Ipo Visit

 On Friday, we were lucky enough to have Ipo the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo come to visit our Year 7 & 8 classes. Ipo is a pretty cool parrot - he is very much loved for his amazing fashion sense and cool, calm and collected presence, wowing his audience with his amazing, friendly personality. Ipo belongs to the nana of one of our students, and you can read more about him in this article from Stuff News 

Rocket Challenge

 In Term 2, 7 & 8 MNL are participating in the Wonder Project Rocket Challenge. We have been learning all about Space and rockets, including what they need to make them fly. Last week, we did some initial test flights of plain 1.5 litre soda bottles. We learnt they have to be fizzy drink bottles as these are designed to withstand greater pressure. When testing the bottles without any design enhancements like fins or a nose cone, we could adjust two variables - the water level or the PSI/pressure. We decided to stick with always keeping the PSI the same, and changing the water levels. We kept the PSI at 60, and then tried different water levels between 100 mls and 600 mls. 

We found that when we used less water, with 60 psi, the rocket launched more effectively. It did not lose control as fast or as easily. Our next step is to design our own prototype rockets that include fins and nose cones to achieve the ultimate launch power!

You can check out some of our photos below, as well as some links to our launch videos

OUR ROCKET TEAMS GETTING READY TO LAUNCH:

Sail Boat Challenge

 2021 got off to a very busy start in 7 & 8 MNL Homeroom. One of our challenges in Term One, was to design and make sailboats, after learning about the wind and wind power. The criteria for our sailboats included having to have the following components:

• A sail
• A mast
• A keel
• A hull

After many weeks of testing and designing, we finally got to test out our creations at the start of Term Two after bad weather at the end of Term One delayed our chance to do this. 

All of our boats were able to float, and the majority were able to sail down a local stream, some more successfully than others. You can see some photos below:

Welcome to MNL 2021

 We are 7 & 8 MNL, 2021. We hope you enjoy learning a little bit more about us from our presentation below. We are one of six Year 7 & 8 classes at Ōtaki College, based on the Kapiti Coast. We look forward to sharing our learning with you this year. 

My Worm Farm!- Harriet

This week in homeroom we read a story about worm farms. It was a awesome story and it taught me a bit about worm farms. Worm farms are a really good thing to have. It means your scrap waste doesn't go to a landfill and let methane gas into the air. Landfills also get really stinky. Worm farms are a really efficient thing to have and give great fertiliser. They are also really easy to contain and don't take much energy to make.

 

This is an efficient worm farm I made.

This is how to make a worm farm.

Jordan: My Worm Farm

This week we have been learning how important worms are and that we should all have  worm farms. Because of that I had to do some tasks here are some tasks below. The first one is a worm farm I made and the second slide is how to make a worm farm.

Kaitiakitanga - What we think...

This term in 7 & 8 MNL we are learning about Kaitiakitanga. To start our topic, we had to think about the following:

Think about the words Kaitiakitanga and Kaitiaki. What do these words mean? 
What is Kaitiakitanga? How can we show Kaitiakitanga? Why is it important? By showing Kaitiakitanga, what can we achieve? If we do not show Kaitiakitanga, what might happen? After doing some exploring with a series of resources, we had to come up with our response to these questions and post them on Flipgrid. You can check out some of our thoughts in the videos below:

Kaitiaki

Harriet, Olivia and Jordan

Joseph

Drew, Kate and Annelise

Niko