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.

Day 1 at Nethybridge.

We have had beautiful weather for our first day of activities, which started with orienteering. Based on the front lawn, we used increasingly complex maps to look for locations using photo clues. 

Taking a break on the front lawn.

Off with another photo clue.

Getting the answers checked.

A short break - time to catch up with our Michelle Paver books.

Arriving at the zip wire tower.

Zipping!

Made it!

The adventure course was fun.

Morgan makes it look easy.

Finally time for a shower and a swim before tea, games, Time Out and supper. Phew!

Water polo.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver, the author of The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, visited us today courtesy of the Scottish Book Trust. Children from Rousay, Papay and Shapinsay joined us to hear about how Michelle became an author and research for her books. Always fascinated by wolves, Michelle also has had a keen interest in the Stone Age since early childhood. We hope her visit to Orkney will provide her with some more inspiration for future stories.

We were particularly interested in the stories set in the forests 6000 years ago about a boy, Torak, and his wolf 'brother'. For these books Michelle found out about the animals and technology and beliefs of the Sami in Finland and Inuit in Arctic Canada, as well as drawing on experiences with bears in California and learning how to communicate with real live wolves. Through our topics this year we have learned a lot about traditional technologies and a little about belief systems and myths. This introduction to the world of the wolf clan will provide us with rich material for literacy work in our final term.

It was great to speak to a real author and hear Michelle read an extract from her own stories. After answering a few questions Michelle undertook a lengthy signing session and a chat with the children.

Many thanks to Mrs MacRae and the library staff for organising this visit for us and many thanks to Michelle for coming to Orkney!

To find out more about Michelle and her books visit The Clan.

Scapa Flow trip aboard the MV Graemsay

Our route from Stromness around Graemsay, through Burra Sound, passing Cava and Fara and Houton.

Many thanks to Anne Bignall and Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership for our recent trip to Ness Battery and aboard the MV Graemsay to have a look at some of the WW2 buildings which were part of the defences around Scapa Flow.

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:

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.

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.

Read All About It!

Our World War 2 topic we have been creating the front pages of newspapers for the year 1940. We have used a lot of the information we have learned about the Home Front. Many of the campaigns were about recycling and reusing and being more self sufficient, reducing food miles. These are familiar ideas to us today but we have found out that they are not new at all!

The Daily Post

The Eagle Times

The UK Herald

The S Team : Research and Development

Back in class the S Team continued their work by sorting and cleaning smaller items to be used in art work.

We identified some of the livings things that make up the ecosystems at Scapa and started compiling our 'biodiversity' list - a list of all the living things we find on our visits.

Some of the larget items have to be hosed outside.

Next we designed and made models of bins which we thought could be used at Scapa to solve the problem of where to put marine litter. If visitors to Scapa used the bins that are there at the moment for marine litter they would fill up very quickly and that would create another problem. Some of the items are quite large and don't fit in a regular bin.

'The Rubbish Digester'

'The S bin'.

The Scaspa Box

Scapa Litter and Information Station

The Green Giant

The Wheely Bin 7000

Evaluating our designs meant we had to think critically about the problems of collecting and removing litter as well as how to encourage visitors to Scapa to help.

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.

The John Muir Award - getting started.

We have begun our work towards the John Muir Award by thinking about the difference we can make to the environment around us. At the end of the Arctic Voice topic we looked at our own global footprint and thought about ways in which we could reduce our impact on the planet.

Now it is time to get active!

Sue, our RSPB field officer, reminds us of how long materials take to decay.

 In primary 4 we found out about th eglobal impact of marine litter, now we are going to do something about it in our local environment.

The bird has died because its stomach is full of plastic.

A bale of packing tape at Birsay with a gannet stuck in the middle of it.
 Did the gannet mistake the floating bale for a shoal of fish?

We have made a plan of action for the next two terms and we hope to get lots of people throughout the school and community involved.

If you think you can help us or spare some time please get in touch.

You can see our plan on the John Muir Award page on the wiki.