My IE So Far

Aucklanders Told To Reduce Water Use

People who live in Auckland have been asked to minimise their water usage because of the floods that affected water treatment capacity at Auckland’s largest water plant. Around 50% of Auckland’s water comes from four water storage dams in the Hunua Ranges. Because of the flooding, the Ardmore Water Treatment Plant is treating 50% less water than usual. That was because much of the water contained silt from slips, making it more difficult to treat.

My Opinion: I think that the rain over the week has certainly caused a lot of problems!

Source: I found this information on Kiwi Kids News.

My Wondering: How long do the Aucklanders have to minimise their water usage for?

Answer: Throughout the next three weeks.

Vocab:

Consumption: The action of using up a resource.

Hue: A colour or shade.

Silt: Fine sand, clay, or other material carried by running water and deposited as a sediment, especially in a channel or harbour.

My IE Research

So far in my IE, I have answered two of my ten questions. Here they are, along with their answers.

What is politics?

The word politics means the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power. Politics is a way of deciding the government and making different decisions that impact our community. It is the way we make laws in our society. Politics can also be used not just in laws, but also in schools, and big companies. Politics is about making agreements in groups so that they can live in peace together, and without fights.

How does politics work in NZ?

New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy, which is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state. I NZ’s case, this person is the Queen. The Governor General represents the Queen. New Zealand uses an MMP voting system. This stands for Mixed Member Proportional. Using the MMP system, each voter gets two votes. The first vote, is for the party you prefer. This is the vote that largely decides which number of seats each party gets of the 120 seats in Parliament. For example, if 40% vote for the banana party, they will get 40% of the seats in Parliament. Your second vote is to choose a person to represent your local electorate in Parliament. Under MMP, New Zealand is divided into 71 electorates. Whoever gets the most votes, will become your local MP. For a party to get seats in Parliament, they have to get at least 5% of the votes, or win an electorate seat. But, if for example, a party got 4% of the votes, but also got one electorate, they would be entitled to 4% of the seats. The government is formed by a democratic election held every three years.

I hope to get another five questions completed this week. I’m not sure how this will go for me!

Please comment and give me feedback!

Car Crash

My brother, mum and I were all driving home from our bach in Matarangi. We had just gotten off the Kopu Bridge when all of a sudden the car in front of us pulled over. We pulled over too. Two cars had collided into each other headfirst, and they had both been sent to either side of the road. There were debris and random pieces of metal lying around everywhere. My mum told me to call 111. I decided not to because I could see about five other people already doing it. Plus, I was too shy, and I knew that I wouldn’t know much of the important information. Mum rushed out to go help. Someone yelled, “Has anyone called 911?” Somebody else yelled “111!” I got out of the car and sat on the bonnet. People were running around everywhere. They went to each car and asked if anybody had a fire extinguisher. We didn’t. Luckily, there was only one person in each car. It was amazing how many volunteer firemen, nurses and doctors there were. Eventually, the police arrived so we could leave. We had to go the long way home, but it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, the person who didn’t cause the accident died.

It was a really scary experience, and I hope it doesn’t ever happen again!

Lorde Releases New Single

Lorde’s new single Green Light was released last Friday. Within an hour of being released, it already had five hundred thousand views.

Lorde has been teasing her fans for months about the release of new music. It was revealed on Friday that the song was inspired by her own personal heartbreak experience. Green Light is the first single released from her new album “Melodrama”. Lorde has been praised by the likes of Katy Perry and Hayley Williams of Paramore.

My Opinion:

After listening to the song, I discovered it was a really cool song, and that it is sung in her usual style.

Source: I found this information on Kiwi Kids News.

My Wondering: How many albums does Lorde have?

Answer: She has five.

Vocab:

Upcoming: About to happen; forthcoming.

Anthem: A rousing or uplifting song identified with a particular group, body, or cause.

Anticipated: Regard as probable; expect or predict.

Hauraki Plains Swimming Sports

On Monday the 6th of March, I went to Hauraki Plains Swimming Sports for three races. The first race I went to was the two lengths breaststroke. It was the one I had the most hope in. There were five of us in the race, and we only had one heat. When I sat on the chairs waiting for Mr Fraser to blow his whistle, my stomach churned. I was really nervous! Mr Fraser blew the whistle. I climbed up, ready to dive. Mr Fraser blew the horn, and I dived in. My head scraped the ground at the bottom, but I didn’t worry too much about it. I did a pretty good pullout, then surfaced. I was in third place for the duration of the first length. I was trying my hardest to beat the girl in front of me. Just at about three-quarters of the way through the race, I passed her. I finished just a little bit before her. I was really proud of myself because I had come 2nd, which meant I would be going to Thames Valley, which was my ultimate goal of the day. I was super excited. My mum was waiting for me when I hopped out, and I gave her a hug which she wasn’t very happy about…

My next race wasn’t for a while yet, so I had a snack. The next race was the two lengths freestyle. I wasn’t really expecting much from this race, but I still gave my all. I came fourth. Throughout the whole race, I was trying to pass the girl in front of me. I finished a split second after her. I was pretty proud of myself for this. I had quite a long break before my next race, the three lengths breaststroke, so I used that as a “lunch break”. When the three lengths breaststroke finally arrived, I was pretty nervous, as I was racing the 12-year olds as well as my own age group. I knew that most of them were faster than me. When I dived in, my ear popped, so I was in pain throughout the entire race. I finished in fourth, but that was just in my heat. Overall I probably would have been about 6th or 7th. I was pretty proud of myself, though.

That concluded my day. I was really proud of my results, especially my 2 lengths breaststroke. The funniest part of the day was that I was in lane four in all of my races!

Speaking At Assembly

At Friday’s assembly, I went up twice. The first time was to sing our learning team’s waiata, and the second time was to talk about our learning smarts. I was really nervous, and the whole time before I went up I couldn’t concentrate properly. When the time finally came for me to go up for the waiata, I had the rest of my team up there with me, so it wasn’t so scary. There were four of us. I felt a bit better after going up for the first time. But I still knew that I had to go up another time. A lot of it I had to remember off by heart because the final script was missing a few bits. I was really scared I would muddle my words up. When it was finally time for us to go up, I discovered that it wasn’t actually that scary. I did fine, and I was really proud of myself. I would do it again any day!

YouTube Stops Long Adverts

YouTube announced that they will be stopping 30 second advertisements you can’t skip.

Advertisements are a very big part on YouTube because that is how the video owners make money. The more people that watch the advertisement, the more money they make.

YouTube usually gives you the option to skip the ad after 5 seconds, but sometimes, you have to watch a 30 second long ad before your desired video. The feedback on the 30 second ads was that people would close out of the video if they experienced this. Although, shorter ads will still be on YouTube so that they can still make money.

My Opinion:

I think it’s really good that YouTube responds to their users and what they want. It’s what makes them such a successful company.

Source: I found this information on Kiwi Kids News.

My Wondering:
Who invented YouTube?

Answer: Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen were the founders of YouTube.

Vocab:

Announced: Make a formal public statement about a fact, occurrence, or intention.

Feedback: Information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement.

Advertisers: A person or company that advertises a product, service, or event.

IE Ignition

Swimming Sports 2017

On Monday the 27th February, we had the NPS Swimming Sports day. I swam in every event I could and had a great time.

The first event I entered was the medley. A medley race is when you swim one length of butterfly, one length of backstroke, one length of breaststroke, and one length of freestyle all in that order. I am not very good at swimming butterfly, so I was quite a bit behind at the start. It was quite a challenging race, and I think the hardest part in that race for me was the butterfly. In that race, I came 5th.

The second event I entered was the one length freestyle. I didn’t really have much trouble in that race, and I came 5th.

Next, I entered the two lengths freestyle. I got a bit tired towards the end, but I feel like I did really well. I came 2nd.

Then I entered the one length backstroke. In that race, I came third. In the two length backstroke, I also came third.

Then, it was finally time for me to do my favourite stroke, breaststroke. In the one length, I came third. I was really proud of myself for this. Then in the two lengths, I came second. During that entire race, I could see the person coming first and I was trying my hardest to beat them. Towards the end of the first length, I nearly had her, but then I ran out of energy and had to slow down a bit.

After that race, it was time for the relays. I entered with Ava and Holly into the 12+ girls' relay. Holly swam backstroke, Ava swam breaststroke and I swam freestyle. Holly started by swimming freestyle. She was in about second when she finished but the others were close behind. Then Ava dived in to swim breaststroke. She had a big lead, and while I was waiting for her to come, I was desperately hoping I wouldn’t lose the lead. When Ava touched the wall, I dived in and swam the fastest freestyle I’d ever swum. I swam really fast, and soon enough it was all over. We had won! My whole team was really proud of ourselves and we felt great to have won for our house team.

My Charity

What Would Happen On My Dream Weekend?

On my dream weekend, it would be a long weekend. The type that goes from Friday to Monday. On Friday, Holly, Georgia, and Freya would come over, and we would all go to Rainbow's End. We would have lots of fun, and we would all have triple scoop ice creams and eat whatever we wanted. We would then stay the night at a fancy hotel in Auckland, with lots of food. The next day we would take a private jet to Hawaii. We would stay at the Four Seasons resort in Hualalai. On Saturday we would just chill at the resort, go swimming, and eat lots of delicious food. On Sunday, we would go to the Cat Island, and we would each bring home a really cute kitten! On Monday we would head back to New Zealand and go to Sylvia Park. We would go to the movies and have a big shopping spree.

This is my best weekend ever. Maybe it will happen someday!

5 Interesting Facts About Me!

Improved Tuakana Teina

In our class, we have Tuakana, Tupu, and Teina. Tuakana is the expert, and Teina is the learner. Tuakana Teina is the relationship between the expert and the learner. You could be Tuakana or Teina for anything. For example, I would be Tuakana at netball, but Teina at hockey. Tupu is somewhere in-between. I might be Tupu at something so I would be working towards Tuakana.

In our case, we are talking about where we stand at making good choices for our learning. To be Tuakana, would mean that you are the expert. You consistently make the right choices for your learning. To be Tupu would mean that you are working towards Tuakana. You can make the right choices, but you don’t do it consistently. Or you might be Teina, and you are still learning to make the right choices for your learning.

We were all trusted to rate ourselves. I chose to rate myself at Tuakana. I think I am Tuakana because I can and do make the correct choices for my learning. I can work well on my own, and I don’t need to sit by my friends all the time. To stay Tuakana I need to do all of these things consistently.

Learning Team

Generating Ideas Tagul

I made this Tagul instead of my self circle this year.