Woodrush Star June 2013 | Page 24

HUMANITIES HUMANITIES Medievel Shield Competition Earlier this year the Humanities Team ran a Medieval shield competition. The rules were that the shield had to represent your House Team and it had to follow the guidelines of Medieval heraldry. We were inundated with entries, so many in fact that we thought we would select the best to go up in form rooms next year. The winners for each house were: Brindley: Ellie-Kay 7B2, Cadbury: Kaide 7C2 Lanchester: Abbie 7L1 Each of these 3 won 50 merits for their house. Mr Baker was asked to select the overall winner and he chose Kaide’s excellent shield for Cadbury! Kaide wins an extra 25 merits for his house. Well done to all who took part - look out for examples of Year 7 shields around school in September. Miss Graham and the Humanities Team. Monday 17th to 21st June was National Geography Awareness Week. To mark the week, the Geography department invited an ambassador from the Royal Geographical Society to come in to talk to some of our year 7 and 8 students and get them thinking about how Geography is all around them. Year 7 looked at the variety of countries that their school uniform were made in and also looked at the issue of fair trade. Year 8 looked at holidays and the impact these had on the environment in terms of carbon emissions. In addition to a FROG capital cities quiz open to all years, year 7 got stuck in to their own “Creative Geography Quiz.” In addition to the conventional “name that place” and physical Geography questions, the teams also had to design a building to survive an earthquake using a bag of Maltesers and some chocolate fingers and round one involved constructing a world map using a packet of crisps! There were some fantastic map creations and some excellent buildings that survived the shake test. Well done to Lanchester for gaining the most points overall and a special mention to Miss Rigley and Miss Houston for their second place finish! 24 Year 7 trip to the OPAL Weather Roadshow A small group of Year 7 students were invited to attend a workshop at the OPAL Weather Roadshow that was being hosted by King Edwards Five Ways school in Bartley Green. The roadshow truck had a range of weather equipment for students to get their hands on. They had great fun trying to imitate Carol Kirkwood using the green screen technology on board to present their very own weather forecast. They also got to see clouds being made in a bottle, create their own tornadoes and play with a range of equipment to measure the temperature and wind speed. Thanks to Miss Price for coming along in support. Wythall Community News: Wythall Library is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The history students are putting together a display to help commemorate this event. Do you have any memories or photographs of Wythall from circa.1973? If so we would love to hear from you so we can share your memorabilia. Please contact Miss Graham at Woodrush School. Year 7 Geography trip to Middleton Lakes Just after half term year 7 travelled over to Middleton Lakes RSPB reserve near Bodymoor Heath to practice their Geography fieldwork skills. Each group carried out two stream surveys and using various bits of equipment, we measured elements such as the speed of the river, its depth and its width. We then tried out some less technical equipment to test the speed with good old fashioned pooh sticks! After a picnic lunch in the sunshine, we headed out to the lake area. We tested our artistic skills with a spot of field sketching and then moved on to the storm simulation tables. We all had great fun pouring gallons of water on three different surfaces to see how different surfaces might affect how quickly rainwater gets to the river. Needless to say the concrete one was the fastest!