Tuesday 28 January 2014

Our mini NGO

Posted by Rebecca at 01:49 0 comments
This week in school is our awareness raising week for our topic "Educating Girls".  Each morning in the announcements there will be a fact read out about educating girls. This mornings fact was 
"60 million girls are out of education at the moment."
We take for granted that we get education for free and so many girls around the world are illiterate and refused their right to education. To raise awareness we had to create posters to put up around the school to get people thinking.


Our awareness raising action was to hold a screening of girl rising showing one chosen story from the film. We each gave 50 cent to buy popcorn to give to the first years attending the showing we decided to show the story of Amina from Pakistan. Here is the trailer ..

These are the heartfelt stories of girls fighting for their education around the world. If you have the opportunity to watch the movie I would recommend it. Another project we are doing as part of our mini NGO is "Walking to school",  they created a video of the girls walking to school, here's the video.




This inspired us so much we are going to make our own version of walking to school and happy dancing...



Let me know what your thought are from watching the videos or if you have seen the movie comment below :)


Monday 27 January 2014

TY

Posted by Rebecca at 12:31 0 comments
Mrs. L chose Aisling and I to prepare a speech to preform for the the third year parents. Me and aisling then got together over the next coming days to bring a speech together, we talked about all the trips we have been on, the projects we've completed and what TY has done for us.



This was our speech which we read in front of over 200 parents, I've high lighted the main points in green.

Hi im Rebecca and im Aisling we are current ty’s, I chose to do ty for a number of reasons. I wanted to get more involved with the school, make more friends and expand my skills. We also wanted a break between the jc and lc, and to also get a taster of all the subjects to make sure we would make the right decisions for the leaving cert. In saying this it is not a doss year.
            
We started off the year with workshops for the first three Wednesdays to familiarise ourselves with our new class and year group, and to prepare us for the working world. We learned etiquette, positive thinking, and massages for the stressful times and confidence building. Then came the TY trip to Carlingford. It was a brilliant experience From swimming in the ocean to a blindfolded walk in the dark it was the time of our lives. We took part in many things in Carlingford like low ropes course, laser tag, body zorbing and a version of the crystal maze, all this helped with our team building.
Weve been on many trips so far such as institute of technology Tallaght for science week, Pádraig pearse museum for irish, the national history museum, national art museum and the national library for English, for maths we went to ratbaggen lakes to solve real life maths problems, for religion we went to city west for schools across borders and interacted with other TY classes, We went to punchestown expo centre for the Kildare road safety show, we fund-raised for the ISPCC in town and we just went to the BT young scientist last week. This makes TY most enjoyable, and we still have 5 months to go…

We complete many projects in TY. We began our year in geography doing a project about the counties of Ireland and then expanded our course to a trip around the world project. In Irish we did a powerpoint on ourselves, in English we focused on the late seamus Heaney and have started the lc book list.

The more strenuous projects include Sci Fest, Junk Kotoure and Mini Company. They tested our limits and showed how much we could push ourselves. Scifest is not all about work but can be fun too! My Sci Fest project is electric fruit. Mine is dizzy people. Although it can be hard to find 15 people to partake in your experiment and get everybody organised. Last week we had our junk couture fashion show it gave us  a chance to show off our out fits out of recycled materials and strut our stuff down the catwalk. Mini company is as the name suggests. You start your own business from the ground up!!

TY didn’t mean we stopped learning, we continued our learning using different techniques and skills. We’ve learned how to research, apply our learning to everyday life and to be honest I feel weve be learning and researching in a fun environment without the stress of exams.
In the first three years in st.w I feel all my energy was focused on my jc like I was training for the Olympics and the Olympics was the jc. During those three years I was a very quiet student. Ais talked a lot.  I was also self conscience and stressed at times about exams and results. I found it hard to mix with others because of exam focus. TY for me has given me an opportunity to make new friends, to learn in a relaxed manner, to enjoy a taste of LC subjects without the excess stress of exams, I have gained confidence and am capable of making wise subject choices regarding my Lc.

Through work experience and time with careers guidance I now feel focused for what I want in the future. From learning to cope with children and learning to cope with difficult customers in shops. Work experience was a great lesson. We’ve even learned a few moves from partaking in Zumba.

The fact that we are able to stand up here tonight infront of this crowd shows how much we have changed.

Ty encourages students to use their initiave, build self esteem and become mature independent learners.

All of these things come about through participation in group work, guest speakers, projects and interaction with each other. I’m very glad I did TY, for me I’m going forward in life with a positive outlook and the skills to cope with what lies ahead. I learned how to work as a group, gained confidence and learned to overcome disagreements.
But one thing to remember, TY is what you make of it, being involved in all aspects. TY is as good as you make it.

From my experience of TY I think it's brilliant and its worth the extra time. If you had asked me to do that speech in third year or after going straight into 5th year I don't think I'd be capable of doing so. I hope this helped you make your decision if you've any questions just comment :)

Thursday 23 January 2014

Mo thaithí oibre

Posted by Rebecca at 05:08 0 comments
Chaith mé mo thaithí oibre i Decobake i mBaile Átha Cliath. Thosiagh mé ag obair ar a dó dhéag agus fuair mé an bus ar a deich a chlog gach Céadaoin.


Bhí mé ag obair i éineacht le Gillian, Amy, Viv agus Sinead. Bhí mé ag glanadh an siopa agus síos an staighre sa íoslach. Ghlan mé na cuntairí, scuab mé an t-úrlar agus bhí me ag chuir snas ar na cuntoirí freisin. Thug mé cabhair leis na daoine sa siopa freisin.

Chuaigh mé ar an lón ar a trí a chlog agus fuair mé McDonalds nó píotsa. D'fhil mé an siopa ar a ceathar. Chuaigh mé abhaile ar a cuig a chlog.

Sunday 19 January 2014

Girl Rising

Posted by Rebecca at 09:00 0 comments
For schools across borders we have to choose a topic to base our mini NGO on, to inspire us Ms. L wrote to intel to ask if they would send us the movie... and they did! We got Monday evening in school off to gather in the library and watch the movie. We did know that the movie was about girls in the developing world and how they are denied their right to education, but we weren't expecting the terrible things that happen to some of the girls.


Below is the story of Suma, she was forced into labour at the age of six and was denied an education unlike her brothers who were attending school. It displays how educating a girl doesn't just change her life but her community as well. 


Saturday 18 January 2014

Junk Kotoure

Posted by Rebecca at 11:12 0 comments
Last Friday we hosted our Junk Kotoure fashion show. I was in a group with Lauren, Ciara and Catriona. Our dress consisted of a head piece, wings, corset and skirt. Our corset was a second hand one from a charity shop and we painted it black. We places sliver serving dishes from the Chinese on the side to catch the light. Then we added a line of batteries along the bases to add an electrical touch. In the center we placed bottle caps in co ordination. Using tissue paper we created some texture along the bust. 



The skirt was made from an old umbrella that we turned inside out, we cut newspaper in strips and frilled it and glued it along the bottom of the umbrella. Under the umbrella we folded cardboard and placed it on string to hang underneath to puff out the skirt. 




We made wings out of wire and soldered it into shape. We attached them to Laurens back using unravelled the wire from the top of a calender and laced it through and around Laurens arms . And to top it off we wrapped a wire around Laurens waist and draped the end of it over her shoulder, and voilà our dress is complete.





Everyone put lots of effort into their dresses and it really showed with the impressive dresses that were on show at the fashion show. Here is some of the other dresses. 


Heres a collage of the photos of other dresses it may not be the 
best quality as they were taken on my phone.





Sunday 12 January 2014

BT Young Scientist

Posted by Rebecca at 15:38 0 comments
On Thursday we went to the BT young scientist in the RDS. But this time it wasn't just the TYs going on the trip but second years also, we had to get three double decker buses to take us there. When we arrived we went straight to the robot show. There was a few glitches but the show was good. 

The Robot Arena

Next we went to the place where you get the free stuff. We saw this bouncy castle type inflatable that you walk through so we queued for that first. It turned out it was as if you were going through the digestive system, you started in the mouth and then stopped in your stomach, small intestine and then he rectum. And they described what happens during each of these stages.

The villi

After we spotted a CELEBRITY... Mr. Ryan Tubridy, I even got a selfie with him ;) we had to wait awhile but he was lovely and took a picture with everyone who asked. Miriam O' Callaghan was also there but I didn't get to take a picture with her.

Ryan Tubridy and I

After we went to the Selfie Zone!!! It was Rte's area where they had different things like wigs, hats and glasses to put on and take a selfie and enter their competition. Well a few would be an understatement of all the selfies we took but heres the best ones.






After we had a go in the weather studio and presented the weather it was great craic, outside the weather booth they have a tv screen showing you in the rte news studio. The boy after us happened to be wearing a jumper that matched the green screen behind him so he blended in with the wall and was just a floating head on tv, it was a bit like a scene from anchorman 2. 



Analog devices had a section there like every other year, they always have a few interactive games. One game was where you stand on a wobble board and you have to lean from side to side and try collect the coins that were coming up on the monitor, next we tested or reaction times. There was three buttons in front of us blue, green and red and the numbers 1, 2 and 3 on them, then on the screen infront there were leds that lit up with the number in a different colour. You were able to do the game by numbers or colours so you had to press the button in response to what came up on the screen. Another good game of sorts was the laser maze, you had to make your way to the other side without hitting any lasers or it would add on more time to your score.


Overall it was a great day but they didn't have their chocolate covered marshmallows like the other times I was there.. But it was great fun and congratulations to the winners who solved a mathematical equation and peoples attitudes to older people in the work place.


 

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