The BBQ and day 3 at Nethy

Wednesday night ended with a barbecue and some songs round the campfire with all the schools together as the sun set and the moon rose in a clear sky.

 Day 3 started with  the silver maze and problem solving in the forest. Team work and cooperation helped. Some of the problems required perseverance and quite a few attempts.

In the afternoon we went canoeing and did archery. The canoeing at the pond was great fun as we competed at picking up the balls to win points and had the obligatory jump in to freezing water at the end of the session.

It looked inviting in the hot weather, but it was a little more refreshing than expected!

The winers of the art competition with their work and their prize.

Tonight a DVD and a good sleep, then a Forest Adventure tomorrow morning before we leave.

Nethy Day 2

Another day of glorious weather and the groups split up to do the climbing wall and abseiling at the big tree. The new climbing wall is fantastic! A few warm up games and everyone had a free climbing challenge before attaching harnesses, and climbing up and abseiling down.

Can you get all the way round without touching the floor?

Belaying team.

 The other climbing activity was at the big tree.

Climbing up one side and abseiling down the other.

Claire goes up...

and Claire comes down!

I did it!

After lunch it was time to get kit organised for dry-slope skiing.

Height and weight needs to be measured and boots, helmets and skiis adjusted - lots of mental maths involved for the instructors, and Miss Gillies.

 The ski slope was bathed in sunshine so it was hot work getting around on the skis, but worth it!

Glaitness Ski Team - ready to go!

Future pros.

Half way up.

Up we go.

 As the afternoon progressed, everyone's skills improved until they were flying down with good control and only the occasional bump!
The button lift helped in the heat.

Getting the hang of the button lift.

We ended our activities with a competitive game of polo - with very relaxed rules...

Later, Time Out and supper.

The S Team return to Scapa

Today the Glaitness S Team set off for Scapa again.

This time it was Class 7 and Class 5 who walked to Scapa Beach to remove marine litter.

With the help of some parents we managed to fill 20 bags of various sizes and types of litter and remove dangerous plastics from the beach which might entangle marine creatures or which might be mistaken for food by them. Class 7 were able to tell Class 5 children how plastics don't biodegrade and break down harmlessly - they are around forever, just in smaller and smaller pieces!

Searching the strand lines.

 Along the high tide line we found some larger pieces of plastic debris and countless amount of fragments of nylon and plastic rope. There was also a significant number of dead birds and bird feathers and bones which made us wonder if some of the tangled balls of plastic fibres had already been ingested by birds, killed them and then been left behind after the birds had died and decomposed. Did you know that on average there are 30 pieces of plastic in the stomachs of birds?

Jenni explains her job.

 We met Jenni and Kate who came to tell us about how they check on the biodiversity on the shores around Orkney. Jenni is a marine biologist and she finds out about the variety of living things on the beaches and if pollution is affecting them.

She showed us how they take a sample from a sandy beach like Scapa, where at first it might appear to be nothing living there at all.

First they take a sample by pushing a tube into the sand and lifting out the core.

The sand is sieved in the sea water.

Any living things are left behind.
These are the creatures that the sea birds are poking into the sand to find.

We had a look at the tiny animals in the petri dish.

Sue tells us about some of the natural things we found.

20 bags full! Well done the S Team!!!

Many thanks to the parent helpers and our experts for coming along. Thanks also to the Council Waste Management Services for arranging for our green bags to be taken away!

Watch this space for the installation of our 1100 litre bin!

Ness Battery

We visited Ness Battery in Stromness to find out about how Scapa Flow was defended 

during World War 2.

Thanks to Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership and Stromness Tours for a great visit.
When we came back we designed our own tourist leaflets using the
Stromness Tours flyer as a starting point and the Ness Battery website to check our facts were accurate and correct.

Here are a few sample pages:

Mini - Olympics

Over the last few weeks Class 7 have been training for the Olympics - the Class 7 mini-Olympics - with Miss Flett. Finally the day arrived and everyone took part in hurdling, throwing and jumping.

P7 mini- Olympics finished with the relay race.

The medal ceremony took place at whole school assembly.

3rd place went to 'Fish fingers and custard'.

2nd place went to 'The bean team'.

1st place went to the 'Dynamos'.

Well done everyone!

BBC School Report Broadcast Day!

The BBC School Report team 2012

Our BBC School Report Broadcast is now live on our dedicated blog: BBC School Report at Glaitness 2012. Please visit and see our broadcast which is in three parts. Or find us on the map on BBC School Report webpage.

World War 2 Scapa Map

Annotating the map of Scapa at  HQ.

Today Anne Bignall of the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership came in to tell us about the defences in Scapa Flow during World War 2. We added barrage balloons, anti aircraft guns, lights for spotting aircraft, minefields, undersea communications cables, submarine nets and lots and lots more to our big map of Scapa Flow. We used a de-classified map of Scapa to help us find out where to put everything. Maps with all of this information were top secret in 1940!  Next week we will be visiting the Ness Battery to find out what one of these places was like. We will also be exploring the coast of Scapa Flow from Stromness from aboard the MV Graemsay - that will allow us to se the remains of many of the buildings you cannot see easily from the land.

BBC School Report

We are busy gathering and writing news for our BBC School Report broadcast on March 15th. Please make sure you are tuned to our dedicated blog at BBC School Report at Glaitness 2012.

The Olympics interviewers.

The new swimming pool interviewers.

The marine litter reporting team meet Mr Ian Harcus to find out about the 'Fishing for Litter' project.

Launching the S TEAM!

 Today we (the S Team) were at Scapa Beach picking up litter or ‘Bagging the Bruck’. It was a very windy day but we picked up various types of materials but the main concern was plastic as, although many people don’t realise it, it does not biodegrade and disappear it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces and it is being found in the human food chain in some parts of the world. Some of the other materials we found included rope, bottle tops, shot gun cartages’ and parcel ties.

Sue Whitworth and Lindsay Taylor (the RSPB field officers) met us at Scapa to tell us a bit about the shells, wildlife, the affects of litter and they were also there to give us a hand with picking up litter. We didn’t only go to Scapa to pick up litter we also went to raise awareness of the amount of litter being dropped not only in Orkney but everywhere around the world, to achieve the second part of our John Muir award and also to collect ‘bruck’ to use in our art work.

We managed to collect 12 bags of rubbish and a huge piece of fish netting - it took the whole team to pull it out of the sand.

By Joanne and Leah

Active health - our pulse rates.

Continuing our exploration of active health, Miss Flett set up some activites for us in the hall, but first we need to stretch! Quite a few of us can share stretches we do for our sports.

Can you stretch like this?

 Then we got our pulse rates going!

Finally we took our pulse rates straight away and then compared that with our resting heart rate.

We can tell how fit we are by how quickly our pulse rates get back to normal.

Skipping!

This term we are focussing on Active Health, and, since our topic is World War 2, we have been trying out skipping. This was popular with children during World War 2 and still is today. Miss Flett took the class outside to skip with ropes. Another good way of getting outside and staying warm!

How to make a model igloo

Last week there was not enough snow to build an igloo outside so we used John Rae's notes and drawings, and a Ray Mears video, to make a model igloo.

Arctic adaptations

We are continuing to find out about the Arctic and how animals have adapted to deal with the freezing temperatures. This week we investigated how effective blubber is at insulating animals from the cold.

Here we are spreading the lard evenly around the hand of the volunteer inside a plastic bag.

We took the temperature of the hand inside the blubber mitten before it went into the ice water.

The volunteer put their hand inside the mitten into the ice water (1degree C) for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes the temperature of the hand in the glove had gone up!

Then the volunteers did the same with their other hand without a mitten made of blubber. They lasted for 1.5 minutes and the temperature of their hand dropped from 30 degrees C to 8 degrees C!

Finally everyone wanted to find out what it felt like to put their hand in the ice - water... they lasted for 45 seconds and there was a lot of shrieking!!!!!!!!!

We concluded that 4 inches of blubber would easily keep a polar bear warm in sub zero temperatures.

Why not have a look at some of our Prezi presentations about Arctic food chains on our new wiki project pages!
Here is an example - this is Leah's Prezi:

Stromness street walk and museum visit

We went to Stromness to see the street which has not changed much since the days of John Rae.

There are plenty of plaques on the buildings to show places that were important in the days of sail, when tall ships filled their ships with fresh water from Login's Well and the cannon fired as ships left and arrived from Hudson's Bay.

Thank you to Stromness museum for letting us gather information and to Stromness Primary School for welcoming us into their dining hall and playground.

Voyageurs, campfires and canoes.

At The Ouse in Finstown we set up camp and sent our voyageurs off to trade for furs at the trading posts. We used the Hudson Bay Company trading game we created to set the scene and set up negotiations. Meanwhile back at the campfire we made bread dough twists and ate them with maple syrup. Later we boiled some water in the kelly kettle for hot chocolate before packing up and carefully leaving no trace of our camp.

Many thanks to our parent helpers, and to Ron, for making the day such a success.

The families visit Kirbister and Corrigall

The Taits, the Bains and the Sinclair family visit Kirbister and Corrigall Farm museums to experience for themselves what life must have been like in 1861.



After a morning's work around the farm making stooks and simmens, grinding bere and sweeping up, the families celebrated a good harvest with music, dancing and songs.

Family drama

This week we have been getting ready for our visit to Kirbister and Corrigall Farm museum.

Each family group have developed the characters in their families and created family trees.

There was a visit from a photographer, everyone sat very still for the photograph to be taken.

'Watch the birdie!'

 The daily lives of the families at this time of year are full of hard work, especialy as there are only a few men folk. Many of the younger men have already left the toonship for Hudson Bay. One of our wives has not see her husband for a year and doesn't expect to se him again for at least another 12 months!

An evening around the hearth after a hard day working in the fields.

 As usual the older members of the family tell stories of life in their youth and tell a few favourite folk tales. There is still sewing, mending and knitting to be done for the women and the men might be repairing tools or furniture. The harvest Home dance is very soon so practising the fiddle is important too.

Practising the nine-pins for the Harvest Home dance.

We are looking forward to dancing, singing and music at Corrigall next Thursday.