base of a method then CARRY OT THE TESTS. Make sure to take LOTS of photos along the way and confirm your method along the way ( I found this much easier than writing it before.)

The rest to follow in another post......

Science Fair

Science Fair was a fun experience in which I learnt lots here is a collage about it:

Exhibition Blog

This Session we set up a blog to keep a record of our work please view it and take time to contribute to our poll on the side (Answer the questions)
http://childabusenzexhibition.blogspot.co.nz/
Thank You

Child Abuse in New Zealand

Topic:

Child Abuse In New Zealand

Group:

Rachel, Renee, Brooklyn and I

So far we have finished Tuning in and have continued on to Finding out. We have found some good websites but not finished taking in all this information:

http://www.everychildcounts.org.nz/resources/child-abuse/

http://www.childmatters.org.nz/24/learn-about-child-abuse

http://www.3news.co.nz/topics/society/crime/child-abuse

https://womensrefuge.org.nz/WR/Domestic-violence/Child-abuse.htm

http://newzealandchildabuse.com/

This is a heavy topic and very sad.

Our mentor is Ms Mears we have not meet with her yet but will organise a date to do so.

CATS

I got home to day and was sitting on my floor reading when a cute cat came along and tried to love me...

I am allergic to cats so this is a problem. ALL the time I want to pick them up hug the or just pat them, but I can't.
Did you know that allergies are abnormal immune system reactions to things that are typically harmless to most people. When you're allergic to something, your immune system mistakenly believes that this substance is harmful to your body.

What are you allergic to?

Today I got a early birthday present (my birthday is on the 19th of August) the present was a laptop. Here is a few things about it: Make: Lenovo It is Windows 10 Screen size: 14 inch It was really cool to do a blog post on it but I am still getting used to the mousepad.... Hope you like it!

Dressage

On the weekend I rode in a dressage competition.

Here is the arena size I rode in:

I did test 0:C and 0:D. Check out this link to see them.

I had a caller that means I did not have memorise the test. The score is marked as a percentage:

Adequate - 50+%

Very Good - 60+%
Exceptional - 70+%

The score that the Judges give you are out of 10:

10 Excellent------ Very rarely given. It means as good as it gets.

9 Very Good------Not often awarded; you can be very proud when they appear on your score sheet.

8 Good------------ An appropriate level of engagement for the level.

7 Fairly Good------Still a good mark, maybe a minor inaccuracy prevented an 8 being given.

6 Satisfactory----The movement was obedient and accurate, marred by outline, perhaps.

5 Sufficient--------Horse did what he should, but maybe lacking engagement or on the forehand.

4 Insufficient-----A serious inaccuracy occurred; counter bent; rough transition; head tossing.

3 Fairly Bad-------A serious problem occurred; lack of control, very late or fluffed transitions.

2 Bad---------------Now we’re talking severe disobedience; bucking; rearing; napping.

1 Very Bad---------The horse must have bolted through the movement to receive this!

0 Not Performed---Self explanatory. Horse did not perform any of the required movement e.g. failing to strike off in left canter and continuing on in trot.

My scores where mostly 6s with a few 5s and 7s

I got 57% and 64%.

Science Fair

Water Water Everywhere....
But is there a drop to drink?

My science fair is going well so far, I have finished my testing and currently writing my conclusion/discussion.

Aim:

To investigate if I can drink the water from our drainage ditch? and if not what is the most effective way of purifying the water so it is safe to drink?

Background statement:

According to the United Nations, dirty water is killing more people than war or violence in general. In New Zealand we are lucky to have easy access to clean water, but what if a natural disaster happened? Earthquakes are devastating, this much is evident but the lack of clean water is just deadly. After the earthquake in Nepal Health workers said ‘they feared a major health crisis was unfolding among survivors of the quake who are living in the open or in overcrowded tents with no access to sanitation or clean water.’  Did you know that there recently has a fault line discovered under Hamilton? If an earthquake happened how would we get clean water? We have water in a drainage ditch on our land but is it safe to drink? and if not can I make it safe to drink? I also enjoy watching Bear Grylls and his adventures so I wondered if one of his methods could give us access to safe drinking water? I have decided to investigate the best method of purifying water so it is safe to drink.

My results show that the control water has Coliforms in it. So I filtered it through a Lifestraw, Boiled it, filtered through a sock and used an Aquatab.

If you want to see which is the best be at the Science fair on the 22nd of August.

  

Food Tech

Tuesday 16th June we had food tech here is my reflection:

We worked well as a team over all but could of communicated better when getting the ingredients.


Here is my stakeholders feed back:

I liked it I could have eaten more!
However a couple of points to improve would be a slight burnt taste in the onions, slightly smaller pieces of broccoli would spread the taste better and slightly deeper filling so that it's not quite so much pastry.
Overall though I would not have sent it back had I been served it in a restauraunt and I am quite fussy so well done.

Cooking

Cleaning up

Finished

Yummy

Thank You

Thank You for Visiting my blog I am at 2500 Views!!!!!!

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Food Tech

During Food Tech today (22-5-15) we made soft serve ice cream using Yonanas.

My group: James, Aryan, Ethyn and I.

What is Yonanas?
Yonanas is a machine that mashes up frozen bananas and berries to create a soft serve ice cream.

Reflection:

It was a healthy dessert that was also yummy. Even Ethyn who said he did not like bananas ate it and liked it!

Over all it was fun to make and the produce was really nice but it did not look like the picture.

Here is a picture of the box:

Horse, Horses and Ponies

Horses are my passion so I thought I could share with you a little about this sport.

First I need to say horse ridding is a sport and is also in the Olympics.

Horses are measured in hands:
My pony stands at 13.2 hands which is roughly 138cm.
The horses at the Olympics are around 16 hands but the smallest is Stroller standing only 14.2 hands. He won a silver medal! ( In 1968)

The highest level you can get to is Grand Prix and in the Grand Prix the jumps measure up to a massive 1.60 meters by 2 meters. The Olympic cross country cross is 5.6km of jumps and water.

Me and George only jump around 80cm but hope to compete at 90 soon, which is were the real competition begans.

Poems

These poems are Pantoums and here they are:

The Beach

As I meander along the beach
The waves beat the sand
Ships glide past
Sand in my shoes

The waves beat the sand
 As Orcas lazily glade past
Sand in my shoes
The smell of the sea breeze

As Orcas lazily glide past
White horses gallop
The smell of the sea breeze
Sea spray in my face

White horses gallop
Dried seaweed on the shore
Sea spray in my face
Waves creeping up the beach

Dried seaweed on the shore
Dolphins jump and dive
Waves creeping up the beach
A stretch of endless water, blue

Dolphins jump and dive
Ships glide past
A stretch of endless water, blue
As I meander along the beach






Wish On A Star


An endless of stretch of stars
Countless twinkling lights
A blanket of darkness
The moon a torch

Countless twinkling lights
A shooting star
The moon torch
Make a wish

A shooting star
The heavens above
Make a wish
As others sleep

The heavens above
Soon morning but for now
A blanket of darkness
An endless stretch of stars





Which is better?
Comment on what you think.

SPCA

Here is the offical SPCA website http://rnzspca.org.nz/

The SPCA is a center devoted to helping animals in need.

Our dog Ruben is an SPCA rescue also our cat Houdini is to.

(see my post about Ruben)

Ruben

Ruben is my much loved dog.

Here is a picture of him sleeping:

Playing with us.

He is an inside dog and always joins us for family movie night.

His favorite things to do are:

Come with us in the car weather its just to school or anywhere else he just whats to be with us.

He likes to run around our land and scare some chickens or ponies.

Sleep on my bed or the sofa.

And his favorite by far is to play with us!

Is he not the cutest?

Comment on what you think.

On my way

In new Zealand a cup of coffee is about $4
In Tokyo it is $353.94
In Adelaide it costs $3.74
In Cape Town it costs $35.31

Here is a collage: