Volcanoes & Mount Vesuvius

How do volcanoes form?

Volcanoes form when an oceanic plate subducts underneath a continental plate. This occurs because of the denser oceanic plate being forced underneath the continental plate. While this is occurring, the oceanic plate melts as it is pushed down further towards the mantle, becoming less dense. This liquid rock -- called magma -- rises to the surface and causes a pressure build-up inside of the Earths crust. It eventually breaks through the cracks in the continental plate, causing a volcano. Now coming out as lava, the liquid rock creates a new crust, and after several volcanic eruptions, it forms the well-known volcano shape. Volcanoes are most commonly found in the ring of fire, an area of the Earth where the Pacific plate resides. This oceanic plate is one of the largest and due to being an oceanic plate will subduct around all the surrounding continental plates. This causes the many volcanoes that surround the Pacific plates edges.  

Mount Vesuvius

Located on Italy's west coast, Mount Vesuvius was only 8 kilometres away from Pompeii. The city this volcano famously destroyed in 79 AD. Mount Vesuvius' last eruption occurred only 75 years ago in the March of 1944, beginning on the 17th, it was said to have lasted a fortnight. The eruption killed a reported 26 Italian citizens and another three were killed in Terzigno by volcanic rocks falling from the volcanoes explosion. This is a lucky escape for most as the volcanoes destruction was large, the lava bombs that came from the sky were said to be the size of a basketball. This is especially impressive when we look into the 1998 incident, where 150 people were killed by a large amount of ash rain, debris flows and ash deposits. 

Are there and stories or myths surrounding it?

The mythological significance surrounding Mount Vesuvius spawns from the Ancient Romans beliefs in their gods. The stories have to do with the stories of Jupiter, the god of sky and lightning, and his son, Hercules. So much so, they considered the mountain devoted to the demigod Hercules. This is because while completing his labours, he crossed a 'plain of fire,' or 'from a hill which anciently vomited out fire ... now called Vesuvius.' The destructions of Pompeii notably was thought to be Jupiter's doing, and that he was attempting to remind humanity of who is in charge. 

Volcano Model

After researching volcanoes we were given the task to create a model of one of the volcanoes that one of the members in our group had chosen. My group's volcano was modelled after my volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Using paper mache, we created the structure of the volcano and later painted it. As any class would've done with many volcano models, we made them erupt, however, it was not the typical baking soda and vinegar mixture. Instead, we used 20mls of 35% hydrogen peroxide, 4 small scoops of potassium iodide, 20mls of water and a squirt of dishwashing liquid to create Elephants Toothpaste. Food colouring and glitter was also added for colour and effect. 

First, we mixed the potassium iodide and the water together in a small beaker until it was clear. While I was doing this my team members created the mixture of all the other ingredients and tipped them into the bottle inside of the volcano.  To create the final explosion we added the iodide mixture into the bottle and watched the magic.

This experiment worked because Hydrogen peroxide is water and oxygen and slowly separates into these two things, the potassium iodide was added to the hydrogen peroxide to speed up the process of the separation. This created the illusion of an eruption. The glitter we had added into the mixture gave a stunning effect afterwards that the lava was made of pure glittering gold.

Home Economics | Tomato Pasta | Term 2 Week One

   - Teamwork Aspects -

Tasks

During this recipe, we had different jobs that were assigned, such as cooking the pasta, heating the sauce, cutting ingredients and gathering. I can't exactly remember how they were given to each person, however, our recipe turned out good.

Skills

There weren't many skills involved with this recipe, as it was fairly simple. This led to us all being able to complete the required jobs that were given to us. The only task that had any difficulty was cutting the garlic to the correct size.

Improvements

There weren't improvements I would have liked to make to this recipe. It was good how it was but it may have been improved with adding some form of spice to it.

 - Product Outcome - 

Our food turned out well, it was to our own satisfaction and nothing went wrong with the recipe. The product tasted good and had no faults.

Feedback

There wasn't much feedback given as we were in a rushed period. The teacher only told us about our groups own responsibility as we were able to complete the recipe with the least amount of help.

Modifications

Like mentioned, the only modifications I would have made personally would have been to add some spice to it or add more flavourful ingredients to make the recipe more interesting.

- Next Steps - 

The next steps for my group would be to recognise the challenge of fewer members and overcome it by putting in more work to make up for the lack of contribution. This shouldn't be a problem again though, as we don't have another practical until next term, and at most the likelihood of more than two people away is extreme.

E-asTTle Practice Writing - Persuasive

I am aiming to improve my writing in the following 3 areas: ideas, organisations, and structure and language.

I will do this by further demonstrating ideas in a clearer form, as well as using ones that sufficiently relate to the topic and largely sympathise with the readers to create a clear vision. I have noticed on multiple occasions how my writing often has the advice that I should relate to the wider world on a larger scale. I plan to further research topics instead and find situations that relate to my own writings. I aim to improve my organisation in my writing by planning further beforehand.

With this task, we were given no opportunity to plan, much less research the topic, however, this provides no excuse to the lack of organisation my writing has. Because of this, I plan to at least further plan my writing before starting it so I can have an elaborated outline before beginning. An example of how I could have done this at the beginning was to write down ideas of what to write about in each paragraph. In my next writing, I plan to have an outline of what to mention or say in the introduction and conclusion, as well as the paragraphs.

I plan to improve the structure and language within my writing by using more unique language features. These can include rhetorical questions, metaphors, or personification. The recent writing in this blog post only provides only one notable language feature, a singular rhetorical question -- So why is this not applicable for all children? -- I plan to change this by providing another rhetorical question within my introduction. I plan to do this because it is a commonly used trick to allow writers to convince their reader into reading their own writing.

The next four paragraphs detail the persuasive writing I wrote. It was on the topic of whether children should be taught to swim in schools or not. The yellow highlight shows what changes I have rewritten since its original draft.

School’s have been exposing children to swimming pools for many years, teaching them how to swim and so on, so why are teachers leaving the teaching of water safety behind? Because of this development, many children and adults have grown up without having the ability to swim. This lack of ability only holds people back! This life skill is a necessity to be taught to students because water covers more of our Earth than land does, and over half of the people who drown per year are children and this is out of the 1.2 million. Every landmass is surrounded by water and people should know how to at very least stay afloat in a worst-case situation where they cannot easily get to shore. This is not how we as humans should be progressing as we expose children to the wider world earlier within their lives. 

Many people often do have access to larger masses of water --such as a lake or a nearby ocean-- and this means they will often know how to swim. A large amount of danger that comes with living in that area is why. Children and adults in the area are taught to swim for their own safety. So why is this not applicable for every child? In 2017 alone ninety-two deaths were caused by drowning and most would’ve been prevented if the appropriate water safety training was given to them. This does not mean all though, as harsh waters cannot be avoided by simply knowing how to stay afloat or swim in calm currents. This is why students need to be taught how to swim in harsher environments. If a storm were to hit the coast when someone without water safety training is visiting, and they’re playing down on the beach, they could not reach safe land before the storm pulled them into the water. This is merely an example, but it does happen, especially to those who know nothing about water safety. The danger is relevant to everyone when there is no avoiding it.

Simple statistics can prove that water safety is not only applicable to those who live near masses of water. Seventeen of the mentioned ninety-two deaths were in a home pool, public pool, or another controlled water body. This shows us how water safety should be taught to not only those who live near water but those who live further away from it as well. These statistics demonstrate it’s important to those anywhere and any age group-- as the statistics looked at also showed us the largest number of drowned citizens, these people were either from ages fifteen to twenty-four or sixty-five and over, and this is only in New Zealand. These two age groups accounted for thirty-two of the ninety-two mentioned who drowned. This is another portion of statistics that demonstrates water safety’s importance to children and adults alike.

In conclusion, the importance of water safety is still applicable. Even as people progress onto bigger and better things, they are still in danger when something out of there control can affect them and their lives! This is especially relevant to those who have no other means of learning and is why swimming lessons should be compulsory. Students at very least should have the opportunity to learn as it is of the most importance when lives are at stake. Without the ability to swim, they are put in great danger in even of the smallest of situations. In a swimming pool at home, they could drown simply because their feet can’t reach the bottom. Eight out of the ninety-two people that drowned in 2017 drowned in a home pool. Without the knowledge of how to swim, children, teenagers, and adults are all at risk.

Māori God Tangaroa Poster

In Social Studies, we have moved onto the Treaty of Waitangi unit. We have begun this unit by looked into Māori gods, I chose to look into the god of the sea, Tangaroa. Tangaroa is the Māori god of the sea, and one of the many children who attempted in breaking his parents --Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother and Ranginui, the Sky Father -- apart.  

Part of the objective of this small project is to help understand how different cultures and religions can relate to each other. This is shown with one of the most common examples, Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman gods. These gods were greatly similar as most of the Ancient Roman gods were based on the Greek ones. An example of this would be the god, Poseidon (who happens to correspond with Tangaroa) and Neptune, the Roman counterpart. Both were gods of the Sea.