Sunday 1 April 2012

What a week that was...

It has been a varied and interesting week. Classroom teaching is nearly always fun, and being a science teacher gives access to greater fun quotas.
Also, this week I finally committed myself to the idea of uploading videos and photos to share them, something I have always been wary about before. As we at school are using Google Apps for education, we get a free Picasaweb album, so I have been busily filling that, and also having a play with Vimeo and YouTube- all great fun, and shocking for my students when they realise they are on the internet! Far more sanitised than some of the stuff they are usually posting on the internet themselves, so not sure why they are so shocked... Perhaps they don't want their friends to see them HAVING FUN AT SCHOOL!
My ventures into this uploading world started with a trip out to Motuihe island, where we got to see 60 Northern Brown tuatara reintroduced onto the island after many years of absence. There is a One news video clip here, and it was covered by the Herald too! These are my pics:



Monday was interesting in an icky sort of way for my year 12 biology class who got to dissect some cockroaches. Ewww.  Not the nicest thing in the world, but it helps them to learn about the respiratory system and other body organs of insects.



And a fairy prion that was blown way off course and died in the school grounds was next to be used for scientific purposes, same class.

Finally this week, we have learned about fish respiratory systems by dissecting fish heads. Another smelly lesson...



There is video to follow this!

Meanwhile, the year 9s were getting to grips with heating liquids and gases to see what happens:




And then they got to play with dry ice too! What fun!


Videos will follow here too!

Thursday was spent at a selection of religious institutions for the y13 Social studies class. Why me you ask? Well, because I am a Hindu, know quite a bit about Buddhism and Sikhism, some stuff about Islam (but absolutely nothing about Judaism so I really enjoyed the visit to the synagogue!). We started at the Swaminaryan temple in Papatoetoe, http://www.isso.org.nz/ which is a new one on me, having never been there before.
Our next stop was the Auckland Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Auckland city. http://www.ahc.org.nz/
where the boys got to cover our heads. Really interesting, and very modern too (for such an old religion!).
Third stop was the mosque in Ponsonby, where apparently Sonny Bill goes when in town. Girls heads were covered this time.
The final destination after lunch at Botany Town Centre was the Fo Guang Shan (North Island) Buddhist temple in Flatbush. Very beautiful and the students really seemed to enjoy this one!

 
I was quite glad the weekend arrived to allow me time to actually catch my breath! And the clocks fell back too.