SNA focus questions

What does SNA FNDC stand for?

FNDC stands for Far North District Council and they are the council for the far north. SNA stands for Significant Natural Areas, and what this is, is that the council has identified special species and plants in these areas by taking photos, like satellite images and identifying special things and ecological value. 

What are some of the specific rules?

Some of the specific rules are that there is a limited amount of vegetation allowed to be planted, as well as cutting down vegetation within that land. Another rule that the FNDC have developed is that they are allowed to just walk into peoples’ land without their permission and snoop around wherever they want. 

For the landowners this means that nothing will affect them unless they are willing to develop their, aka, build or do deforestation. If the people are willing to develop their land they have to get resource consent to be able to cut down vegetation or any plants, or establish new uses of the land. There are also rules around how much vegetation you are able to exterminate, and about how you subdivide the land.

What is the FNDC council trying to develop?

What the council is trying to develop is that with all the SNAs, is that they want to help protect and balance special habitats and maintain the land usage around the far north area. And by the FNDC doing this, they are highlighting all the areas in the far north, and are trying to restrict people on their own land. I think the FNDC are doing this because they’re panicking at the fact that people are doing so much with their land, and the fact that the FNDC has finally realised how precious the land is and overreacting to what they think people might do with the land. It is clear that the FNDC haven’t properly thought about whether this might affect families that own land. So what the FNDC are doing to peoples’ land is basically covinenting all of it, in a way.

What restrictions does this mean for land owners?

This could mean for land owners that they can’t actually live on their land if they were planning this, or follow their plan of what they were going to do with their land. The restrictions for the landowners are limits on how much bush you are allowed to deforest, and rules on how you are allowed to subdivide your land.

How could this move affect you and your family?

This could affect all family’s with land, affect the way they live, or disrupt the family’s plans on building in that area. This is only a possibility but if a family is wanting to move onto their land, and will not be able to build anything, and if they are renting they will have to keep paying rent, and stay in the house unwillingly. I don’t know exactly how the SNA movement will affect families, but it certainly won’t be good for the majority of them.

What Makes a Good Leader?

 What is a leader?

“The person who leads or commands a group, organisation, or country.”

A leader to me is someone who is able to gain someone’s respect, and to lead them in any way or matter, politically, in the military, someone as simple as a mother or a father. If leaders would not be respected, who would follow them, so in theory, this “leader” is an icon to people, someone people look up to and willingly follow them. To be a leader you also need qualities in your own way, integrity, ability to delegate, communication, self-awareness, gratitude, learning agility, influence, empathy etc. Leaders also have the power to convince someone, to persuade into believing and seeing something from their own point of view. They also motivate people, bring energy into them to do something. 

Kate Sheppard is a great example of a leader. She was born on the 10 of March 1848 till 13 July 1934. Kate Sheppard was the most prominent member of the women's suffrage movement in New Zealand and the country's most famous suffragist. Kate was born in Liverpool, England, she emigrated to New Zealand with her family in 1868. In New Zealand she became an active member of various religious and social organisations, including the Women’s Christian Temperance Union New Zealand (WCTU NZ). In 1887 she was appointed WCTU NZ’s National Superintendent for Franchise and Legislation, a position she later used to advance the cause of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. Kate promoted women’s suffrage by organising petitions and public meetings, writing letters to the press, and contacting politicians. She was also the editor of the first-women operated newspaper in New Zealand. Through Kate’s skilful writing and persuasive public speaking, she advocated women’s suffrage. Her pamphlets contributed to this cause. This work turned into a petition with 30,000 signatures calling for women’s suffrage which was presented to the parliament. As a result, New Zealand became the first country to establish universal suffrage.

To sum it all up, Kate believed. She believed in something, and she carried that out, and found that lots of people believe it too, that women had the right to vote. So Kate took her beliefs and convinced people to take a stand with her and fight for what they thought was the right thing to do. That’s what leaders do.

SST First Ever Podcast

Recently during Social Studies we've been working on our first ever podcast and uploading it onto our blog.

The podcast is all about me, a bit about where I am from, where I live, what I am interested in and all that kind of stuff. We used a platform called WeVideo, which is useful to make videos with audio, just audios etc.

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.