The Ship of Theseus

Our first session for 2015!
We had a great session today with 15 brand new faces. First of all the students had to consider their answers to two open ended questions: 1. Name everything you can think of that is orange. 2. What can you make with a pillow and a mirror?
We talked about the reasons we'd asked to bring them together, and discussed what it meant to think outside of the box, and what "curly" questions are.
Together we read the book "The Mixed Up Chameleon", which is a story about a chameleon who wishes to be like other creatures, until no part of his original body remains.
Our discussion centred around identity, what makes you you, and about being grateful for the things you have rather than wishing for others. "Be careful what you wish for," one of the students suggested. It was also a book about social identity; wanting to be like others, and about personality or instinct. We could tell that although the chameleon looked nothing like a chameleon by the end of the book, he was still a chameleon inside, as his first instinct when he saw the fly was to eat it.
The book also raised questions about change - how much can change about something before you can no longer call it the same thing, and it is actually a new thing.
This is a well-known paradox called the Ship of Theseus.
We watched an interesting video which introduced this paradox, and discussed the ship amongst our group. It is very cool that we all had different opinions on the idea, and that all our answers were valid.

 

If you want to explore more about the Ship of Theseus puzzle, the Khan Academy has a good learning video here:

 

Metaphysics: Ship of theseus: Jenn introduces us to a puzzle that has bedeviled philosophy since the ancient Greeks: the Ship of Theseus. She tells the Ship of Theseus story, and draws out the more general question behind it: what does it take for an object to persist over time? She then breaks this ancient problem down with modern clarity and rigor. Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Wang, Lecturer, Stanford University

Discernment 3: Leadership Qualities

What makes a good leader?
Today we considered people who we think are good leaders. We tried to break the qualities of good leaders into a set of criteria, then we were able to put this into a chart and fill it out for the people we know who would make good leaders of our school next year. This is in no way connected with the actual selection of our school and house leaders for 2015, but we realised how hard it must be for the staff to make the choices.
We tried to decipher what it is that a school leader has to do - what their job entails - and then work out what skills would be useful in these situations.
The big three
We had a really interesting discussion about The Big Three. We realised that we can broadly classify a lot of our personal skills into three categories: social, physical and academic skills. We represented this as a triangle. Most of us lean towards one or two of these corners of the triangle, and it was neat trying to work out where we each think we fall.  The best leaders are likely to be found within the group of people who have skills in all three areas - and of course this way they can relate to people from all walks of life.

Discernment 2: Artworks

Today we had a look at some artworks from a specific era, and compared them. At first it was difficult to say why we did or didn't like a piece of art, but slowly through our group discussion we came to have a list of criteria in our heads which might help us to sift through our choices.
We were about to write this up as a table, and we chose six pieces of art to put through our rigorous marking schedule.
At the end of our work, we each had a distinct favourite of the artwork selection, but we could also say specifically why we liked it the most.
Having an opinion is all well and good, but all opinions need to be backed up with some consideration.

Discernment 1: Question selection

Today we started a new mini-unit, DISCERNMENT. So what is discernment? We began by brainstorming and working out what it meant.
Then we had a discussion about how to distinguish between different but related things. For example, when I went to Rarotonga on honeymoon, we had a lot of fun checking out ten or twelve different resorts, but we were soon mixed up about the different places and got confused about which place had a pool and which ones had restaurants.
The best thing for us to do was to draw up a table, and give the resorts marks for all the things we thought were important in a resort. (Friendly staff, closeness to beach, equipment hire; all the important things). The table was our way of analysing and comparing the different resorts.
Each class member has had a question assigned to them, but they have also been able to choose from a pile of Wild Cards. All the questions are designed to make students analyse and evaluate a selection of items, places or people, and by using their own self-designed criteria, to come up with a conclusive answer.
Here are the questions which students picked from:

1.       List your top ten engineering wonders of the modern world.

2.       What are the best animals to keep as pets?

3.       What are the top ten best websites to use when researching the topic of endangered animals for school?

4.       What are the ultimate “must have” toys?

5.       Which New Zealanders have contributed the most to our country’s history?

6.       Where are the top ten tourist sites around the world?

7.       What are the best things to do in either Christchurch or Dunedin during the holidays?

8.       List the books that all children should read before they leave school.

9.       Put together your rugby Dream Team: players from any era and any nation.

10.   What are the most dangerous sports you can choose to play?

11.   Grantlea Downs is looking at supporting a charity next year. List the top ten that you would recommend.

12.   Which disasters around the world have been the most influential?

13.   Which well-known figures do you believe are good role models?

14.   Which are the most influential inventions of the last one hundred years?

15.   What are the top sites around South Canterbury for a visitor to see?

16.   What are the top ten most likely “end of the world” scenarios?

17.   Compile a list of the most dangerous animals in the world.

18.   Compile a list of the best professions to be considered after graduation from High School.

Visit to the Wetlands

We had a fab visit to the Wetlands today. Debbie Eddington from ECAN, Conservationist Extaordinaire, met us down at the bridge and began by showing us pictures of some creatures who call the Wetlands home. Some are known to be pests and discouraged, and others are encouraged as valuable members of the Wetlands food web.
We saw lots of native plants, such as flax and toetoe. The flax had evidence of being eaten by native moths.
There were many areas we saw which have undergone huge improvement over the last year or so. Being so near to the rubbish tip, the plantings and windbreak along that side have made a big difference to the overall look of the Wetlands.
Since we have been studying inter-dependence, we were able to see much of it in action here.
We looked at Debbie's tracking boxes, which are clever little devices the students recognised and I didn't. The creatures walk through these little triangular prisms, walking through an ink pad at one end and then leaving their tracks for the DOC workers to find. We saw tracks made by lizards as well as other small creatures that could fit through the tubes.

Symbiosis (Interdependence 2)

Symbiosis is a way to describe a relationship between two organisms. It is classified differently according to whether the relationship benefits both or only one side.
Today we discussed the nature of symbiosis, its many types, and scrutinised one form of symbiosis which is lichen.
The existence of lichen is actually a result of a mutually beneficial relationship between an alga and fungus. We discussed this symbiosis and inspected some lichens under the microscope. Then the students went off to find more samples of lichen of their own.

The second picture shows lichen under a microscope much more powerful than ours.

Microscopes (Interdependence 1)

This afternoon we had heaps of fun with the school's three microscopes. They are relatively low power (10 and 20x) so it wasn't a case of seeing the bugs in water or the cells in onion layers... but very cool nonetheless.
We started by talking through the basic operation of the microscopes and how to handle them carefully. Then we looked at a few pre-assembled items such as some moss, Rosie's eyelash, a fingerprint and pencil shavings.
After we looked at the objects everyone had to go out and search for some more small things that we could inspect. This is where it got really interesting. Laurence and Aleks found a slug - you could even see his breathing hole opening and closing along his side. They also returned with a millipede which looked slimy to the naked eye, but under the microscope we could see that the shine comes from its hard exoskeleton. We found a dead fly on Mrs Lees' windowsill, and its eyes looked absolutely amazing under the lens. A green leaf that someone brought in was described by Ivan like emeralds. The surface wasn't smooth at all but sparkly and bumpy.
Here are some other ideas: https://www.microscopeworld.com/t-low_microscope_ideas.aspx