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Disaster!

Our topic for Term 4 has been Disasters.

As part of this topic we have been looking at websites, including What’s The Plan Stan? and Christchurch City Libraries, both disaster websites. We were looking at what to do if a disaster strikes. At the start of the term we got a Disaster contract to work on.

We had to finish ten things on the sheet, three of which we could choose ourselves. After we finished the contract we each chose a disaster to find out facts about, and all the supplies you need for an emergency kit. We had to show what you would do before, during and after a disaster on a poster or in a booklet.

Now most people have finished so we are going back to the Terms 1 and 2 topic which was Road Safety.

Civil Defence Exercise at Springston School

On Tuesday 27 October, a Civil Defence Exercise was held at the school. Here is a slideshow showing some of the people 'injured' during the 'disaster', and how they were rescued and assisted by the Fire Brigade and the Red Cross.

Dragons' Den

On Wednesday 19 August Springston School had a Dragons’ Den event. We got the idea from the tv programme. At school, the students entered by either inventing something, or altering another invention. It was a great success and there were lots of cool inventions.

On the day, first there was a Family Challenge. You had to make a wind-powered racer which got powered by a piece of cardboard. There was an adult challenge and a children’s challenge, Room 5 got 1st in one race and 2nd in the other race.

Next came the Dragons’ Den. There were three judges who looked around the classrooms after school (so did the parents). Later in the afternoon the judges chose 7 people from the classes to talk about their invention to an audience in the library. These are the seven students who got chosen: Izaac Beever (Room 5) with the Iron Water Storer which stores lots of water and recycles it as well; Oliver Gwatkin (Room 5) whose invention was the Garden Tool Holder; Anton Phillipson (Room 5) with the Wheel Chair Bike for a disabled person with an able person; Taylor Hamlin (Room 7) with the Log Dryer; Shania Gibson (Room 6) with the Popcorn Sieve; Andrew Doodson (Room 6) with a pair of Splippers which are weed-killer spraying snippers; and Samantha McGrath (Room 7) with the Washing Transporter which brings your washing into your wash room or where ever you want.

It was a great day, there was no individual winner, all the inventions were fascinating. People were amazed by how clever the inventions were. I think we should do it again some time.

Congratulations Oliver!!!

Recently Oliver did some I.C.A.S. tests (International Competitions and Assessments for Schools). He did especially well in the Science test, getting 100%, the highest in New Zealand!

As a reward for this great effort he will be flying to Wellington in December to receive a medal! The other tests he did were Computer Skills, for which he got around 95%, and Maths, for which the results haven't arrived yet.

Science Alive! Trip

On Thursday 2 July we went on the bus to the education part of Science Alive! We were studying super structures as part of our inquiry. We went into a special room where we had to create certain structures using k'nex. These included the Sky Tower, Bungy Tower, a flying fox, bridges and a clock tower. It was quite challenging because we had to figure out what pieces fit and what doesn't.

After we were finished we got put into two groups, apples and bananas. First the bananas walked around and looked at all of the structures and the apples talked about their structure. After that we swapped around so the bananas talked and the apples walked. It was fun.

After we had looked at everything everyone had to take their structure apart and that wasn't fun. After that we went on the bus home again.

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Mrs K, Oliver, Izaac and Anton