The Thistle - An E-Newsletter of Scotch College, Perth, Western Australia

Year 3S News

What an amazing semester we have had in 3S. We have explored so many exciting topics and seen some fabulous things. Highlights include our excursion to Penguin Island during our first unit of inquiry. Here we explored animal communities before looking closely at the communities we ourselves are involved with. Another highlight was our visit from Sara Franklin who spoke to us about the plight in Ethiopia. It was so meaningful that we started a collection of clothes, toys and blankets to send over to the children who live there. In our current unit of inquiry, we have been researching the changes products go through before being distributed and consumed. We developed a good understanding of consumerism and found a new level of appreciation for the things around us. We learnt that every man-made item started out as something from our natural world. For example, did you know that glass is made by heating sand at a temperature of 1700 degrees? Or that plastic is made from oil? Or that rubber comes from the sap in rubber trees found in the Amazon Rainforest? And that is only the beginning of the many interesting facts we learnt. To conclude our unit, we will be taking part in the Teacher Chair Project whereby we must build a chair made entirely from cardboard and duct tape. However, this chair must be big enough and strong enough to hold our teacher's weight. We will also have to undertake research about how cardboard is made and consider different styles of chairs before we commence building. We look forward to presenting our learning, findings and chairs at our upcoming assembly.

Mrs Laree Springall

Year 3 Teacher