Art: Hannah Höch Informational Poster

Hi there! 

Today I will be blogging about an informational poster about Hannah Höch. The poster features 10 facts about Hannah and 5 pieces of her artwork. I found it really interesting learning about her and then also making artwork which was inspired by her.

Thanks for reading!

Social Studies/English: Political Parties

Hi there!

This blog is from late July 2020. 

Today I will be writing about how we are making political parties in Social Studies/English. I will be adding to this blog post whenever I can.

Today my team and I discussed what our party's' name was going to be, what we were going to be about, our policies, our logo and our slogan. We got through some of the things that we discussed but we aren't finished with all of them yet. We have got a party name, we are called 'Voices United'. Our party is about helping the public, that is where we got the idea for our name. We are still finalizing our slogan but have a couple which we could use. We have come up with some policies but we are still coming up with some more. 

That's all for today!

Today we added more policy ideas to our brainstorm, but we still haven't finalized them. Our policies are about helping the public We have come up with a slogan, it is 'Let's make better future, together'. 

Social Studies: New Zealand Government Structure

Hi there!

Here is a poster I made explaining the New Zealand Government Structure:

Thanks for reading!

Art: Photo Montage

Hi there! 

Today in Art class we made photo montages inspired by the German artist, Hannah Höch. I cut out printed images from the internet to make this photo montage. 

Here is my photo montage:

The parts in this image are:

• Gumboots (the legs)
• A vase (the body and eyes)
• A long fringe (the hair)
• Lips ( from the same image as the hair)
• Hourglass stand supports (the arms)

Before I glued my images onto an A4 piece of paper I organised them in front of me. Then, I stuck them down with a gluestick. The first thing that I stuck down was the right gumboot, then the left one. After this I stuck the vase down, then, I stuck the fringe down. After this, I glued the lips on, finally, I glued the hourglass stand supports on. 

I really enjoyed doing this and I will probably try it out in my spare time at home too!

Thanks for reading!

Social Studies: New Zealand Protest Movements

Hi there!

Today I will be writing about Protest Movements have happened in the past, in New Zealand. I have chosen to write about the bombing of the Greenpeace 'Rainbow Warrior' 

What happened?

On the 10th of July, 1985 the Greenpeace flagship boat, also known as the 'Rainbow Warrior' was bombed by two undercover French Secret Agents who were from the Direction Générale De La Sécurité Extérieure, otherwise known as the DGSE/French Secret Service. The bombing happened at Marsden Wharf at the Auckland Harbour. 'Operation Satanic' was the name of the bombing operation for the Rainbow Warrior.

 Two limpet mines were specifically placed on the boat from underneath the water by the two DGSE agents. The bombs went off just before midnight, the first one leaving a 2m2 hole in the engine room and the other smaller bomb which was attached to the keel.  The Rainbow Warrior was wrecked beyond repair. With this, also taking the life of Fernando Pereira, a freelance photographer among the Rainbow Warrior crew.

Who was involved?

In total, there were 12 French agents who worked on Operation Satanic in New Zealand, with this group of 4 teams. The Ouvea team, the support team, the attack team and the two remaining people, the team commander and information gatherer. 

The Ouvea team consisted of 5 people, they brought the bombs and other equipment into New Zealand. The people in the team were:

• Ronald Verge (Chief Petty Officer)
• Gerald Andries (Petty Officer)
• Jean Michel Bartelo (Petty Officer)
• Xavier Maniguet (Doctor, specialist in diving accidents)

The support team was made up of a pair of DGSE agents, Captain Dominique Prieur & Major Alain Mafart who acted as Swiss honeymooners. Their part in the operation was transporting the bombs, gear and agents. 

The combat team, this team attached the bombs to the boat. The team was made up of:

• Jean Cammas (Combat Diver)
• Jean Luc Keister (Combat Diver, Team Leader)
• Gerald Royal
• Francois Verlet (Coordinator, left before bombings)

 The last team consisted of two DGSE agents, Lieutenant Colonel Louis Pierre Dillais who was the operation commander and Christine Cabon who gathered information and also joined the Greenpeace organisation. 

Why were they protesting?

The Rainbow Warrior was bombed because the Rainbow Warrior and the crew aboard are sailing to the Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific, the place where the French carried out their nuclear testing. France had been testing their nuclear weapons at the Mururoa Atoll since 1962. The first nuclear bombs were dropped from the air, then in the 1970's due to protests, the testing went underground. By 1985, a shocking number of over a 100 tests had happened at Mururoa. New Zealand, being a nuclear free country wasn't for the testing in the Pacific, Marion Hobbs, the Minister for Disarmament in New Zealand at the time said 'If you want to test you should do it in your own backyard'. Each explosion caused the island to sink by a couple of centimeters, leading to sides of the island completely blown off and a crack running through the side of the island which was about 800 metres long and 30 centimeters wide. The French wanted to stop the Rainbow Warrior from reaching Mururoa.

What was the outcome?

Only two of the 12 people part of Operation Satanic were arrested and found, all the others got out of New Zealand swiftly and quietly, including the two men who placed the bombs on the Rainbow Warrior. Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart are arrested, they are charged with murder, arson and conspiracy. In court, they plead guilty, expecting to be deported at worst or a heavy fine, instead they are both given 10 years in prison in New Zealand. However, a deal thought up by the U.N. sees Prieur and Mafart released and taken back to France. In return, France is forced to apologise to New Zealand and Greenpeace, they also pay Greenpeace 8 million dollars in compensation and a further 13 million to the New Zealand Government. 

On the 12th of December, 1987, the Rainbow Warrior set out on her final voyage to her resting place in Matauri Bay. The Rainbow Warrior is left to sink, while members of the public look on from boats. 

The Rainbow Warrior now brings new life into Matauri Bay, fish and other marine wildlife living there. Coral and seaweed grow on the wreck.

Greenpeace isn't done yet though, in 1992, seven years after the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, her successor, the Rainbow Warrior II goes to the Mururoa Atoll, a Rainbow Warrior has finally made its way to Mururoa. France reluctantly stops nuclear testing, joining the United States of America, United Kingdom and Soviet Union.

However in 1995, a new president told the military to start doing nuclear testing again. This prompts the Rainbow Warrior II and her crew to sail off to Mururoa, one last time. Finally, in 1996 France stopped nuclear testing at the Mururoa Atoll once and for all. 

The daughter of Fernando Pereira, Marelle Pereira still demands for justice regarding her father's death. She says that she and her family have accepted what happened to her father in 1985, but that they won't forgive or forget it.

Thanks for reading!

Digital Technologies: Reflection

Hi there!

Today I will be reflecting on my time in Digital Technologies. 

What have I learnt?

I have learnt a lot in Digital Tech. I enjoyed learning about:

• How code works
• Developing my ideas
• Adding graphics to an app
• Working together with a team 

I enjoyed learning about how code works as I had never really learnt about it previously and it was one of the reasons I decided to take Digital Technologies. It was really interesting dabbling in coding as I had never done anything like that before. I found it challenging at first but it got easier as I went, I also used tutorials to help me out while I did this. One of my favourite activities with code in this semester was right at the beginning, we went onto a website and got to play games and code them along the way. This surprised me as I thought coding was quite difficult and could only be done in one way, however, I was wrong. I got to code my using blocks which I found a lot easy as a beginner. Also being able to play get past levels for doing code correctly was a lot more rewarding than I thought it would be, I played/coded some of these games in my own time too because I really enjoyed it. I was a bit surprised finding out that there are different websites/platforms to create games and apps, to be honest, I thought that there was just one way to do it but I got to try using three different platforms during my time in Digital Technologies, Gamefroot, App.Org & MIT App Inventor.

When making my game in the first half of the semester, we all followed a tutorial as to how to make a game. I chose to make an interactive story instead of a regular game. I wanted to do an interactive story as one of our tasks during this tutorial was to make a slideshow that was an interactive story. My story was about a nighttime zoo expedition, I chose this as I had watched 'Night at the Museum' a couple of nights before. We had to create two pathways with links to other slides, for example:

"You hear a rustling noise coming from your left, will you ignore it or will you go see what it is?" Then, we would link all the slides to the one which correctly matched, if you chose to see what the rustling noise was the link that you would press would take you to a slide titled as 'You chose to see what the rustling noise was' and your story would carry on. To come up with these ideas I made a table with a column with possible characters, the setting and the plot. Making this table really helped me develop my ideas, keep track of them and decide what I wanted to do. 

I also used this process when developing an app with a team, we discussed what we wanted our app to include, we then recorded all of our ideas and added more onto a brainstorming page that we made, we ended up with a lot of ideas!

In my team for making an app, I was the person who was in charge of creating our app logo. I researched what would make a logo stand out while another teammate researched what platform would be the best to do this on. We ended up going for a purple colour scheme, our logo faded from dark purple to a very light purple which looked really cool. We ended up doing this on a website called 'FreeLogoDesign.Org'.

As I hadn't worked in a group with someone when creating a game, I enjoyed being in a team when making an app. We agreed between ourselves that we would have two people working on coding the app and two people who did the graphics and any other jobs that we needed to do. This plan worked well for us, no one person had a bunch of work to do, it was all distributed evenly throughout all of the group. We all communicated well with each other and had a lot of fun doing it too. 

What did I like?

I liked being able to choose who I worked with and what I wanted to make. I found while creating an app that I had a lot of freedom over what I wanted to make, I really enjoyed getting to make the app like an app that I would like to play. When I worked in a group, I liked getting to hear others' opinions and what they would like in an app and what they wouldn't like in an app as everyone has different needs and wants. I also liked being able to talk to my teacher because he was very helpful and funny!

What did I dislike?

There wasn't anything that I disliked in this semester of Digital Technologies, however in the beginning of the semester I felt a bit out of place as it seemed as everyone else already knew quite a fair bit about coding whereas I really had no clue. One other thing was that I was the only girl in my class, so I didn't really have any friends which were girls. I overcame this because I already knew some of the people in my class. 

Overall?

Overall, I have really enjoyed doing Digital Technologies this semester! I may have felt out of place in the beginning but after a little while I felt like I clicked in place. Making a game was a lot of fun and getting to work with others while making an app were both great experiences. 

Thanks for reading!

Home Economics: ANZAC Biscuits with Sultanas

Hi there! 

Today I will be writing about how I made ANZAC Biscuits, a classic Kiwi treat and how I gave it a fun and tasty twist by adding sultanas.

Ingredients:

1 cup Standard Grade Flour

1 ¾ cups rolled oats

½ cup White Sugar 

¼ cup (firmly packed) Soft Brown Sugar

1 cup desiccated coconut

125g Butter, cubed

¼ cup Golden Syrup Tin

2 Tablespoons water

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 cup sultanas or raisins

food handling gloves

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 150°C conventional bake. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the Standard Grade Flour and cinnamon. Add the rolled oats, coconut, sultanas and sugars; mix well.

3. Combine the Butter, Golden Syrup and water in a small saucepan and stir over low-medium heat until the Butter melts and the mixture is well combined (ensure the mixture does not simmer or boil). Remove from heat and stir in the bicarbonate of soda. Add immediately to the dry ingredients and use a wooden spoon to stir until well combined.

4. Roll 1-2 tablespoons of mixture into balls and place onto a tray about 5cm apart. Use your fingers to flatten each slightly (until they are about 1cm thick) and bake for 16 minutes (for a chewy biscuit) or 20 minutes for a crunchier biscuit.

5. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Keep in an airtight container for up to a week.

Sensory Evaluation:

These ANZAC biscuits with sultanas was probably one of the tastiest things I have ever made. The outside had a great golden brown colouring on top and on the sides and a light brown inside. The Sultanas added small pops of colour all round the biscuit which made it more appealing to the eye. The coconut and oats also added speckles of white through the biscuit making it look more textural.

The biscuits were nice and sweet, the golden syrup came through very nicely, the brown sugar was also noticeable, not as much as the golden syrup though. The butter also came through very nicely. The sultanas added a great flavour to the biscuit, helping balance out the sweetness. The oats and coconut also balanced out the sweetness as well as added extra flavour which was very nice. There wasn't a baking soda aftertaste when eating the biscuit which was really good.

The texture of the biscuit was great. The outside was crispy and crunchy while the inside was soft and chewy. The biscuit was dense inside and everything was spread out evenly inside. The sultanas added an extra chewy element to the biscuit which was really nice. The sultanas also added a surprise element when biting through the biscuit as it added more texture. The oats and coconut added the classic texture normally found in an ANZAC biscuit and went very well with the sultanas which was great. 

Here are some photos from my end outcome:

Thanks for reading!