Summer Learning Journey - Week 3: Day 5

DAY 5: Here to Stay

Activity 1: Persistent Pollution [4 points]

In 2016, the World Health Organisation announced that Timaru, a small town in the South Island of New Zealand, had the highest recorded levels of air pollution in New Zealand. Some of this pollution was caused by natural events (eg. fires) but most of it was produced (made) by humans.

Watch this short video on air pollution. It will tell you more about natural and human causes of pollution.

On your blog, share three new things that you learned about air pollution from this video.

* There are different kinds of air pollution: Greenhouse Gases, Smog and Toxic Pollutants,

* Most air pollution is caused by man.

* Ait pollution makes the air warmer, which results in things like more pollen, rise in extreme weather and smog.

Activity 2: Changing Climates [4 points]

Over the past decade, the climate in New Zealand (and around the world) has been changing. In fact, the climate has been getting warmer and warmer. While many of us like warm weather, climate change is not good news. Higher temperatures can cause glaciers to melt (leading to flooding) and increase the amount of rain that falls.

Here in New Zealand, we have noticed the change. In fact, we sometimes have torrential (huge) rain storms causing flooding, landslides and road closures. When it starts to rain really hard, Aronui and I usually hide out in our lounge and play games like Yahtzee, Monopoly and Uno. If it rains all day, we will also spend some time reading, watching movies and baking.

What about you? What do you like to do on a rainy day?  

On your blog, tell us about five things that you like to do when it is too rainy to go outside..

* Make brownies with my sister.

* Watch horror movies.

* Play with my younger nephews and nieces.

* Watch movies with my younger nephews and nieces.

* Eat.

Activity 3: Let It Rain [10 points]

Over the past few decades, we have seen an increase in the amount of rain that falls here in New Zealand. We are lucky, however, that most of the rain that falls is regular rainwater and not polluted acid rain. Acid rain is rain that has bad chemicals (pollutants) in it. When acid rain hits the ground it can enter the water system, killing plants and animals. Click here to learn more about acid rain.

Let’s imagine that New Zealand was hit by a massive acid rain storm. Acidic rain fell for three days and three nights. When the rain fell, you stayed inside with your friends and family. When it stopped, however, you and your family decided to go for a walk outside. You opened the door and...

On your blog, write a short story about what happened when you opened the door and walked outside after the acid rain storm. To earn full points, you must write a story that is 8 – 10 sentences long.

And we saw something that looked like an aftermath of a tornado. The trees outside were bare and the grass outside looked like it was balding. It was silent, no chirping, just the sound of nothing. We decided to go on a walk . The trees everywhere had no leaves and the world looked sad. It had no colour, nothing interesting about it. We got to the beach when we saw lines of crab and small fish washed up on the sand. We walked up cautiously to the small fish, it was dead. I couldn't believe I was seeing this. If it rains again, who knows what kind of damage it could do.