The Croods biological species

 The Croods are a bunch of cavemen dudes family. I have been tasked with figuring out WHAT homo species they are!!! To start us of I will look at cultural evoloution stuff.

FIRST OFF, they can language this means they have an advanced brain with the brocas area at the very least somewhat developed. This means that they are homo habilis or a later species. They wear clothes which started with homo sapiens. However, they do a mix of knuckle-walking and leg walking. This is a strange bit as this would suggest a much much earlier species as the homo species have never knuckle walked. They also have an extremely high strength level and running speed. As observed in the opening act the baby of the family is able to outrun a fully grown animal at extremely fast speeds. The speed reached by a BABY Groot is beyond the speed of a fully adult human. They also have an extremley high level of arm strength. They have extreme height levels, the dad is 6 foot 9 with Emma being 6 ft 2. The average human male is 5 foot 9.

Visually they are larger than the average homo sapien. With this information alone I can conclude the following: In conclusion they are a super human bread of homo sapiens with insane levels of strength, since I have discovered this new species I am going to name them "Homo apehumansupermen".

Potatools

 In biology, we are learning about tools. To help us learn our teacher made us make potatools below is a photo of a poster of such potatools.

(photo was copyrighted by Neika Geldard)

Scholarship Pathway Day.... Yay

Today the English Scholarship Pathway group partook in 4 hours of learning a range of different topics. Such as period 1 where we learnt about different English storytelling structures and techniques whereas in period 2 we learnt about the history and uses of English Rhetoric. Period 3 was all about philosophy and the important question of "Why?" while period 4 was all about Shakespear and how he manipulated the beliefs of people at the time to create such amazing plays.

Overall I found this day to be very interesting and informative. I look forward to learning more in this program.

English Connections topic questions

For our new English topic, we are looking at different stories told from a child's perspective instead of adults. For example, Jojo Rabbit tells the story of a Nazi child.

1. How does viewing this text through a child’s perspective change the way we experience it? Explain using an example from the text? Seeing it through a child's eye adds a sense of "innocence" to it. Most people don't relate these types of things to children since most don't think about how it can affect a child. When shown through a child's eye it amplifies the effect, you are made to feel much worse when you see a kid get manipulated into being a Nazi rather than an adult. For example, when Jojo is having a conflict in his head about Elsa he talks about how she isn't that bad of a person, but he stutters while he says it and somewhat struggles with it. This shows he is having a big conflict about it making it much more impactful

2. How would this text be different if it were told from the perspective of an adult? How would the audience’s experience be different? When looking through an adults eye the movie can't have the same impact for certain aspects. For example, Jojo rabbit wouldn't work if you saw it through Captain K's point of view. Sure he's funny in the movie but if the setting was around him you can't have the same creative jokes as Jojo had. You cant start the movie off with Captain K running around the city saluting people and shouting heil Hitler unlike with Jojo

3. Why did the filmmaker or author decide to tell this story from a child’s perspective? Because it is much easier to and more effective to convey the message the director aims to achieve from a child perspective. The point of the film is to make fun of Nazis while showing how serious this type of thing is which is hard to achieve from a non-child perspective.

Why The Treaty Was Needed

In 1830 there where native Māori and non-native Europeans living in New Zealand. The behaviour of the Whalers, the Missionaries’ desire to help protect Māori rights and the Musket Wars were reasons that a treaty was needed. The Declaration of Independence was another contributing factor to the need for a treaty.

The behaviour of the European whalers in NZ during 1830 was abysmal, to say the least. Whalers in NZ would easily spend months at a time in the ocean hunting dangerous marine life such as sperm whales. With most if not all of the crew were men and it’s the 1830’s there would, of course, be some trouble once they arrived back in town. Once back in town there would be rampant prostitution, drinking and fights. Maori would regularly face the problem of Whalers returning to their town just to get drunk have sex and spread disease (including STDs). Fights would also break out with Maori most likely getting involved as presumably many of the whalers would easily be at least partially racist towards them. The only good thing coming out of this would have been the trade aspect for the Maori but besides that, it was a nightmare. With a government in place, laws would presumably be established stopping such disgusting behaviour by these whalers. 

In New Zealand, during the British colonisation period, Missionaries were crucial in the treaty of Waitangi being signed. Missionaries came to New Zealand to convert the Maori to Christianity and in order to do that they realised they would have to become friendly towards the Maori. They would trade with the Maori regularly as well as provide tools and teach them new technologies such as farming. Missionaries were concerned over the mass purchase of land in New Zealand so they began purchasing land themselves then handing it over to the Maori as a show of goodwill. The muskets wars were resulting in thousands of Maori deaths and slaves, with french threats rising and whalers causing trouble the displeased missionaries would seek to create some sort of stability such as a government.

The musket wars were horrific. Maori had been shown muskets by the British and learned how great of a weapon they were, they would give anything for them. Millions of Maori died to their own culture as the new weapon traded by the European was incredibly powerful compared to their previous weapons. Maori had a tribalistic culture with a warrior-like lifestyle, they fought to protect their iwi and had to hunt and gather food in increasingly dangerous environments. Wars already waging between tribes would have one side all of a sudden come back with muskets and massacre the other. After the first tribe got theirs a chain reaction started were the next tribe needed it for protection or against a tribe they where fighting and then the cycle continued until you either had a musket or you were dead. In order to afford muskets, many tribes would trade food and the tribeswomen in order to pay for the muskets. This changed their lifestyle forcing them to stop growing or hunting certain types of food because it wasn’t effective enough or the British didn’t like it. The death and misery caused by the musket wars was a massive factor in the declaration of independence and the treaty.

Why did the British sign a declaration and then push a treaty? Early on when the Maori were still prospering despite the musket wars they were given the opportunity to have a declaration of independence. This declaration was the result of Missionarys pushing fair rights for the Maori, the British wanted to stop other powers colonising New Zealand and Maori wanting to keep their traditional ways without British interference. The declaration allowed for Maori to have more independence from other powers and allowing them to govern themselves. However, shortly after the signing of the declaration of independence, the British government decided that they wanted New Zealand under British rule. To make this a thing they pushed for more colonisation and the treaty of Waitangi.

In conclusion, a treaty was needed for New Zealand to get to where we are today. However that does not exclude the fact that thousands of Maori died to injustice because of the British, the treaty itself was a way for the British to gain power over the Maori for New Zealand. I think it should still be celebrated, New Zealand doesn’t have many events like this happen and despite the injustice caused by the events, it left New Zealand in a better spot than it would be. We changed because of these events and learnt from them, now Maori and Pakeha are equal by the law and generally live happily together in New Zealand. In the end, the treaty was worth it.

ALl about phones

For social studies recently we have started looking at devices and technology. For the first bit we have looked at how much time is both spent on our devices and what devices we use the most.

As you can see most people in our class use their devices from 11-20 hours while the most used device is a phone. Below will be the history of phones as a timeline

How are metals used in our bodies?

How are metals used in our bodies?

Metals are used across the world in many different ways, they are used in the making of structures, computers and body replacements like titanium joints. Titanium joints were introduced around the 1950s and are still a common thing today. Titanium has almost perfect properties for body part replacement, for example, it is immune to corrosion, non-magnetic (meaning it isn't attracted to other metals), lighter than steel, a high boiling and melting point (meaning on a hot day it's not just gonna boil or melt inside you). 

However, titanium is also used in other things to do with the body other than joints. Titanium teeth (dental implants) is a two-stage process used to replace missing teeth. First, a titanium implant is put into each of the empty where a tooth used to be. If a tooth was recently removed you will not be able to get an implant there for 6-8 weeks as the dentists will want to watch out for any inflammation or infection. 8 weeks after this your gum is opened and the dentists will place an abutment then the gum is re-closed. 1-2 weeks afterwards the gums should have healed and teeth look-alikes are placed inside your mouth to make it look like you have normal teeth. 

We in a way also have natural "metals" in our body's. One of these is of course calcium. However like every other "metal" in our body, it is not in a solid-state, in fact, it is just an ion with a plus +2 charge. Some natural metals inside our body are quite crucial for our survival. Cobalt ions are crucial in making red blood cells while iron can transport oxygen and other chemicals in our body. Calcium helps with bone strength, nerve function and blood clotting. There are two types of important metals in our body's, major minerals and trace minerals. Major minerals are needed in large quantities inside our body whereas trace minerals aren't found in as large quantities. Major minerals include calcium, chloride, magnesium and potassium to name a few. Trace minerals include chromium, copper, fluoride, iodine and iron to name a few. Both types are equally important in our health the only difference is the quantity you find.