Summer Learning Journey Week 1 - Day 5

DAY 5: Blink and You’ll Miss It

Activity 1: Towering Timbers [4 points]

There is a long and rich history of logging in New Zealand. Logging involves cutting down trees. The people who cut them down are called loggers. The trees that they cut down are sold and used to build things (eg. houses), to make products (eg. paper), and to generate (create) heat and power. Over the past two centuries, many of the trees in New Zealand have been cut down by loggers.

Left: NZ native forest Right: A logged forest

Some people like logging because it creates jobs for the loggers and generates money for New Zealand while others are against (opposed to) logging. Many of those opposed are worried that logging will damage the environment. It might also force animals who live in trees (eg. owls) to find new homes.

What do you think about logging?

On your blog tell us whether you think logging should be allowed in New Zealand. Be sure to provide at least two reasons to support your argument.

I would go against loggers. Reason why is because they are cutting down trees which gives oxygen and also because trees are some home to animals! Without trees some animals will be homeless and have to live in the opens which is not safe for them. 

I think logging should not be allowed in New Zealand! There are 3,000,000,000,000 trees in New Zealand study says, and about 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are cut down each year! If this goes on, there soon will be not as much trees in New Zealand and therefore there wouldn't be as much oxygen for humans and animals to breath! 

Activity 2: Living on the Edge [4 points]

While it can get quite cold in New Zealand, it rarely drops below freezing (00C). Most of the time the temperature in New Zealand is pretty mild. This is not the case in the tundra. The tundra is an area of land (biome) that is cold, dry and completely treeless. Did you know that the average temperature in the tundra is -280C?

Over the past few years, however, the temperature in the tundra has been rising and the weather has been changing. Let’s imagine that your teacher decides to take you on a class trip to the tundra before the weather changes too much and you aren’t able to go.

On your blog, write a letter to your best friend or a family member telling them about your trip to the tundra. To earn full points your letter must have a greeting (eg. Dear…) followed by 5 – 6 sentences of information about what your experience.

Dear Brother,
I've recently went on a field trip with my class. It was an amazing and a fantastic experience and I would like to tell you a little bit about it. While we were at Tundra I saw a lot of  mountains, like a lot of them. Every direction I'd look there would be a mountain. Other than that, I got the chance to met some animals and even some endangered animals. We got the chance to pet it, but not hold it since, you know its endangered. The weather did change a lot but we didn't mind. I also encountered a snowy owl. For some reason it just landed on my head and all my class mate's started laughing. I too found it funny but it had to go since my teacher was afraid of it. Apart from that, it was a amazing experience and I would love to visit it again one day.

To my awesome: brother!!

  

Activity 3: Going, going….gone [10 points]

Over the years, scientists have made some surprising discoveries. One of

these discoveries is that we have entire cities (e.g. Jakarta, Indonesia and Venice, Italy) that are slowly sinking into the ocean. Scientists believe that, one day, the cities will disappear completely under the water. Yikes!

Some of the residents (people living in the cities) have taken pictures of their neighbourhoods and written stories about their lives in order to make a record of what ‘life was like’ in their city before it disappeared.

Let’s imagine that New Zealand was going to sink to the bottom of the ocean next week (Eek!). Before it sinks you are asked to write a blog post telling people what life was like in New Zealand in 2018.

On your blog, post a description of life in New Zealand in 2018. Please remember that the people who read your post will have never been to New Zealand or even seen a picture so it is your job to ‘paint a picture’ of New Zealand using your words. You can also post pictures, if you wish. Be sure to fully attribute the pictures.

New Zealand is a small, amazing and a fascinating country. New Zealand has many city but the most popular one is Auckland, all though Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. Auckland has 1/4 of the population of New Zealand. In New Zealand there are lot's of amusement parks and also incredible place's for tourist to visit! My favourite place I like to go most of the time is to the beach. In Auckland City (Which is the picture below) there are many buildings, boats and especially people. In the city there is some beach's around there, fast food areas, cafe shop, clothes stores, anything you could imagine. Other than that, New Zealand is a Beautiful Country.