Green land!

We have been taking Drama lessons this term with Mr Giles. It's called Greenland a town with a differance. It fits in well with our project, Living in a Democracy. We are all citizens and make the rules. We have ten main laws.

1.All citizens of Greenland are instructed to use green public trannsport only.

2.All transport in Greenland must run on Green fluid such as Fairy liqid.

3.The Green Ba' must be held annually only in the capital of Greenland.

4.All citizens of Greenland must worship the Green Giant.

5.All citizens of Greenland must vow total allegiance to Greenland.

6.Only the colour green can be seen in Greenland, every other colour is forbidden.

7.All citizens of Greenland must know the "Green National Anthem" of by heart.

8.Only citizens of Greenland can know the Green Secret Handshake.

9.Only citizens of Greenland can live and work in Greenland.

10.All citizens of Greenland must eat five portions of green vegetables every day but will have an optional portion of 'Green Giant' sweetcorn.

We also have a parliament which we just started. We put Mrs McRae up in front of the parliament for committing a formidable crime!

by Kirsty

Video Conference

This week we had a video conference with Neil Gray who is a parliamentary assistant at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
We had a very ineteresting discussion and he told us all about his job and what it is like to work in the parliament building.
Some of us thought we might like his job!

We took notes and asked many questions. We learned that MSPs work very long hours and don't always get time for a break at lunchtime. Debates and meetings can go on for a long time. Neil helps his MSP (Alex Neil) with research and preparing for meetings. He finds his job very interesting, challenging and enjoyable.

Santa suit challenge

We had great fun competing in a Santa challenge where we had to dress someone in our team as Santa Claus using only newspaper.

We used a range of skills during the task - measuring, rolling, curling, cutting, folding and designing.

Some of us needed padding!

Everyone had a job to do and cooperation was the most important skill to use for the task to be successful.

The finished costumes were all different with a variety of wigs, beards, hats, belts and boots!

Which one would you have chosen as a winner?

The importance of blubber!

We investigated how Arctic animals have adapted to survive in the cold temperatures they have to endure. Some animals carry a layer of blubber and we found out how effective this can be by making a 'blubber mitten.'


We made our mittens using lard and plastic bags.

We held our mittened hand and bare hand in cold, icy water and compared the temperatures.
It can be quite sore to hold your bare hand in very cold water for too long!

We noticed how red our bare hand became.

The hand in the blubber mitten barely felt cold and wasn't uncomfortable at all.

No wonder Arctic animals who have a layer of blubber don't feel the cold!

Climate Change conference

While we are waiting to hear if there is an agreement amongst nations taking part in the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen at the moment, we have been busy learning about the Kyoto protocol .

The protocol legally binds nations who signed up to the treaty to reduce worldwide emissions of six greenhouse gases (collectively) by an average of 5.2% below their 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012.

We learned about it by selecting the main ideas from the text and explaining the information to each other 'speed dating' style!

Climate change and endangered animals

This term we have been researching how Climate change and human activities are affecting the earth and some creatures that are in danger of becoming extinct. Some of us created powerpoint presentations to show the class.


Have a look at some of them here.

Ice bears and ice hares!

We have been following Climate change news in the media and newspapers.

The sculptor Mark Coreth has carved ice bears for display during the Climate change conference in Copenhagen. We are following the progress of the bears by web cam. One is placed in Copenhagen and the other one is standing in Trafalgar Square in London.

You can follow this link to see the bears:

http://www.icebearproject.org/stream/index.html

We decided to have our own 'ice hare' project. We froze four ice hares and watched them as they melted.

Number 1 was the 'control.' It was made with plain water and we were not allowed to touch it.

Number 2 we were allowed to touch.

Number 3 was made of salty water and had food colouring added so that we could tell the difference.

Number 4 was placed outside in the courtyard.

We took photos every 15-30 minutes to see if there were any differences in the rate of melting.

Which one do you think melted first?

(You can choose your answer by clicking the button on the pane at the right.)

We'll let you know the results!

Update: The first hare to melt was the one we were allowed to touch!

The outside hare started melting very quickly (possibly because of the drizzle) and we thought it was going to be first but it slowed down later when the teperature outside dropped.

The second one to melt was actually the salty one with the outside one being third. The one that lasted longest was the inside one that no one touched.