From the Head of Secondary, 16.03.19
What’s been happening in Maths?
Last week Ms De Sa’s Year 9 students created their smoothies from basic recipes. They used ratio and proportion skills to scale their recipes for different sizes of smoothie that may be on offer in a smoothie bar. Everyone contributed ingredients and were keen to try different recipes. They decided to take the opportunity to make the smoothies during the first lesson on Monday morning as some of them are coming to school not having had breakfast!
After the lesson we reflected that perhaps ‘less is more’; fewer ingredients achieved a more distinctive flavour. The lesson was obviously a success as all agreed that more smoothies are going to be made at home!
What did the students think?
“It was an extremely fun experience bringing Maths to life with the help of Ms De Sa who made everything run smoothly!” Chanel
“The first smoothie tasted good, but the second one tasted like banana; the texture of our smoothie was kind of like yogurt.” Cheryn
“The smoothie we made was weird but it tasted so good. The ingredients were vanilla ice cream, banana, blueberries, green grapes, honey, oreo and milk.” Yin Ling
“I tried Angelina’s group smoothie and it was so nice. Afterwards I couldn’t drink our one!” Sara
Scubazoo Presentations to Secondary
We were delighted to welcome Alex Alexander, Simon Enderby, Will Foster-Grundy and associates from Scubazoo into KIS last Friday. The Secondary students heard all about the work that Scubazoo do and watched some tantalizing extracts from ‘Borneo Diaries Series 2’. Ms Alexander, who is the presenter on the series, gave us some insights into what it was like working in what was, for her, a totally alien environment. Based at the Danau Girang Field Centre she described her initial encounters with leeches and other forest creatures and how she adapted to the reality of living without the luxuries that we all take for granted, such as 24h hour electricity on tap. The students asked some very interesting questions, including how she charged her phone, and, hearing that the field centre sometimes hosts students, were quick to ask me if they could go there! Many thanks to Scubazoo for revealing the secrets of the rainforest to the students and for raising awareness of the fragility of local ecosystems. The talks and the videos were highly inspirational! https://www.scubazoo.tv/borneo-jungle-diaries-2/
Year 9 Geography Trip
On 7th March, Year 9 students experienced a “living classroom” at Kawang. Ms McNutt guided them through the five layers of the rainforest and students were required to observe how plants had adapted to lack of sunlight. They also identified processes at work in this ecosystem as well as collected data about the climate. In addition, with the accompany guide Brawn, they collected water samples and tested for pH, iron and nitrates. Students also did kick sampling whereby they collected insects and river animals to establish if the river was healthy. Dave helped our students understand how cutting down the rainforest for oil palm plantations has consequences on the river ecosystem and for us living in the urban areas too. We thank the team at NorthStarBorneo and Ms McNutt for organising this trip and Mrs Davis, Mrs Knight and Mr Kelly for accompanying the class.
Mrs Margaret Renshaw
Assistant Principal / Head of Secondary
