Sustainable Fishing - Social Studies.

Is sustainable fishing even possible? 

I think it is possible, especially when we help each other and contribute to start making changes. Sustainable fishing has a big impact on our ocean environment. By-catch is one of the reasons why we are losing a lot of different fishes in our ocean. We know that by-catch is one way of fishing. However, fishing boats want a specific fish. A lot of fishing boats are using commercial nets to get the fishes that they need. Surprisingly, some fisher bringing the other fishes back in the water if they don't need it. But most of them are dying before hitting the water. However, we can solve this problem by using sustainable ways to reduce the number of species dying in by-catch. 

How is commercial fishing a threat to dolphins and bird life?

Dolphins and birds can also get caught because of by-catch. It is a threat for them because it can reduce the number of dolphins in the ocean. Base on my research there are 300,000 seabirds are dying and getting drown because they are diving into baits set. 

Ecotourism - Social Studies

In social studies, we have been learning about "Ecotourism. We need to answer 3 different questions about this topic. We need to be able to tell what is it. why is it going trend and how it is helping our ocean. A lot of you may already know what is it and how is it helpful in our environment especially in our ocean. 

What is ecotourism? 

Ecotourism is described as "responsible travel to natural areas in different places. These can help to sustain the well-being of the local people. Ecotourism is also about building a culture of environmental respect and protection while providing positive experiences to visitors and hosts. It is the type of tourism that will help our natural environment to improve. Also, those tourists and tourism professionals that belong to ecotourism will get educated about the ecological issues.  An ecotourism mindset is generating value for local people and the industry. 

Why is it a growing trend?

Nowadays, ecotourism has been growing for many different reasons. It becomes easier to access the destinations because of the cheap flights and accessible infrastructure. Because of this a lot of people are visiting those natural tourists spot. It is important because it can help to reduce the negative impact on our environment. You can see a lot of things in those tourist attraction areas like exotic plants and animals. A lot of people said that ecotourism helps your personal growth. Base on this information, we can tell that ecotourism is helpful to protect or improve our environment.

How ecotourism help our oceans? 

Ecotourism has a lot of good impacts on our ocean. Such as spreading awareness to people. It can also improve marine life and reducing the chances of by-catch. Also, it can make our ocean more healthy and also the species. 

Wananga Reflection - Matariki

Today in our wananga class, we watched some videos about the story of Matariki. Our reflection for this week is about Matariki. Our school bell this week is also about Matariki. Some of us might not know about Matariki and what is the meaning of the 9 stars. Those 9 stars have different meaning base on their name. They said that those nine stars are the mother, the twins that the rest are the sisters. 

The 9 stars of Matariki

• Matariki
• Tupuarangi
• Waipuna-a-rangi
• Waiti
• Tupuanuku
• Ururangi
• Waita
• Pohutukawa
• Hiwa-i-te-Rangi

                                                                The Story Of Matariki

In the beginning of time there was nothing, no earth, sea or sky just, Te pō,  darkness. In this Te Kore, nothingness, Ranginui the sky father and Papatūānuku the earth mother came to be. They lay together in a tight embrace. Together, they had many children who were all male. The sons lived between them in the darkness. As the children grew up, they wondered what it would be like to live in the light. Tūmatauenga, the fiercest of all the sons, shouted to his brothers, “Let’s kill them!”  The brothers disagreed. Tānemahuta, the god of the forests and birds, had a solution to the problem, “We will push them apart, Ranginui will be in the sky above us and Papatūānuku will stay below us so she remains close.” Rongomātāne, the god of cultivated food, tried to push his parents apart. He pushed and pushed with no success. Then Tangaroa, the god of the sea, and Haumia-tiketike, the god of wild food joined him. Together they pushed and pushed but still their parents would not let go of each other.

Eventually, Tāne tried. He placed his shoulders on his mother and his feet on his father and pushed hard for a very long time. Rangi and Papa called out in distress, “Why are you doing this?” “Please don’t separate us.”  Tāne continued to push with his strong legs, until finally Rangi and Papa were prised apart. The children were excited to finally have light and space to move. Tāwhirimātea, the god of the wind, was angry about the separation. He could not stand to hear his parents in pain, or to see the tears coming from Ranginui. āwhirimātea was so angry that in a rage he threw his eyes up into the sky. His eyes are now known as the stars of Matariki. 

English Short Film - "Kasunduan"

In English, we spend four weeks doing our short film. This film project is base on the court scene in "Merchant To Venice. In that part, they're arguing about the deal that Sherlock and Antonio made, and in this scene, Sherlock wants to take Antonio's flesh base on the contract. Our film is has a lot of similarities in that part of the movie. After we filmed the scene of our short film and edited it, we saw that it's six minutes long. We added the subtitles since we did our short film using the Tagalog language.

The film that we did is about the two sisters who made a contract. The contract that they made is very powerful. Once you sighed it and you put your blood you need to do all the things that are given to you. However, in our film, my character is the sister who signed the contract, and my sister which is Skyler asked me to kill my husband and my children. I didn't agree to this so we talked to our father about it, but when he saw my blood on it he said that I need to choose who's gonna die, me or my family. But since I know my sister's plan I killed her instead, our father gave me 24 hours to leave and take my family away from them because our relatives will surely kill me because of what I did. This is the reason why we called our film "Kasunduan" because kasunduan means contract/deal in our language. 

The film that we made is retelling the court scene in Merchant To Venice. Where Sherlock wants to take Antonio's flesh base on their deal. As I said, our film is about a contract between the two sisters. Both of them are made by the contract and seek revenge. We used the "eye level" and "above shoulder" camera shots since we have a lot of lines that most of the part of our film is our conversation with each other so it's great to use this kind of camera angle.

During our filming, it's really hard for us to express the emotion that we needed to express to make our film more realistic. For the script, it's really hard to think of what are you gonna say since we didn't make any script for us to memorize. But after we take some shots we started to get the hang of it. Next time, I think I should improve my acting since I was not satisfied with my act. I think I need to add more emotions. But I love the way our film turns out. 

Kasunduan

Wananga Reflection - Wellbeing

In wananga, we have been doing a assessment about our wellbeing. This include the 3 weeks plan, for this plan we have our 3 different factors that we want to improve. The 3 factors of my wellbeing is physical, family relationship and managing emotions. We our own table that we need to fill out everyday base of the 3 different factors that we chose. This plan is really helpful because we can maintain those things that we know that can be bad for our personal wellbeing. Also the 3 factors that I chose improve a lot because of the 3 weeks plan that we did. 

Wananga Reading Reflection

This week we have been continuing reading "Skink Gully" in ESOL. This week, we've read the chapter 4 and 5. We also answered the worksheet for chapter 2 and did a test about chapter 5.

Chapter 4

For this chapter, they are trying to take some photos of the skink. While taking the photo suddenly a black cat suddenly bites the head of the skink and ran. Tamsin the daughter of the manager of the farm got really shocked by what happened and the dog chased the cat. 

Chapter 5 

Continuing in chapter 5, the dog leads them into a place like a cave but without any roof. Out of curiosity, they dig and make a hole in the ground. After digging for a few minutes, they saw a lot of bones and they got really shocked. Also in chapter 5, they take a photo of the nest of the falcon. But after a few moments, the bird started to circle around them making them scared. 

There are just a few things that happened in the book that we're reading. There a lot more things happened and I can't wait to finish the book. 

Shark Finning

In social studies, we have been learning about shark finning. We watched a video about how does shark finning happening in a different country. We also learned the reasons behind this activity. In the video that we watched, we see that shark fins are selling in many places and, some of them are getting cooked as soup. 

What is shark finning?

Shark finning is when the shark fins are getting cut away from the body. They will put the body back into the ocean. They said that the shark is dying slowly and with a lot of pain. The fins are getting used in China and Hong Kong. The Chinese community all over the world will turn it into shark-fin soup. 

What is shark-fin soup?

This glutinous stock is a classical Chinese course dating back more than 1,000 years. Once a rare delicacy consumed only by the Chinese aristocracy, it played an important role as a symbol of social standing. The fibers take on a texture similar to noodles, but they have essentially no taste or nutritional value, so chicken stock or something similar is added to enhance the flavor.

Why is it a problem? 

It's a problem because they are killing a lot of sharks to get the fins. There are 73 million sharks are killed each year to make the Chinese course shark fin soup. These can decrease the population of sharks in the ocean. 

Website about shark finning. 

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/fish/what-is-shark-finning-and-why-is-it-a-problem/

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/fish/what-is-shark-finning-and-why-is-it-a-problem/