Tuesday 6 August 2019

Brain Talk


This afternoon, Dr Barr (Mr Mac's wife) visited Sunnyhills School to share some really interesting facts about the brain with us.

The brain is... 
  • about the size of a small cauliflower and floats in liquid, within the skull
  • approximately the same weight as 3 blocks of butter - about 1.5kg
  • bigger than the brain of animals which are the same body size, e.g. chimpanzee
Different parts of the brain have different roles, e.g. the frontal lobe tells you when to move, while the hippocampus keeps memory (it backs up when we're asleep - just like a computer!). Other areas help with planning, senses and hearing.
While your body feels pain, your brain doesn't. So if you had brain surgery you would only need anesthetic while the surgeon cuts through the skin.  This is really useful so the surgeon doesn't damage a part of the brain that is being used. Dr Barr showed us a video of a man playing the guitar while he was undergoing brain surgery because they didn't want to damage that part of the brain that he needed for playing the guitar.  Amazing!

This is one of the videos that Dr Barr shared with us to help understand the brain's functions:


Dr Barr shared some awesome words, e.g. neuroplasticity, electroencephalography, and neurons  These will certainly help to improve our scores next time we play Scrabble :)

There is so much to learn about the brain.  Maybe in the future, one of the 5Stars will be a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Watch this space!





Friday 2 August 2019

#OneWord

Have you ever tried to describe your personal goal with one word?  The 5Stars have, and they found out that it's not as easy as it seems.

In the beginning of Term 3, the 5Stars used a hyperdoc to support learning around developing their #OneWord.  After watching several videos and listening to motivating music, they each came up with one word that defined their personal goal and how they wish to be.  Once they had this word, they then used Google Drawings to create a graphic which could be uploaded to Flipgrid with a video. 


Image of the #OneWord hyperdoc


It might be just #OneWord, but a whole lot of learning happened between thinking, designing and creating.  What do you think of our Flipgrid videos?


   

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