Sustainability Hunt - The Energy Exhibition

Because my class was learning about Sustainability this term at school, Mum set up a Sustainabilty Hunt for me.  When we were out and about we would try and find things to do with sustainability.

We went to the Science Museum in London and asked if there was anything we could see that would be good for our Sustainability Hunt.  The lady there suggested we should go to the Energy Centre.  So we did.

Future Energy Source Ideas

The first thing we saw were some ideas people have had about energy sources in the future.

Hydrogen

One idea was making hydrogen with a wind-powered back pack.  They used the example of a little girl called Lucy Jones.  On her birthday she got a special back pack with a little hydrogen tank on the back.  She could wear the backpack around using the wind to make hydrogen.  Then the family could use the hydrogen for energy at home.

If they made more hydrogen than their family needed they would start to make a family business  and sell it.

Poo Power

The next idea was a little icky and sticky!  The idea was to use poo for energy.  There are 3 ways you can use poo for energy.  You can burn it to make electricity, you can use it as fertilizer to grow crops and even the gasses it gives off can be used as fuel.

This is a special lunchbox Lucy Jones would use to bring her poo home from school so the family can use it for power.  If she went to a friend's house, she would give her poo to the Mum in a giftbag as a present when she left to say thank you for having her.

This sounds really gross, but actually in rural China, long ago poo was used for fertilizer on the crops.  Even today sometimes poo is used as a thank you gift by guests who come for dinner.  The idea behind that is so they can return the nutrients from the food back to the soil. 

Also people living in Denmark can put their poo out for the bin men and they collect it to use as compost.

Minster of Energy

In this computer game the Prime Minister made me the Minister of Energy.  I was in charge of a country's energy.  I had to choose what kind of power stations and where to put them to make enough power for everyone to live.  I had to choose between lots of different energy sources such as wind, waves, solar, hydro (water), gas, nuclear and oil and coal.  I was in charge for several years.  On my first turn the Prime Minister told me that I was very rubbish and fired me!  Luckily I learnt about resilience in our class so I gave it a few more tries until I got to keep my job.

I learnt that:

• The gas, oil and coal gave lots of electricity but they also polluted the air and so people weren't happy with them.
• Nuclear gave the highest energy but the people were very unhappy about it.  This is because in the past terrible accidents have happened that have made people very sick and done lots of damage to the environment.
• Even using renewable sources like waves could still damage the environment.
• You really need to think about where to put things like solar power because sometimes it's not that sunny in places.

Energy Ninjas

The next game I played was called Energy Ninjas.  They were looking at ways to reduce CO2 emissions because they damage the environment.

Here are some ways to reduce CO2 emissions...

• You can put devices on chimneys to filter the gases.
• Wear more clothes and turn down heating.
• Buy more electric cars.
• Burn less wood
• Use trains instead of planes 

Using Less Energy

This was a fun activity where you got answer a question by choosing the best picture.  To choose the picture you had to turn a big wheel until the picture showed on the screen.  The questions were things like "which of these transports uses less power?"  or "which food uses the smallest amount of energy to get from where it's grown to your lunchbox?"

I loved learning about energy and I'm going to try to help our family at home to make better choices about energy.

More Scratch

A couple of weeks ago it was my little cousin Hannah's birthday.  She was turning 3 years old.  When she did I made this Scratch project for her.

If you read the instructions carefully you will see that you have to make noise to make things happen.

If you click on the "See Inside" button you can see how I put the pieces of code together.  If you click each character (sprite) you can see their instructions.

Make sure you have your microphone turned on.


http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/24756046/#player

Meeting the Mammoths

In our last week in London, we went to the special Mammoth Exhibit that was on at the Natural History Museum.  We took a trip back in time...

This is a picture of me and my brother standing in front of big Mammoth tusks.  Mammoths were so big that even just their tusks were taller than me and Isaac.

MAMMOTH MYTHS

• Some people think that Mammoths are the ancestors of Elephants but they're not.  In Africa about 6 million years ago a branch of the Elephantidae Family split into 3 groups.  One branch developed over millions of years into the African Elephant.  One branch became Asian Elephants and one branch was Mammoths.  So, even though they come from the same family, elephants are not descended from Mammoths.

• Because of movies like Ice Age everybody thinks that Mammoths only lived in icy climates.  The reason why everybody thinks that is that instead of the bodies of Mammoths rotting, in icy places permafrost frozes lots of the bodies and kept them well-preserved.  So lots of the remains that we find are in icy places and they don't find much in un-icy places seeing as there is no permafrost so the bodies have just rotted away.  So the truth is that Mammoths also lived in warmer climates.

MAMMOTH HISTORY

These are some of the earliest Proboscidieans:

Moeritherium

Moeritherium looked a little like a cross between a giant rat and a very fat hippo.  It didn't have a trunk - just a large snout.  It didn't have tusks either, but two humongous teeth that were the start of tusks.  They lived like hippos and they liked to play around in the water.

Deinotherium

Deinotherium had a short trunk and two curving tusks.

Ambelodon

Ambelodon had 4 tusks.  This proboscidean had two curved upper tusks and two lower tusks which were flat like a shovel.  They are called 'Shovel Tuskers'.

Gomphotherium

Gomphotherium was about the same size as an elephant.  It had two pairs of tusks.  The top layer of tusks curved downwards whilst the bottom layer could be a metre or more long.

HANDS ON WITH MAMMOTHS

We got to learn more about Mammoths by feeling, touching and doing things that the Mammoths would have to feel, touch and do.

 



First we got to try to pick up objects using big metal mammoth trunks.  It was really hard to do it!

Next we got to turn a little handle round and watch as the Mammoth's skull bone and trunk went up and down.  It was showing you that the ligament at the back of the Mammoth's head had moved as the Mammoth developed because as the tusks got heavier the ligament couldn't hold it well.

Then we were able to see all the different layers of hair that the Mammoth had.  Some were tough and hard and some were soft and warm.  The outside layers were tough and hard to protect from the weather.  The inside layers were softer and warm.

We got to touch some ox fur which is what scientists think is the closest thing to real Mammoth hair.

We got to lift a hay bale to see how heavy it was.  Mammoths would eat up to 230kg of vegetation a day - that's about 15 of these bales.

We got to touch a bronze replica of a baby Mammoth's skull.

Pooey!!!  After that me and Izzy got to touch lots of different kinds of animal poop... well, not real animal poop, but pretty gross replicas.  After eating all that food Mammoths had pretty big poos!

We also got to fight with pretend little Mammoths with big tusks.  It was pretty fun!

LYUBA THE BABY MAMMOTH

This is a picture of the most complete Mammoth remains that's ever been found.  It even had eyelashes.  We couldn't take a photo at the Exhibition, but I found this one on the internet.  Her name is Lyuba.  She was named after the wife of the fisherman who found the remains.

From studying her body the scientists could tell all sorts of things about her.  For example, by looking at what was in her stomach they found out at that she ate lots of things like milk from her Mum, grasses, and even Mammoth dung.  They think mother mammoths gave dung to their babies to give them bacteria they needed for their digestive system to work property.  From her tusks and teeth they could tell how old she was and how long she had stayed in her mother's stomach.  They could even work out how she had died.

Isaac and I found this part really sad and I don't even really like writing about it.

BEHAVIOUR OF MAMMOTHS

We also watched a video about what scientists who studied Mammoths thought their behaviour was like.

They thought Mammoths were like Elephants in three ways...

1. They thought that male Mammoths would fight like bull elephants.
2. They thought that the Female Mammoth led the herd like a female elephant does.
3. They thought that the adult Mammoths would always protect the young ones if they sensed danger like Elephants do by making a circle around them. 

I loved learning about Mammoths!

Scratch

Because it's the school holidays in New Zealand I haven't had Hand-on-Homework from my teacher.  So we decided I would find something to do for my own Hands-on-Homework.  Mum found me a great program called Scratch and my goal was to make a Scratch project.  Scratch is a programming app where you learn some coding skills  and create projects by stacking 'blocks' of instructions to make all sorts of cool stuff.  Some people have made e-cards or games or little videos

Here is a great Ted Talk that explains all about Scratch and shows some of the cool things people have made with it...

http://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code.html


And here is my first scratch project.  If you click "Look inside" you will be able to see all the different 'blocks' I used to make the characters move in different ways.  And while you're watching don't forget to press the space bar and then the up arrow.

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/24331226/



http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/24331226/

Barefoot Walk

One of my goals for my writing is to focus on description, not just moving the story forward.  Last weekend we went to Kew Gardens and did lots of fun things.  One of the things we did was called the Barefoot Walk.  It was a walk that had lots of obstacles that you could walk on in your bare feet.  I decided to do some writing this week about the Barefoot Walk and try my best to use of similes and descriptions.

The Barefoot Walk

Ouch!  The hard round rocks hurt under my skinny feet.  All the stones together look like a giant tortoise shell.  I tiptoed over them very slowly.

Next we came to a big tree truck that we had to walk over.  It felt smooth and fuzzy like a hairy caterpillar.





















After that I ran through a pit full of tiny pine cones. I thought they looked like shaggy armadillo noses.  It felt like they were nibbling my toes with their prickly spikes.

Then we went along half a dozen huge round branches, lined up beside each other.  They looked like rough tiger stripes.














Suddenly I saw our next obstacle.  At the end of the branches were 3 different paths with two logs in a big v-shape.  The paths were made out of soft golden sand, dark grey stone and sharp, glinting pebbles.















It looked like a huge catapult about to fire all three things at once.  I quickly zig-zagged over them so I wouldn't have to walk on the peebles for too long.














Just round the corner were a whole load of pure, brown tree stumps shaped like the curls of Georgian wigs.
















Thud!  My foot hit something cold and scaley.  For a split second I thought I had just stepped on the tail of a croc.  But it was just another tree trunk.  Phew!  I balanced my way across the trunk like a clumsy flamingo, clutching the rope on my left.  I wondered what the next adventurous task would be.












Just then the answer came to me.  It was a huge pond full of grimy water!  Oh great!  It looked really deep so I had to sit down at the side of the pond before finally dipping my feet into the freezing water.  In fact it was so cold I felt like I was trapped inside the biggest ice-berg on Earth.  I waded through the large round pond before carefully stepping out at the other end.  It was a relief to be out of that antarctic sea.

All of a sudden my stomach flipped.  The next thing was not something you'd want to walk through right after you have cleaned your feet.  MUD!!!!!  I squelched through the big, sticky, hippo-dung smelling pit like an ogre chasing a fly.

Finally the walk was over.

THE END








Here are some more photos of us enjoying the walk...

Hands on Homework Week 6 - Comic Strip

This week for Hands-on-homework we had to make a comic strip.  My comic strip only shows the start of a story so far...