Our Goals for Term 4

OK, well, it's Term 4! Wow! What a fast year. It's just zoomed by! This is the fourth and final term of the year. And it's only 7 seven weeks! Yeah! Joking. Anyway, here are our goals for this very, very short term:

Zarek's goal:

Make this the best term of my life, because it is my last term at Mapua School. I am devastated to be leaving. I want this to be the best term ever. And I aim to make the best out of everything. To get out of the term what I put in, which is a lot. I really have had the best education that anyone could ever receive.

Lara's goal:

My term 4 goal is to strive to be the best at athletics, and try to get into the relay teams so that I can represent the school in our Athletics day. I want to be the best because I am very passionate about sport, and feel that you should always enjoy and try your best at everything!

Revenge on the Vegies

We did "Which vegetable burns the quickest?" for our science fair experiment. We decided to do this experiment because we aren't humongous fans of vegetables and we just thought we'd try and get them back for all of the times we have been forced to eat them.

Yes, we're talking to you broccoli! But we actually didn't use broccoli in our experiment. All of the vegetables that we burnt were: Onion, cucumber, capsicum, avocado, carrot, lettuce, eggplant, pumpkin and potato. We burnt them in a pan over flames. (No oil in the pan.)

The results (These are the order in which they burnt. From 1st burnt being the one that burn the quickest and 9th burnt being the one that took the longest amount of time to burn):

1st Burnt = Lettuce
2nd Burnt = Capsicum
3rd Burnt = Eggplant
4th Burnt = Onion
5ht Burnt = Cucumber
6th Burnt = Avocado
7th Burnt = Potato
8th Burnt = Carrot
9th Burnt = Pumpkin

We found out a lot of things including that lettuce was the vegetable that took the shortest amount of time to burn and that pumpkin took the longest amount of time to burn. We found out that capsicum and eggplant skins are similar than we thought they were. And we also learnt that what is inside the avocado is oil, not water or juice.

our partnership was one thing that worked very well. We both co-operated and helped each other. Another thing that worked well, and payed off, was how the science board looked. We received a lot of compliments about the look and colour of our science fair board. And people could tell how much effort we put in to make it look all flash and pretty.

We found that getting everything done on time was quite a challenge. We only had a few days to run the tests, type up the information and border it and tape it onto the board. But it was worth it in the end.

Construction on the New Classroom (Room 12)

Bang! Bang! Bang! That's all we hear these days! Plus a few, 'screeching saw' noises. Construction on Room 12 has begun. And it's right outside Room 11! For the past two days, we haven't been able to look outside without seeing the great big, orange fence barrier guarding the construction site. Or men walking around with great big, steel poles. And on day 1 there was a ginormous digger out there. Let me tell you something, the workers have really set up camp. They have their own little shed that holds all of their little (and big) 'toys'. They have trucks, they have a fence. My golly, they have a little moat surrounding the 'island' of posts that mark where the classroom's going. Yesterday, there were huge hammer-head thumps on the outside of our classroom's wall. During reading time!!! The classroom is planned to be finished halfway through Term 4. I don't think I can cope that long with all of the noise that is flooding the school. Oh well, I guess I can't do anything about it until it is finished. I can't wait to se what it looks like when it is finished.

Hokey Pokey

On Monday, we made Hokey Pokey for a very tasty science experiment. Now, we know what you're thinking; Hokey Pokey for a science experiment? The reason we made our delicious creation was to investigate how different chemicals react to each other. We made the Hokey Pokey by shaping tin foil into a sturdy, square 'container'. Then poured in a lot of sweet golden syrup. Then plopped a load of brown sugar on top. After that, we turned the portable camp stove on and held the mixture over the flames. The thing is, the flames kept going out!!! We had to relight the stove about three times!!! And after it was lit and stayed lit, it was like a ginormous wildfire. We thought it was going to set the carpet on fire. It did!!! Just kidding. While it was over the raging fire, we kept stirring until the 'potion' was a flowing liquid. We swiftly swiped the concoction off of the heat and threw in some baking soda. We had to stir really, really fast so no air bubbles were trapped inside and so no baking powder was left unstirred. It felt like our arms would fall right out of their sockets!!! They did!!! Just kidding. Once we put the baking soda in, it turned a nice, lush, golden-brown colour. Then, we dished out the marvelous, vanilla ice-cream and ate with delight. When we finished eating, we had to wash the dishes (ugh), that was the most challenging part; the Hockey Pockey stuck to the plate! It was rock solid! Like a limpet. We packed up all of the stoves, and to our surprise and horror, Mrs. Stephens burnt a hole in the carpet!!! And we're not kidding this time. There was no flames, just a big, black, dark hole. We knew we were supposed to use the stoves outside!

School Is Cool!

Last term everyone in our class created a poster or video of their own on why we think school is so cool. We then entered them in the "school is cool" competition and waited for the finalists to be announced on the 1st of August 2011 (first day of Term 3). Our group (Zarek, Kelly and Emma) entered a nerdy news report on why WE think school is cool, there were also a lot of posters entered from the other students. The end result was great, our video made it into the 20 finalists for the videos of all ages. Also, Emma's and Eva's got their posters chosen to be in the finals for the Year 7 posters. These results were out of 2000 entries and we are very proud! Please vote for us on: http://www.schooliscool.org.nz/!