Making Compasses - Technology used for navigation

As part of our inquiry into changes in technology over time, we have been looking at navigation. This week, we began to look at the sun and shadows, and how they have been used for many years to tell the time and to understand direction.

We have also been reading about magnetic compasses and how they work. We followed some instructions to create our own working compasses. We checked our compasses out against an actual compass to see if the needles were pointing to north, and they were!

As we continue to read about different technology used for navigation, we will be creating DLOs (of our choice) to share our learning.

Knot tying

In reading this week, we are looking at different knots and how different knots are used for different purposes. This is part of our inquiry into technology, and how it has changed over time. We have been reading about a range of knots, watching instructional videos and presentations, and then trying to tie the knots ourselves. Our next step is to create our own entertaining instructional videos to demonstrate how to tie a knot of our choice.

Term 2: Now that's thinking!

This term, our school-wide inquiry is Technology. Team 4 are looking at traditional Māori technologies which were used by Tangata whenua in Aotearoa hundreds of years ago, before the arrival of the Europeans. In Room 10, we have already started looking at resources which the Māori had and reasons why they may have stopped using these resources after people started arriving from others areas of the world. We have also started exploring technologies which were made and successfully used, such as fish hooks and fishing nets. 

Read what Levonah shared on her blog about this term's theme. Please go to her blog, by following the link, to leave her a comment!

Levonah:

Now that’s thinking is our new theme for this Term. It is all about how technology has changed since Māori found New Zealand. We have been looking at what has been used to make technology and what technology really is.

Technology could be a Phone, a computer and headphones. Anything that works is technology. This isn’t all! Technology isn’t just things that are electrical. It could be boats or waka which maori used. It could also be things like windows,buildings and paper.

This term team 4 is learning about maori technology. Maori people made their own technology.

I think maori technology is waka, their carvings on marae, and tiki and there kete that they weaved with flax.

We no longer use the things Māori used back in the day. Maori used trees and wood. We use things that are made out of metal, aluminium, titanium and many more because we have people who travel from other countries that bring new resources.