The Buzz Quiz

Today for Reading I did a quiz about what my career is. It gave me options on what I'd rather do. Then it would come up with my personality and jobs that would suit me. I don't really think these tests are accurate, because jobs are based on interests, not personality. Once I had finished the quiz, I made a short video about my results and what I thought of the quiz. Talking about the quiz was interesting, but doing it wasn't, because I have done these tests before. the test: https://www.ucas.com/careers/buzz-quiz

Top Careers

 Today for T-shaped Literacy we are learning about careers because it is required in Year 8.

I had to read an article about the top 20 jobs in New Zealand. I then had to pick 5 jobs and write facts about them. Because the article was written prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had to write how it had changed because of lockdown.

This was cool to read to see what the people thought would be the most wanted jobs in New Zealand.

Energy Inquiry- Black Holes.

 In the first 5 weeks of Term 2, we have been creating inquiries about Energy. We got to go in a pair, so I went with Lucy. Lucy and I decided to make our inquiry about Black Holes and the energy around them. Black holes are massive objects in space, mostly in the center of a galaxy.

We chose 5 questions and tried to answer them, those were our facts. We made a model with our facts on it. We also put a hole in the model so we could pull little pictures of energy, astronauts, and aliens into our model.

This was a really fun inquiry to do and I'm glad we chose to do black holes. Next time I could check my work before I print it because I found a few spelling mistakes!

What are Black Holes?

Black holes are rotating objects in space that pull energy into them. The gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape. Because of this, black holes are invisible to the human eye. Why? Since no light can escape, there is no light to look at. See, humans need light to be reflecting off the object to be able to see something. Black holes absorb light, making them so dark they are invisible. 

Let us get this straight. Black holes aren’t holes. They’re objects.

Black holes “Suck” absolutely EVERYTHING in. It wouldn’t care if you were its best friend when you were kids. It won’t care if you gave it free candy. It’s going to eat you up (And the candy too) no matter what you do.

What happens if you go in a black hole?

Just like with a planet or a star, as you get closer you get caught in the black hole’s gravitational pull. If you were in a spacesuit, outside the spaceship, it would be impossible to escape because the gravity is so strong. If you were inside a ship then it would be possible to fly away. If you’re thinking we could just swan dive into a black hole and see what’s on the other side, then you’re wrong. Firstly, you wouldn’t be able to get out, so you’ll never see your friends and family again. Secondly, as soon as you go into the black hole, you are going to get ripped apart before you even get to the other side.  

Just before the “Hole” of the black hole you will get to a place called the event horizon. Once you pass this, or even get close to it, then you’re probably never going back to earth.

Once you get to the “Hole” of a black hole, you wouldn’t hit an object like if you were going to a star. This is called the singularity. Once you are there, you are there. You have reached the point of no return.

How are black holes made?

Black holes can be made during the death of an old star, also known as a supernova. When all the fuels and gasses from the core of the star are all gone and exhausted, the core becomes unstable, and it gravitationally collapses into itself, or implodes. Then the outer parts of the star are blown away. All the weight of the matter compresses the dying star until it turns into an object of no volume and infinite density.

Can we get energy from black holes?

No. While there is plenty of energy in black holes that could be of great use to humans the gravitational pull is too strong for humans to resist. 

Although, a new study says that someday energy could be harnessed from black holes. According to a man called Luca Cossimo, we could get energy from our universal overlords. "Black holes are commonly surrounded by a hot 'soup' of plasma particles that carry a magnetic field," said Comisso. "Our theory shows that when magnetic field lines disconnect and reconnect in just the right way, they can accelerate plasma particles to negative energies, and large amounts of black hole energy can be extracted."

If you don’t understand that… it basically means it’s possible to get energy when plasma particles are accelerated, which means they get higher energies. This is also what happens in a particle accelerator.

But what kinds of energy are in black holes? Of course, with most things, they produce kinetic energy (motion energy) and potential energy (energy that is stored and can be potentially used. Most of the energy inside black holes is energy from the rest of the universe.

Where are black holes in our universe

There are black holes all over our universe but the closest one, Telescopium, is a mere 1000 light years away. Telescopium is called that because it is inside the constellation of Telescopium. That’s near the constellation of Sagittarius. There are also Supermassive (Which means they are bigger) black holes in the center of every galaxy. Telescopium is the one in the centre of the milky way, which all the stars are slowly orbiting around.

Dixon House Writing

 

Dixon House Visit

On Tuesday the 25th of May, my class and I took a bus to Dixon house, an old people’s home. We went there because it was Get Caught Reading month, and the Tai Poutini Polytechnic decided it would be a great idea for us to go and talk to the older people at Dixon House. Before we left at 1pm, we got to pick a book from the school library. I had brought a book from home that I thought would be good, and this one was called the Velveteen Rabbit. It is a book about a toy rabbit made of velveteen, and filled with sawdust, that wants to become a real rabbit.

When we got to Dixon House, we were invited inside by the people from the polytech and we got to go up to someone and introduce ourselves. I didn’t really get to know the lady I walked up to because the book I chose was so long that it took the whole 40 minutes that we were there to read! I thought she really liked it since she made comments on how cute she thought the book was. I couldn’t really remember the lady’s name because I was so tired from reading for so long!

After I had finished reading the book, I said goodbye to the lady and went up to grab some afternoon tea. The food was cooked up by the polytech students for us and it was delicious. We also got a chocolate bar each before we left!

The staff and the residents of Dixon House said that they really liked having us there to read and talk to them, and our teacher was very proud of us.

Going there made me feel like I was doing something enjoyable for someone else. I also enjoyed listening to the lady’s comments about how she liked the book. Although, after that I learnt that I probably shouldn’t pick such a long book if I do it again!