Coffs Harbour Public School Blog

Courtesy & Honour – Principal:Leonie Buehler

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4/5C MinecraftEdu Rainforest Project

Rainforest assessment task: Rainforest Assessment Task

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Les and Maia: Ecological issue in our local catchment area website

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Students are introduced to the Murder under the Microscope website and focus on the biodiversity of their local catchment area. They look at scientific terminology and create a word bank for their own use. They complete an online quiz that investigates cause and effect in ecosystems. Student pairs must also create a website that identifies an ecological issue in the local catchment area and educates others about this issue and why it is important to preserve and protect it. The website will include an Action Plan that shows others in the community what they can do to reduce their ecological footprint.

Les and Maia were part of a science enrichment group last term focussing on ecological issues in our local catchment area. Much of this project required the students to be self sufficient when researching and compiling information. For some students this was a challenge and others found the lots of fun though still hard work as they had to juggle other school work commitments etc. Enrichment projects require students to be self motivated and develop good problem solving strategies as the tasks require higher order thinking processes and self-regulation. For year six students projects of this nature are a great introduction into what is required in high school and two students in particular did a great job creating their website. Maia and Les ran with the task from the beginning, sharing the work load and discussing how they would approach certain aspects of the project. They only required teacher support initially when introduce to creating a Weebly website. They never argued, used the resources provided (and researched  much of their own) and ultimately have done a wonderful job 🙂

Here is a link to their website: Coffs Creek and Littering Don’t Mix

Maia has also gone on to create her own personal Weebly: My Aotearoa, with permission from her dad, and it offers some wonderful advice for other students on friendship, bullying and just being happy with who you are.  Brilliant work Maia 🙂

Here is an outline of the task.

Mrs Booth

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Coffs Harbour Public School is a Small Planet

CHPS Small Planet

 

This image of our school was created using the Small Planet app for iPad.

Mrs Booth

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Afghanistan Project Virtual Building

Today students moved on to building their schools as all plans have been approved against the UNICEF child friendly schools criteria. All students bar one are using Sim-on-a-Stick virtual technology and the other student is building his model straight off his plans with the assistance of Yarrob. It was fantastic to see all the students bringing their projects to life and for many this is the first time they are using this technology which can be quite demanding. Luckily they are all very quick learners and also have an expert, Wakjira, who is wonderful in sharing his knowledge as he has been building with Sim-on-a-Stick for the past 15 months.

Great work everyone.

Mrs Booth, Mrs Newton and Yarrob

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UNICEF School Project

The video of the Maria Grazia Primary School, short-listed for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, in Afghanistan served as inspiration for the initial school designs by our enrichment group of EAL/D (English as an Additional Language or Dialect) students. Using the UNICEF Child Friendly Schools Manual building criteria many of the student group had their plans approved today and are now able to start building their models using Sim-on-a-Stick, a stand alone virtual world on a USB that we use at our school. All plans have been drawn to scale and the students have  excelled with this project.The building criteria they had to meet was:

  • Structure is stable and built from local resources
  • Administrative office
  • Safe water
  • Hygiene facilities
  • Toilets
  • Light and free from glare, dust, noise and odour
  • Colour natural and reflecting culture of country
  • Power (electric or alternative)
  • Evacuation area
  • First-aid area/bay
  • Library
  • Landscaping

Next week we will be with Ms Mulrooney’s class as we Skype with Mia Cox from UNICEF Australia. The students will be sharing their work with her and talking about the project whilst also learning about the amazing work UNICEF does around the world 🙂

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Biodiversity Officer Visit

Nigel Cotsell, biodiversity officer with the Coffs Harbour City Council, spoke with our science group of students about the wonderful tree life that exists on our school grounds and nearby. He took the students through a description of each tree and the role they play in preserving the biodiversity of the Coffs Harbour area.  Our school grounds contain:

One thing that was noticed by Nigel was that some of our trees had asphalt laid right up to their trunks which is actually killing the tree slowly. Some of the asphalt needs to be dug up to expose the soil and then covered with a layer of bark chips so the soil doesn’t become compacted. This will then allow vital moisture and nutrients to the small feeder roots of the trees aiding in their health and limiting dead branches.

Finally, the students’ and Nigel went for a walk to a small council reserve on City Hill where the two oldest trees in Coffs Harbour still stand. They are both scribbly gums and dated between 300-800 years old!

Mrs Booth

 

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Climate Clever Comes To School

Last Monday the 20th of May, Geoff Tomlins came to talk to stage 2 about our Climate Clever Energy Savers Program.

He talked to us about energy and how we can save money on our electricity bills. We learnt about renewable and non renewable sources of energy and the importance of making cleaner choices for the planet.

He set up different activity stations to help us learn about the different forms of renewable energy. We got to see how an electrical curcuit works. He had an exercise bike that was hooked up with an old washing machine motor. We had to pedal really fast to make a light bulb work. We got to see how solar panels work by connecting the wires to run a fan and a light and to make a buzzer sound.

We learnt some helpful ways to save energy and are going to try these out at home and in our classrooms.

3/4H

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Solar Eclipse 10th May 2013

 

“Photographing the reflection of the sun through binoculars onto cardboard (warning looking directly through binoculars at the sun would cause blindness) – the moon passed between the Earth and the Sun and partially blocked the sun in North Eastern NSW, Australia” Source: Marianne Logan

While we were lining up for assembly and working hard in our classrooms this morning an annular solar eclipse was occurring  up high.  Marianne Logan, Mrs Booth’s science lecturer, took these fantastic images in Lismore which is just up the road from Coffs Harbour. We will now have to wait until 2035 before the next eclipse of this kind will be seen in Australia.

Australia’s Solar Eclipse: Australian Geographic

Mrs Booth

 

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Our Ecological Footprint: Stage 2

A measure of the impact humans have on the environment is called an ecological footprint. A country’s ecological footprint is the sum of all the cropland, grazing land, forest and fishing grounds required to produce the food, fibre and timber it consumes, to absorb the wastes emitted when it uses energy and to provide space for infrastructure. Source WWF Australia
Stage 2 is looking at sustainable living and the ecological footprint their life choices leave on the environment. What they eat- how it is packaged, does it need refrigeration or to be heated, and where does it come from? What housing do they live in? How they move about the community? What do they wear and who makes it? Simple decisions can have an enormous impact on the lives of others and the planet.
Click here to find out your ecological footprint: My Footprint, or to learn more about e-waste i.e. computers. Watch this brilliant video from ABC’s The Checkout at the 11.59 mark  to understand what happens to all our mobile phones and other products, and how manufacturers want their products to become obsolete or out of style so YOU buy more!
This is an excellent article from local Coffs Harbour architect, Reiner Schimminger, about the amazing Eco Housing project (and an Australian first)  City of Hope at the Jetty . The development follows the standards set out by the Living Building Challenge which places the strictest performance requirements on a built structure.
Tasmanian southern coastal areas  are becoming the dumping ground for the worlds plastic garbage. Birds are dying due to a diet of plastic debris and the plastic particles are travelling all the way down to Antarctica.

Finally click here to view the incredible film trailer MIDWAY by Chris Jordan.

Lets start small and think more about what packaging we need for our recess and lunch. Do we really need all the TV’s on or that new phone? 🙂

Mrs Booth

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What happens when you wring a waterlogged face washer out in space?

International Space Station Commander, Chris Hadfield, was recently asked by Canadian high school students, Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner, to demonstrate what happens when you wring out a waterlogged face washer in space.  The students from Fall River, Nova Scotia won a national science contest held by the Canadian Space Agency with their experiment on surface tension in space using a wet washcloth. Credit: Canadian Space Agency/NASA

See what happens!

Now how do you clean up the water?

Excellent! 🙂

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