Hannah Ott - The Surface Mining Machine

Greetings room 13,

With a lurch the cart swung into action. The horses plodded forward and onto the road. A cool breeze whispered through the grasses as the cart hit the black tar, then onto gravel. The earth was dry near the old coal mine and the brown horses churned up dust from the road. The surface mining machine was about 500 meters long, a tangle of grey steel and ropes. A clear blue lake glittered ahead of us, with the future swimming beach and campsite, but the landscape was still ugly and brown. Barely anything grew here since the mine was in use for only 13 months 20 years ago until political changes caused an early closure of the mine.
The mass of steel, the surface mining machine, ruins the view even more. Its 80 meter high bulk is now of no more use. The imposing sculpture makes you feel small and vulnerable, I thought as the bays trotted up the hill back to the road.
For more information please look up: www.f60.de/index_e.htm.

Yours truly,
Hanna.

Beeswax......

Guten Tag room 13,

This week we went to my birth town Weimar, where we visited a bee museum. There was a little shop selling honey in big bottles and beeswax candles, HONEY waffles and lollies, great slabs of HONEY soap and bottles of creamy HONEY liqueur... you name it! Inside the museum they had huge wooden sculptures of people that bees could build their hives in from a long time ago, and a hive behind some glass with a pipe leading out so that you could see how it works. There were lots of books with facts about bees and a disgusting model of half a bee. Walking around a museum on a hot, summery day makes you hungry, so we went outside for a drink and some 'Bienenstich', a sweet, almondy cake made with honey, of course! 'Bienenstich' means beesting. We didn't get stung by a bee when we walked through the flower garden where bees from about 7 hives buzzed lazily in the warm air.

Tschuess,
From Hanna.

Zoe, Bailee & Dione's Pics from the Garden Visit

Shetland St Community Gardens - Bailee Porter

Today Bailee,Dione and Zoe went to the Shetland Street Organic Gardens
and we spent about a hour there with Hendrik, Zoe's Dad came along also. Hendrik told us about composting. We got to eat some kind of plant it was hot. He showed us some Tiger Worms in his compost it was fun to learn about what he does with his garden and we will be able to use some of the information in our ASPIRE inquiry work about composting waste.
Written by Bailee

Otago Cross Country Champs

Well Done to everone who ran in the Otago Cross Country Champs on Friday - A special well done to Bailee From Room13 who was placed 12th in the Year 7 Girls race, check out the results below!
OTAGO Y7 BOYS CROSS COUNTRY 2009OTAGO Y7 GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY 2009

Hanna's Travel Stories...

Dear r 13,
Karelia, here we come! The hut at the lake was small and wooden, a wood burner and a sauna inside. Two beds and a sofa as furniture. No taps, just the lake. A painting of some pines and a hut by a river, an old-fashioned radio, a microwave, a stove… basically all this hut is. Oh, I forgot the boat. A small rowing boat to explore the large, black lake. An island, miniature and coated in a forest and blueberry weeds, mushrooms, too. A stiff breeze ruffled the lake as the boat drifted toward the island, making it look like a weird hairdo. A few lily pads and stems that looked like horsetail poked out of the lake like stubble from a man’s beard. What might we see? A moose? A bear? Perhaps a wolf? We let our imagination run wild.

From Hanna.

P.S: We went canoeing on the squirrel route (it was BYO squirrel!). check out this link for more information by a travel magazine: www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/start-to-finnish-a-strenuous-canoe-trip-in-finlands-lake-district-is-the-perfect-family-escape-1772180.html



Hi room 13,

I breathed deep. The musty smell of old books reached my nose, making me want to sneeze. A steep stairway led up to the 1st floor. We raced up the stairs, our feet slapping on the stone. The scent grew stronger and within moments we were faced with shelves upon shelves of books. Old, new, bright, dull, fiction or not…. Who cares! My mum tramped up a few floors while I explored the kid’s section. Too bad that most of the books were in Finnish! However, they did have a generous selection of English literature. I chose a book and settled down to read. After a while my mum came back and said she wanted to show me something. I followed her up to the 6th floor and we gazed down the stairwell. A spiral staircase wound into a coil like a snake. It was very cool! We found these links on the internet and thought they might be interesting.
locatinghelsinki.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/rikhardinkadun-kirjasto
www.flickr.com/photos/60027857@N00/2559923383

We also went to a smoke sauna, a zoo, and for a swim near our apartment block that week.

Yours,

Hanna Ott(er)

Room 13 Questions from the Wall of Wonder…

We have had many interesting discussions recently and below are a list of some of the questions you have ‘wondered’ about, It is time to try and find some of the answers and explanations behind the questions you have asked. The challenge over the course of this week will be to find information on the questions below and be able to explain these to your peers.

• What fuels the Heart? Does it fuel itself?
• What controls the heart?
• When girls get their periods why do they get sore tummies?
• Are Toe Nails Bones?
• If your dinner tastes nice and then you spew it up, Why does it taste YUK!?
• How do tampons get disposed of? Are they environmentally friendly or are they carbon loaders?
• Why do your hands go purple when you are really cold?
• If or when you take steroids what do they do to make your muscles bigger?
• What are steroids made from?
• When big body builders take steroids too much are they still able to produce live sperm?
• Why is hearing the last thing to go when you die? Is this true?
• Why do people lose their sight as they get older?
• Why do some people need glasses?
• How heavy is bone?
• Can puberty make boys depressed?
• Why don’t all bones bend?
• What are bones made out of?
• Why do we have so many bones?
• Why do we go through puberty at this age and not earlier?
• Why do children’s hearts work faster than adults?
• Why does our hair go grey?
• What happens when you get a muscle strain?
• How is a liver able to re-grow when some of it is removed or damaged?