Today Room 14, along with other classes in the school, got to witness one of the most spectacular natural events of a lifetime. At 9.18 am this morning the moon began to cross between the Earth and the Sun causing a solar eclipse. It took roughly an hour for the moon to pass from one side of the sun to the other. On it's journey creating a bright crescent in the sky as the moon shadowed the Sun's rays. We will not see an eclipse as good as this in Auckland until most of us are 31!

As the moon slowly moved across the sky we noticed the light started to fade and Greenhithe became rather airy. The temperature dropped suddenly as we were no longer being warmed by the Sun.

This was an amazing sight and thanks to Sarah (and her Dad) Room 14 were able to enjoy the view of the event without damaging our eyes. Sarah had created a pinhole camera that channelled the Sun's light into a box and presented the eclipse as a small dot on white paper. We were all very amazed! A great day!

      

      

                                                                                               

     

    

          Corbin and Riley's power point still to come.

Well done to all of those that competed today at athletics.  You have done Room 14 very proud! Lots of you scored placings in your year group which is fantastic. You should all give yourself a pat on the back for giving it a go and trying your best! - Miss Chichester :)

P.S CONGRATULATIONS to the 11 people from Room 14 that have made it to Inter-school. The most attending from one class!
                                                         

For our writing sample Max chose to write a fictional recount about the day Vesuvius erupted in 79AD at Pompeii.

The Real Story of Pompeii

By Max Cameron-Lee

Arr!!! I screamed as the ground started to shake on a summer’s morning at Pompeii. Once it stopped I did not know what had just happened.

I looked out the window at Mount Vesuvius and saw a huge black cloud of smoky ash was coming out of it. I went to my father and asked what was going on he said it was nothing to worry about, but I was very worried!!!

At about mid-afternoon I noticed it was getting very hot, I opened some windows but that just made it worse.

At late afternoon I saw that the ash cloud was starting to fall I went outside to have a look and I could not breathe. I saw people on the street, were they dead? Were they alive? No one knew. Arr!!! I saw lots of rocks flying out of the volcano everyone was screaming and then the lava started dribbling out of the volcano. I thought the world was going to end then I screamed and swallowed a lot of ash and fell to the ground in pain…and died.

Annaliese has gathered information on Pompeii and presented a very engaging piece of Buzz News! Enjoy.

Pompeii

By Annaliese Mitchell

On August the 24^th 79 AD the Italian volcano called Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered the Roman city of Pompeii in 5 meters of ash and pumice. Pompeii was lost for nearly 2,000 years. It was forgotten. Then it was rediscovered by a Spanish explorer in 1599. Now it has been dug up. It is a very exciting place to visit because we can see how the Roman people lived back then.

Imagine the day of the eruption. First the ground shook. Then light ash stated to fall. After that more and more ash fell. The people had never seen an eruption before. They didn’t even know what a volcano was because Mount Vesuvius had not erupted for 700 years. Many of them did not even run away because they thought it was the whole world ending. They got buried.  

  

Today you can see where they were buried-

And here is what their Temple of Jupiter looked like.

Can you see the volcano in the background?

Here is a street-

Here is a rich man’s house-

                   

Now a big problem is how to protect these ancient treasures against the weather. When they were buried they were protected. Now that they are dug up, they are being damaged by the weather and footprints of the tourists. Sadly in 2010 the House of the Gladiators collapsed because rain washed the foundations out.

I would like to see it one day.

Last term we looked at how to harness the wind's energy to create more sustainable electricity. We gathered information and wrote explanations about this.

Wind Energy

By Tom Going

Wind is very useful. We use it for sailing, wind surfing, when we fly a kite and to dry our clothes. But what is wind?

Wind is moving air. It moves at different speeds and at different altitudes in the atmosphere. Air can move in the form of hot and cold currents. The heat energy from the sun warms the land and sea. This warms the air above. Now the warm air rises, because warm air is lighter than cold air. As the warm air goes higher in to the atmosphere it becomes cold air and begins to sink. Wind is made when the hot and cold currents rush past one another. This is called convection.

Wind turbines use the wind and harness its energy. A wind turbine is a modern form of windmill that is used to make electricity. Sometimes a group of turbines is sited together. This is known as a wind farm.  A wind turbine will make the most electricity when it is facing the wind. Turning the rotor to face the wind is called yawing. To do this, small turbines have a vane, which works a bit like a rudder on a boat. Large wind turbines use electric motors and gears. A computer, which is constantly checking the wind speed and direction, controls these. A generator and other machinery, needed to produce electricity, are kept safe from the elements in a box called a nacelle. This sits just behind the rotter. As the wind blows, the blades on the turbine's rotter begin moving. This turns a shaft that carries the power to a gearbox, where cogs increase the speed at which a second shaft turns. This second shaft carries the power to the generator. This machine spins magnets inside bundles of copper wire. This produces electricity. The electricity then travels down a copper wire into the earth to power our homes.          

We need to think about where we put wind turbines. One of the conditions needed for a wind turbine is a constant flow of wind, about 40 km per hour at most. New Zealand’s South Island is perfectly positioned in the middle of the Roaring Forties, an area of constantly moving air. The city of Wellington is also in the Roaring Forties. So hills in the South Island and Wellington are perfect places to put a wind turbine.

There are two main disadvantages of wind energy. First, wind turbines only produce electricity when the wind is blowing at more than 20 km per hour. That is why wind farms are only found in places that have a constant wind flow of 40 km per hour at most. Second, wind turbines are large and wind farms take up a lot of space. Some people think they are ugly, and birds fly into them. But the bird problem is under control, as their migration routes are being mapped, and wind turbines and farms are being placed to avoid them.

I’ve had a think. To conclude I believe that the advantages of wind-turbine-generated electricity outweigh the disadvantages. One turbine up one the hills in Wellington powers around 900 homes a year. This saves a lot of carbon dioxide from being pumped in to the atmosphere. This is important to reduce climate change, and costs will come down because machinery and maintenance are a lot cheaper. Also when more people buy wind turbines the price will come down.  But we just have to get use to them, or get used to living in a junk yard. What do you think?                    

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