Task 2 - Resources

 This term in 10R we have been looking at Managing the Environment. One of the things we are looking at through this topic is resources. We have been looking at different kinds of resources. We have been tasked with giving a brief response to the resources we researched.

A resource is something people use to meet their needs. Renewable resources , Non - Renewable resources and Human resources are examples of the categories specific resources fit into. Renewable resources are things like water where they provide hydro power to create electricity. Non - renewable resources are things like fossil fuels that provide gas. Human resources are people who provide a service to help you with your needs.

Hydro power is an efficient way to create energy. It is a renewable resources which is an energy source that are able to supply a continuous source of clean energy. Hydro power is quite an efficient way of creating electricity as we have many water resources around the world. The only way that this will stop is if we run out of water. So as long as we have water we will be able to create electricity through hydropower which is an example of a renewable energy source.

Reading Response - Short text

 

NZ Herald / Link for article

Moerewa home badly damaged by fire

This article is based on a house fire that was located in Moerewa, down Otira RD on Saturday Morning.  The blaze was immense, you could see the smoke from Kawakawa. This gave an impression that it was a rather large fire so when fire brigade was alerted they called on Pahias brigade for backup just in case. The house took a lot of damage but everyone who was inside got out of harm's reach. ‘The family was alerted when they saw flames. No one was hurt. The cause was not immediately clear. Firefighters were also trying to confirm whether the house had working smoke alarms’. 

A key message in this article is that you can never be too safe at home. The family were alerted by the fires and were able to get out in time but something that could have helped notify them earlier was the smoke alarms. The firefighters afterwards were checking to see if the smoke alarms were working. They can never say this enough ‘ Always check to see if your smoke alarms are working’. You never know what could happen while you're at home and this is something to take into consideration.

One thing that interested me was the location of the fire. This house fire was down Otira Rd in Moerewa. This is also the town where I live. On that Saturday morning my mum was alerted by social media of a house fire in Moerewa. I went outside after hearing this and realised that there was quite a bit of smoke around the town. My cousin even told me that not so long ago she heard sirens. Giving me the conclusion that what we heard on social media was true.

The location was what fascinated me about this article. The article didn't have much information but I would recommend others to read it as a warning to check your smoke alarms and be aware of what's happening around you. 

SST Future Planning

We, in 10R are nearing the end of this terms social studies unit. This term in we have been researching the topic 'Future Planning'. 

This topic is preparing us for the future as we have been researching careers, entrepreneurs and enterprises, these being our key concepts. We are closing the unit by exploring and researching our key ideas and creating our own part time businesses with the option of carrying them out.

Key Concepts

Career

(Google definition)

A career is an expert way or occupation which you participate in for a long period of your life with multiple opportunities for improvement.

It is a profession and pathway used to earn money, experience and intelligence. For example, you could want to be a dentist but to gain qualification you will need to study for a few years. All that time studying will have left you with a lot of knowledge on the subject and in some cases other medical departments. There are many things you could base the choice of your career off of. It could be your interests, you could base it of the skills you have, a goal, the amount of money that career pays you with or it could be something a family member has done that you would like to try to.

Enterprise

An enterprise defined by google is a project or undertaking that is especially difficult, complicated, or risky. Another way to describe this is a company or business, often a small one. Some enterprises can be very risky especially ones that have just started. You could have competition with your business, possibly not have enough buyers to profit or have problems with packaging and products. Having an enterprise comes with hard decisions to make. For example, if you have just made a business and it is quiet successful you have the option of investing the money you earned to buy more supplies or to possibly upgrade or give a larger selection of items. Entrepreneurs of these enterprises are well aware of the cons that come with creating your business but they also have the potential to provide a financial benefit. 

Entrepreneur

An Entrepreneur is the person who has created the enterprise and often the person who developed the thought. An entrepreneur makes the best of a chance to make profit, mindful of the danger and risks. For the most part they form a unique thought into somewhat of an operation to get benefit knowing the high danger factor accompanied with it. An Entrepreneur faces  challenges with their business continuously driven by the benefits they reap by the end of it. Although you receive most of the rewards becoming an entrepreneur is hard work, effort, time and money.

How do these three key concepts relate to the topic?

All three concepts associate with our present social studies unit. These all correlate with each other through a finical way. Career, Enterprise, Entrepreneur all intertwine with our futures as these things all have something to do with financial and monetary benefit which is a major part of our future. Career being the job path, Enterprise being the business and company and entrepreneur being the boss and mind behind the operation. In the near future we will work in an enterprise for an entrepreneur under a specific career. This is how they relate to the unit.

During this topic we have talked about a possible career you may want or have, the possible life you want and the financial risks that come with it all. This topic was built to prepare us for the near future when we have to endure labour to earn money. We talked about the job we may want and the amount of payment given to see if it fits our wants and needs.  This topic also is very helpful as we are all nearing our school jumpstart, where we all move up a year level to get a taste of what the new year brings. Before jumpstart we all choose our options we would like to take in the next year level. This topic is teaching us the values of finance and getting us aware of possible job opportunities we would like to endure. It is good as knowing the career we want will help us in our choice of learning for NCEA where we may need to take specific classes to be qualified to work in a specific career.

The purpose of this topic was to help us decide on a future career, learn more about the financial side of things and to give us a bit of knowledge on what may happen when we leave school. The challenging bit for me during this topic was to find a possible career I may want to have. Although it was just for a project and not set in stone it was pressuring to try think that far into the future. Deciding on a career that suited me and researching the sort of life I may want was the challenging part.

This unit was very useful for me as a year ten moving into NCEA in the near future. It gave me a chance to research a career, the meaning of our three key concepts that all relate to our futures and the benefits and risks with finance. This is all very important because at some point in our lives we will all experience what it is like to be responsible for yourself and to earn your own money. This topic has opened my eyes to some possible career paths and has made me aware of the multiple responsibilities adults have.

Karate Kid - Violence

 

Chillout App

 This week for robotics we have been focusing on the topic apps. We were tasked with creating our Project 1 app. This app is a sound app where we have put images of something and it will play the noise that the photo makes. I have created one with an additional sound that the kiwi makes. We created the app on the site MIT App Inventor. You created an app on this site and downloaded the MIT AI2 Companion app so you could use the app you created and have a chance to check it out. After creating you would go to a chromebook button and it will send your creation to the MIT AI2 Companion app where you could view it and play around to see if it works. My sounds where one of the Tui, Waves, A few Musical Notes and the Kiwi's call. You can examine your apps by chromebook, computer and phones.

Photo of app on the MIT APP Inventor site

English Karate Kid Film Studies

 

The Karate Kid is a film about a young boy named Daniel and his karate journey with his Master, Mr Miyagi.

Mr Miyagi is somewhat of a father figure to Daniel as he helps,protects, teaches him karate and about his

culture constantly. Mr Miyagi has helped Daniel overcome a lot of his fears and encouraged him to stand

up for himself from the Cobra Kais. They both trust each other and through their journey have gotten closer

and gotten to know more about each other. At the tournament Mr Miyagi is always supporting Daniel and

realises this is something Daniel really cares about.

My favourite character is Mr Miyagi because of how helpful and kind he is towards Daniel. Mr Miyagi is very patient. He stayed and continued to put up with Daniel even when he doubted him. He taught him simple karate through house chores and that somehow managed to gain Daniels trust a lot more. He saved Daniel multiple times from the cobra kais and managed to get them off his back. He is a very generous man as he gave Daniel one of his cars for his birthday. He taught Daniel karate but told him “Fighting is always the last answer” and “Karate for defense only.” This tells us that Mr Miyagi has a different view than Daniel and that he only uses karate to protect and defend others.

An event which made me laugh was when Daniel and Mr Miyagi were out on the boat and Mr Miyagi purposefully rocked the boat so Daniel would fall off. Mr Miyagi was teaching Daniel a lesson about balance. He told Daniel to get on the bow of the boat and practice some of the karate moves he already knew. Daniel got a bit too cocky so Mr Miyagi made him fall off the boat. Mr Miyagi cracked up laughing and so did I.

I would recommend this text to other teenagers because it is a thrilling story with a bit of violence and romance that teenagers these days seem to like. This story also has a good message in it. When the main character is thrown around and continuously bullied he never stops standing up for himself or Ali. Mr Miyagi who he met on the way helped him to push through all the bullies and overcome them. In the tournament Daniel never gave up and finally showed them what he could do and they no longer could bother him. Alot of teengaers these days with bullies can relate to the feeling but they need to do what Daniel did.“ Push through and never give up”

We have also been learning about different film terms and techniques.  

Below are my film shots and a grid to my analysis from short clips of a film. This term for English we are doing the topic film studies. We have been learning about the different camera shots and angles that people may use in movies or videos. Below is a photo of some of the different types of camera shots. We then watched the movie Karate kid. As we went period through period watching this movie we had to write down some key events that happened in the movie. When we finished the movie we had work on hapara workspace to do. We had to watch a small clip from the movie and take a few images from that small clip to analyse. The link below shows a doc where we did some of the analysis work.

Link to Analysis

SNA

This term for Social Studies we have been learning about the current issue we call SNA. SNA converts to Significant Natural Area.  Significant Natural Area are areas containing significant and native vegetation or habitats. This is a current issue because of how SNA effects local land owners. In order to protect our native plants and habitats the government is putting multiple restrictions around what you can do to your land that contains significant natural area.

Some restrictions include ...

• No fires around SNA
• No cutting down SNA
• No building around or on that area
• No walking, playing or any physical events that may harm the SNA
• Don't do any harm to the SNA

If you break any of the rules or breach the restrictions you could go to jail for 2 years.

The Government is pushing really hard on local government to get this through. Local landowners are furious because a lot of there land contains SNA so they basically no longer have ownership of that piece of land.

AN EXAMPLE :

If someone buys a big piece of land for maybe around 200,000 dollars to build a family home on it, but it is covered in SNA, you will no longer be able to build the house. Even though that was the purpose of you buying that property if it contains SNA you cannot do anything to harm that area.

Maori's in particular are very upset about this. If you have a look at all of the areas containing SNA, most of them will be Maori land. So the government basically now own and have authority of the Maori land.

Although this new district Plan on SNA has a lot of cons there are some pros. The whole reason the Government is doing this whole thing in the first place is to preserve the land for future generations.

PROS OF SNA

The Pros of SNA are that if we abide by there rules then the native plants and habitats that are in that land will thrive and spread. The purpose of SNA is to prevent the extinction of rare species and ecosystems, allowing insects and birds to move across productive landscapes. We need to effectively restore our native ecosystems.

In Social Studies we needed to answer a few questions.

What does SNA FNDC stand for? SNA FNDC stands for Significant Natural Area, Far North District Council. Far North District is home to a range of unique landscapes, species and habitats, many of which are under threat. The council is needs to protect them through a District Plan. While there are already rules in the current District Plan to manage these habitats, they are now required to identify these areas and manage them more specifically in a new District Plan.

What is the FND council trying to develop?

The Far North District Council is trying to develop a new land full of areas with SNA. They are trying to stop us from destroying the small areas of SNA that we have left to preserve and spread for future generations to enjoy. They are developing a district plan. The District Plan is about sustainable land use, environmental protection and enabling growth in the most suitable places. It is a balancing act. Its purpose is to protect our environment, historic places and cultural taonga for future generations

What restrictions does this mean for landowners? Landowners can not touch any where near where that SNA is located on their property. They can not do any harm and it means that you can't light fires around that area. If you bought land to build things on it and it is covered in SNA you cannot cut down or harm those trees or plants. So the land that you brought, you cannot do anything with it if it is covered in SNA. In some case you may not even be able to plant exotic flowers or other vegetation if the government says so. Basically you cannot do anything to harm that SNA.

How could this move affect peoples family's? If you and your family buy a big block and have plans to build a building or a family home on it and if it has acres of trees and SNA you and your family cannot go in with your original plans of building. If that land cost 500,000 you cannot touch any part of that land. The Government if basically taking away your land rights. Government have full authority on Native land even if it is on your land. A few weeks ago there was a march in Kaikohe on a Friday. Thousands of angry residents, farmers, hapū and iwi groups have descended on Kaikohe in Northland to protest what they call "modern-day land grabs".

Who does SNA effect? SNA affects everyone who has land containing SNA. Sna has been going on for ages. If you have SNA on your land you cannot remove that SNA or touch any land near there. The government is trying to preserve our current SNA. You and your family could lose your land rights. That’s why there was a march last friday. Around 8000 letters have been sent to residents explaining that up to 100 percent of their private property will be considered an SNA. On Friday morning, the group combined with hundreds of concerned farmers, residents and iwi from across the district.