End of unit culture reflection 

For the duration of social studies we have been looking at different aspects of cultures. The most common culture we have been looking at is European cultures. The first culture my group looked at  was: Russia, for the aspect of this culture we looked at compared to aspects from this country to New Zealand, first we compared Russia to NZ then we started to compare the aspects of these two countries. After this we started focusing on Asian cultures. The country that I chose to focus on was Japan, for the  aspect of this culture I chose to focus on drifting and samurai, these were both too main aspects of Japanese culture. Focusing on these aspects of this culture has taught me alot for example: I learnt that Japan seems like a quiet peaceful country but learning about drifting made me think that japan isn’t that much of a quiet, peaceful country at all because most people like drifting because the thrill of turning the car fully sideways. Also learning about samurai has taught me that most samurai used to think that the only way to regain honour when they’re badly injured in battle was to slice open their necks or stomach. 

Luke:

During social studies we have been focusing on different cultures. For my group we chose Japan the two aspects of this culture were Drifting and samurai. learning about Samurai has taught me that samurai’s had the idea that suicide was the best case, because many samurai would slice either their stomach or their neck to regain honour.  another aspect of this culture was drifting I learnt that most people like drifting because the thrill of turning the car fully sideways.

Samurai

What Is a Samurai?

Samurai, a member of the Japanese warrior caste. The term samurai was originally used to denote the aristocratic warriors (bushi), but it came to apply to all the members of the warrior class that rose to power in the 12th century and dominated the Japanese government until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The only way to become a samurai was to be born into the samurai family, adopted into a samurai family or to be accepted into a samurai family by marriage. 

Samurai Weapons 

During the samurai era they had many different weapons which varied form tanto, naginata, wakizashi but the main weapons that samurai used were katana long, katana were long single edged bladed.

The Final Samurai

The last known samurai was Saigo Takamori who was born in the 1820s he was a hero to many in Japan until the 1870 when the accounts of his subordinates claim that he stood up and committed seppuku after his injury or that he requested that his friend Beppu Shinsuke assisted his suicide by slicing his head off. 

Tanto knife

The tanto was originally designed as a weapon, but over time it evolved into a versatile utility knife used for various cutting tasks. Naginata A Japanese blade with a long wooden handle that you hold the weapon with.  Many samurai use this blade to batter, stab, or hook an opponent. Yari A japanese spear like weapon that samurai used as an effective and cheap means of arming the ever-expanding armies of foot soldiers.  

Samurai Armour

Samurai used the armor for protection; the crescent on the top was so that allies could tell who you were. The reason for the oni mask was to intimidate the foe making it easier to strike them down.

How Samurai regain honor

Before samurai are killed they pull out their tanto blade and either stab their stomach or slice their neck. Samurai commit this act to regain honor they have lost from being badly injured. Some samurai cant come to do it themselves so they either get a fellow ally to do it or the enemy does it for them and they can’t regain their honor they lost.

How Samurai regain honor

Before samurai are killed they pull out their tanto blade and either stab their stomach or slice their neck. Samurai commit this act to regain honor they have lost from being badly injured. Some samurai cant come to do it themselves so they either get a fellow ally to do it or the enemy does it for them and they can’t regain their honor they lost. 

Drifting

What is Drifting?

Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally over-steers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner or a turn. 

What do judges look for when drifting?

The purpose of drifting, and especially professional drifting by Motorsport athletes, is to successfully complete a drift course or race while being judged point-by-point on the quality of their drifting skills. Generally speaking, the purpose of drifting is for the driver to make the car spin sideways, intentionally causing the car to over-steer, in order to achieve a drift state. Drifting works by intentionally putting a car in an oversteer state, where it overcomes the natural traction between the wheels and the road. The driver then controls this state, forcing the car to continue drifting until the turn is complete.

DK ( Kunimitsu Takahasi)

Kunimitsu Takahasi who was born in the 1930s is the OG drift king also known as the father of drifting. Kunimitsu Takahashi began drifting way before Keiichi Tsuchiya did, Kunimitsu Takahashi mastered the art of fully sliding sideways.

(THIS IS HIS DRIFT CAR)

  (Takahasi’s STATS)\

What are the best cars for drifting? 

There are many good cars for drifting but these are the top cars that most pro drifters think are the best cars for drifting. They vary from many cars like Nissan Skyline, Supra, BMW, Jzx 100 chaser many more but they’re mostly rear wheel drive.

For social studies we have been comparing different country’s to New Zealand. The country that my group chose for this activity was Russia we compared a sport and a food from Russia to New zealand the sport was lapta and the food was uhka. We compared lapta to bull-rush, we chose lapta and bull-rush because they had many similarities like in both games you run past the people in the middle, there was also difference like one person doesn’t start in the middle for lapta and you don’t hit a ball in bullrush. Then we compared uhka a traditional Russian dish that contains veggies and fish to seafood chowder which also contains fish, shellfish, shrimp and lobster. Our group thought that seafood chowder was a good choice to compare because they both were seafood dishes but they had many differences like uhka has only fish and veggies but seafood chowder has many things from shellfish, to prawns and also fish. finally when we had completed the planning doc we had to create a poster about these two poster

For science today we were learning about the distances and sizes of certain planets one of the mature planets we were focusing on was the sun. the task was pretty fascinating how we would change the size of the sun. today we compared the different distances in our classroom and the sun. during this activity we learnt about what a light year is, A light year is the distance that light travels in one year. Today for one of the challenges we had to use a tape measure to measure the distance off the classroom which was 11.2 metres long.

For science this term we have been learning about how colours reflect off when light is shined off of it the colour you see is the colour that is reflected every other colour is absorbed by the object. in science we have also been learning about photosynthesis, plants and chlorophyll as boring as it these things sound; learning about all this stuff is actually pretty cool Because a teacher Jay makes learning about photosynthesis fun and interesting. Yesterday we did an experiment about chlorophyll for this experiment we used: a test tube to hold the specimen in, a beaker to crush the leaf up, a flask to split the leaf and the specimen, iso-propyl-alcohol and a UV light. For this experiment we had the specimen in a test tube when we shined the UV light onto the test tube the specimen would change colours from dark green to brownish red. The specimen in the test tube was called chlorophyll whenever the UV light got shined on the chlorophyll the specimen would change colour because the chlorophyll reacts to the UV light releasing the extra colour which is red. during this experiment I learnt that plants use the energy from the sun to survive this process is called photosynthesis.

This is the UV light being shined onto the chlorophyll.                        This is after we mixed the leaves and the                                                                                                                                               ISO – propyl alcohol together.

In conclusion this experiment was both fun and interesting teaching us about photosynthesis and what happens to chlorophyll when UV lights are shined onto it.

Traditions are a thing that has been going on for thousands of year past down from generation to generation where they celebrate it for their culture

We maoris still use hangis to cook to keep it alive and so we have something to represent our culture. This represents our culture because it’s how we cook our meals.

We celebrate our Matriki culture because it’s a celebration that leads us into a 

new year and it is a time to spend time with your family and plant trees. We also have a public holiday so everyone can go off work to spend time with their family. On matariki night everyone goes out to the beach or somewhere nearby so we can light fireworks, see the matariki and have a good time with family.  

We eat hangi, boil up, mutton bird, and kai moana. We eat this kai because in New Zealand we love hunting, fishing and diving. So we would always dive for kina and oysters, anything we can get from the ocean we would eat. We also love hunting so we would hunt for mutton birds and pigs. 

–Mutton Bird

In our Maori culture you may see a lot of people with a green necklace or a white necklace. These are called Pounamu and Taunga. It is a treasure that our family members have either given to us or have passed down to us. Our Taunga are very special to us because they hold a lot of spiritual and cultural meaning.

We have a traditional dance called the Haka. The first hakas were created and performed by different Māori tribes as a war dance. It is an ancestral war cry. It was performed on the battlefields for two reasons. Firstly, it was done to scare their opponents; the warriors would use aggressive facial expressions such as bulging eyes and poking of their tongues.

 our culture is got a lot to do with kai moana/seafood 

 Kai moana is important because it helps with a lot of things 

 In our culture. Kinas are really good for growing plants 

 First you eat what’s inside the shell either put the juice in a bottle or 

 Put the juice into whatever you’re trying to grow.The kina shells make a good  

 organic fertiliser/tonic for. The garden also feeds back        

KINA    KINA BARREN