Draw a Square (Microbit)

 This Micro bit draws a square around the edge of the Micro bit.

Just press the button A to draw the square.

  

From Bean to Bar: The Journey of Chocolate.

 

The picture you see above is my map of the journey of chocolate, but only including the Hershey's company. 

The journey starts in Ghana and Ivory Coast where Hershey's get their cocoa beans from, Ghana and Ivory Coast are in Africa, which is where Child Labour is most active. To be more specific, Accra is the place where the Cocoa Marketing Company is located. Most companies get their cocoa beans from Africa, making it harder for the workers and children because of the work load dumped on their backs. From there the cocoa beans are shipped to the Port of Singapore, where they are sent to a manufacturing factory to be packed and shipped over to the Port of Melbourne in Australia. Then in Melbourne the cocoa beans also get sent to a manufacturing factory. From Melbourne the cocoa beans get shipped to the United States, Pennsylvania, where the Hershey's main factory is located. And there in the factory, the chocolate making process starts.

Hershey's international division exports to more than 60 countries and manufactures and/or markets confectionery products in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Japan.  

Heart, Blood and Lungs

The topic is about the heart, blood and lungs. We learned so much in this topic. We learned about the way the heart functions and pumps the blood through the body. Let's go into this topic in more detail, the heart has two sides, the left side and the right side, but the whole heart contains four chamber, the atriums, located at the top of the heart on both sides. Then there are the left and right ventricles, located at the bottom of the heart on both sides. There are also small things called valves, located between the two chambers on both sides, they are there to prevent the blood from overflowing and going to the wrong chambers, when the blood flows through the left atrium, the valve opens and lets the blood through to the left ventricle, the valve closes, so that the blood doesn't overflow and go back into the left atrium, this is also the same as the right side. The left side is the stronger side, since the blood flows into the left atrium and down to the ventricle and back out the aorta to go to the lungs to be oxygenated and the goes back through the left side of the heart, through the atrium and down to the ventricle and back out the aorta to be pumped out through the body. Whereas the right side is the weaker side, the one with less muscle, thinner walls, because the right side only pumps blood back from the lungs, back to the right side of the heart. So the left side carries the oxygenated blood and the right side carries the De-oxygenated blood. The heart also has veins on the outside of the heart, called the coronary veins, they also keep the heart going, the heart needs blood as well. When the heart pumps the blood is able to shoot out about 10 metres. 

There is also different types of blood that runs through our veins and arteries. There are four types of components of blood, Plasma, Platelets, White blood cells, and Red blood cells. The Red bloods cells contain something called Haemoglobin, that's what makes the blood red, and Red blood cells also carries oxygen through the body. White blood cells are the main part of a human's immune system, when you get an infection of some sort or a disease, the White blood cells in your body increase, so that they are able to fight and over throw the infection/disease. Plasma is the blood component that carries all the nutrients and the good stuff like water, nutrients of course, hormones etc. Platelets are the agent in the blood that clots up the blood when you get a scab, the platelets make the crust, and prevent any more blood coming out of the wound.

This picture is of me (closest to the camera), Lilly (centre, you can barely see her) and my sister (furthest away from the camera). We were currently dissecting a sheep heart, and exploring what we had already learnt by using a real heart. As you can see in the photo, we had already cut the sheep heart open, and you can see the right side of the heart in the photo, the side with thinner lining. The way we cut the heart was down the heart, following a diagram on our Chromebook that showed us how to cut it.

By Kira

Understanding Media in the 21st Century

Media is what the world uses to communicate. Media can be all kinds of things in the world, like Broadcast Media (Radio, TV), Print Media (Newspaper, magazines, pamphlets etc), Internet Media (Online services like Google, websites, Google drive etc), Social Media (Instagram, Snap chat, Twitter, Facebook). There is also Mass Media, any kind of technology that is used to communicate to a large number of people. Things like Snap chat and Instagram are Mass Social Media. So Media is basically anything that can spread information, or communicate with the people around the world. You can use Media in lots of different ways, it could be technology, like phones or any kinds of devices, you can watch TV, read magazines, newspaper, go on Social Media, listen to the Radio etc. There's so much Media around us, it's hard to miss really, most definitely when you drive through a city or just go for a drive, you will see billboards, and adverts on the sides of the road, saying things like "come and buy this brand new car, only 300,000 dollars today". The type of Media I use is mainly on my Chromebook, doing homework, either in my Google drive or just on the internet. Or I go on my phone to play games.

Norway vs New Zealand

Food and Digestion

 For the past few weeks in our Science classes we've been learning about food and digestion, but right now mainly just teeth and the mouth, where in the digestive system does it start, and what are teeth used for, and what kind of teeth do different types of animals have, Carnivores, Herbivores, Omnivores etc. For example Herbivores' teeth consists mainly of molars and premolars. The jaw of the cow is particularly flexible, so that they can chew in a particular way, a circular motion, they do this so that they can mash and grind the grass. Cows have such powerful teeth because they need to be able to break down the fibre in the grass. A Carnivore has four canines, which a Herbivore doesn't have, the canines that are in a Carnivore's mouth are there to hold and tear their prey. But Canines also have molars, they are there to chew the meat a bit, but the acid in their stomach can do the job of breaking the meat down even further. Omnivores have molars, premolars, canines, incisors. They have all these teeth because they eat both meat and plant-based food, they only have small canines, because they don't eat as much meat as Carnivores do. So we know about all the different teeth, and how they assist in digestion. For example molars and premolars are there to grind and chew down the food, the canines are to hold your food in place so that it doesn't just slip out of your mouth while you're eating, the incisors are there to bite off chunks of food, so that you don't have to eat your food whole. 

We've also learned about all the different organs and enzymes and what they do in the body. We've only looked at human digestion, and the process of the digestion through the body. There are different enzymes in the human digestive system, they are set in different parts of the body. One of enzymes are called Amylase which lives in the mouth and the stomach. The purpose of the enzyme called Amylase is to break down starch. In the mouth, Amylase is squirted out of little pumps in your mouth when you see food and are ready to eat it. When the food enters your mouth, the Amylase breaks down the starch in your food, which makes it taste sweeter once the food has turned into bolus. Amylase is also found in the stomach where it basically broken down even more. The rest of the enzymes are called Pepsin, Lipase, Protase, Moltase etc.

Evie Trotter

 She is a small girl with hair as dark as Ebony, that falls down to below her shoulder blades. She has beautiful green eyes that look like emeralds, and has a moon shaped face, as well as sprinkled brown dots spread across her round cheeks like the stars in the Milky Way. She has big ears like a monkey and has a smile that looks like she’s done something naughty. She’s lank, likes wearing dungarees, and walks bare feet whenever she can, walking on sharp stones as if they were the clouds in the sky. 

She’s the kind of person that would walk around ringing people’s doorbells, and then running away. She is my best friend, if I ever fell over and only slightly hurt myself, she would laugh her head off at me (well that’s what would happen). She’s quite silly really, this one time we were in class and the teacher was telling us to do some silent reading (like that would ever be silent) and we were reading under the school tables, she was giggling with uncontrollable laughter, her eyes tearing up. But she can be very emotional, when we were both leaving our primary school last year, she was a mess, she was bawling her eyes out, and clinging on to us like a monkey. And she also acts like a puppy that just got released from a cage for the first time in their life, sometimes she’s so damn energetic and pumped, it’s not even funny. 

One of her most impressive qualities is her art skills, she can draw people, especially girls, she draws them with great detail, adds even the smallest things, earrings, shoes, and even eyes. One of her greatest beliefs is that we should save the planet Earth before it dies. She thinks if we don’t save the planet, all the living beings will die out and go extinct. In fact we organised a School Strike for Climate last year, which went great, we had a great time and we were very successful in alerting the town of our problem and needs. She thinks it’s very important that we do something before it’s too late to change. Something that’s really important to her is her favourite animal, the Otter. She carries many souvenirs of the Otter such as a book loaded with information on them, tons of stuffed toys, key rings, necklaces and heaps more. She values them and absolutely loves them.