2014 Touch Term 4

Animal Adaptations!

Animal adaptations

On Wednesday the 29th of October the whole of year seven went to Orana Wildlife Park to inquire further into our science topic, Animal Adaptations. Animal adaptations is when an animal changes the way it lives by adapting to the different environment. There are three types of adaptations, physical, behavioral and physiological.

Each class went off with a different educator. 7G went with an educator named Sarah and 7OM went with an educator named Paula. We went around the park observing certain animals. The tigers and rhinos are very territorial animals! Tigers go around their territory “spraying” the surroundings so when other male tigers come, they know that there is another male tiger around. Whereas Rhino males will leave piles of dung around their territory and keep piling up so that other males know who is in charge or that there is another male already living there.

Eliza and Joanna Holding A Rhino’s Horn!

We saw lions, four females and three males. Although the males didn’t have their manes. Their manes fall off or “shed” when there hormones change. The male lions had an injection that makes them no longer be able to breed and that causes their change in hormones. There were giraffes two! There were one boy and three girls. The girls names are Zuri and Harriet but we can’t remember the last girls names , the boys name is Franana.

We saw little meerkats and because it was windy and cold they were all huddled together and cuddling to keep warm but the big meerkat was standing guard! We saw lots of different birds like Kea, Kiwi, Kererü, Tui and many more endemic birds.

We also met a llama called Roldo! We all got a little bit of food in the palm of our hands to feed him with, he originated in South America, thats a while away from here! He has lots of fur so that he can keep warm in the cold mountains. The air up in the mountains is very thin so his blood is naturally thin so he can breathe and stay alive up high in the sky!

Amelia Getting Up Close and Personal With Roldo!

We saw some gibbons, Oscar, Peggie and their family. There was even a little baby who was only one year old! Oscar was kidnapped from his home when he was only six or seven months old by a trucker who made him dance for money but fortunately people put in complaints and people from a zoo in Indonesia, came and took Oscar off of the trucker and kept him in the zoo for a couple of years, but he didn’t fit in there because he wasn’t used to other gibbons so Orana took him in, where he met Peggie. They took it in stages for the two gibbons to meet and slowly they took a big liking to each other and sang their own song, like a duet! Now they are like two peas in a pod!

The Meerkats Huddling To Keep Warm!

Coding Club

Self Defense

Wacky Hair Day

FPS Nationals

FPS NATIONALS

FPS is an extracurricular activity for some girls from year five and up. FPS stands for Future Problem Solving. Any girls are allowed to try out. In order to get into a team (teams of 4) you have to do a test of your FPS knowledge. Mrs O’Meara (teacher) marks our papers and chooses the girls who will be put into a team. Once the teams have been sorted we practice every Thursday during period 3 and 4.

Throughout the year, girls have been studying a certain topic that they have to break into five activities- Challenges, Underlying Problem, Solutions, Criteria and Action Plan. In term one the year seven FPS girls were split into about six groups. In that term we were researching and completing the FPS Booklet the gets sent away to be judged and marked so when we come back in term two there is only four teams remaining. Our booklets got sent away that term but no groups were taken away. In term three we were just studying surveillance but not entering any booklets.

On Monday the 8th of September our four teams went into lockup. Lockup is when teams have two hours to complete the whole booklet. Afterwards Mrs O’Meara choses two booklets to send away once the booklet is sent away, judged and marked once more the two chosen teams are in the running for nationals. The two year seven teams and two year eight teams got into the semi-finals but only one team got into nationals.

Violette, Enya, Zelle and Aria’s team got into nationals which is being held in Auckland from the 31st of October to the 2nd of November. The topic is land transport. There are FPS Shirts available and the whole team got turquoise ones so we are all matchy-matchy!  Once we have arrived in Auckland on day one we get to go across to butterfly creek. It is going to be so fun! On the night of day one is the opening ceremony. We will create flag banners and if we win we get chocolate, also we get pizza! On day two we do our normal booklet but we also do a dramatic presentation, it must include three of these: Movement/ Dance, Song, Mime, Humor, Verse/ Rap, Rhythm, Sound Effects. There are apparently two props on stage. Make sure that you use them creatively and also make sure that you don’t say what it really is, for instance: Say you have a noodle. Instead of using it as a noodle or noodle-like thing or a customized noodle, use it as (lets say) a large powering socket (e.t.c)...

You will have a quote also that will have to be added into your dialogue script.

Think of a theme you could use to base your script around. e.g. Harry Potter, Simpsons etc.

Is there a song you could adapt from this theme around transportation?

Miss Glubb Is Back!

During the holidays and the first week of Term Four Miss Glubb and her Partner

(Alex) went away on a trip. Some countries and cities they went to are; New York, Barcelona, Stockholm, Sweden, Las Vegas, Bangkok, Arizona and much more. She said it was a wonderful trip but she is glad she is back. She bought us all souvenirs back from New York, which was some key rings.           

The whole of 7G is very glad she is back and we have missed her HEAPS!!

Here are some pictures of her trip: