Orientation Week - Day 2

Another day, and another series of challenges for our new team of students. First up was a Scavenger Hunt out in the schoolyard; students had to find a range of items on a list, from a brown leaf to a hair tie, a teacher's autograph to a 15-letter word, and much more.

This was followed by the ever-popular bridge building competition. For those of you new to the Mordi Experience blog, the challenge is to construct a bridge out of newspaper, masking tape and drinking straws. It is not only judged on its design (ie: it looks like a bridge!), but also on how much weight it can hold. The record weight going into this term was 200 golf balls, and one sensed that this record could fall sooner rather than later. Below, you can see the construction phase of this project.

The bridge below belonged to Lizeth, Lynette, Jamie and Simone. It scored high in design, and set a mark of 190 golf balls for the others to beat.

Chad, Daniel, Tim, Brad, Luke and Alex also built a bridge that held a substantial weight of 170 golf balls, but needed a couple of design tips along the way before this photo was taken . . .

Tayla, Paris, Emily F and Emily P weren't so fortunate with their creation, but for its size, a weight of 89 balls wasn't a bad effort.

Jayde, Abbey, Melissa, Lonni and Ashleigh set a new record for weight that a bridge could hold, with 202 golf balls. Unfortunately, we ran out of golf balls this time round; may have been some light-fingered golfers in terms gone past . . . !

While not captured on the camera, the bridge belonging to Rhys R, Matthew, Josh, Alyssa, Natalie and Felicity held 194 golf balls. Once again, some of those golf balls seemed to have gone missing: hmmm . . .

Our overall winner for design and functionality was this bridge below, belonging to Tanya, Jessica, Claire and Jayden: it held a weight of 162 golf balls. For the most part, the standard of bridge construction was outstanding, showing that as each term passes, the knowledge is being passed down and improved upon.



The final challenge for the day was the Waterbomb Drop. The challenge was to construct a device or contraption that would allow a waterbomb to be safely dropped from a height down to the ground without bursting.

The application of ideas was outstanding once again, with everyone's bombs surviving the descent from our balcony down to the ground.

Tomorrow, we test the students' teamwork skills further with a Staff Biography Quiz, some sport, and a Cryptic Clue challenge in the schoolyard. We will develop our out-of-class Code of Cooperation, and allow the students to create their very own digital portfolio. See you then!

Welcome Back to Term 3!

Another term, and another group of Year 9 students in the Mordialloc Experience! This week, as always, is Orientation Week - an opportunity for students to get to know everyone in the group; get to know their teachers; and have fun working together in a team environment.

Today, following an information PowerPoint on what the program involves, our students were then asked to create their class Code of Cooperation (above and below) - the set of values and behaviours that we, as a class, expect of one another. Some students were more shy than others . . .!

The next two tasks that students had to complete were a letter from them to one of their teachers - introducing themselves, who they are, what their interests are, and what they hope to gain from the Mordialloc Experience - and an ID tag for their Community Placement later on this term.

Final period for the day involved the first of the team challenges this week - a trivia competition. Ten categories, three questions in each - everything from literature to movies, TV to geography, and many more. Our victorious team - by one solitary point - was "Get Smart" (Natalie, Felicity, Josh, Matthew and Alyssa). Well done!

Stay tuned for more exciting tales from this week, and from the remainder of what promises to be an action-packed Term 3 of the Mordialloc Experience . . .

CELEBRATION WEEK

Finally after twelve, long weeks we have made it to the end of term two. At the beginning of this week it was great to catch up with everyone after the two week community placements and we pretty much just talked for the first hour of the day. The general opinion of the placements was that it was a great learning experience and that most people had a good time and got a lot out of it. Once everyone had caught up we had to prepare everything for our celebration evening when we have to show our work off to our parents. There is display boards to prepare, brochures to write and computer presentations to get ready - all with the purpose to show to anyone that comes all the fine work we have completed during our time in the Mordialloc Experience.

COMMUNITY PLACEMENTS

For the past week each student has been going to a local kindergarten, pre-school, child centre, primary school or another such community centre as a volunteer. This is to gain an understanding of what it is like to be part of a workforce and how a community centre interacts with those it serves. Each of the students were given a list of suitable community centres in week three of this term. They each had to choose a centre that appealed to them, write an application and attach a resume which was all sent off to the centre for processing. The successful students were then notified by the community centres and their placements were arranged to be carried out in weeks ten and eleven of the term.
The work carried out at the placement varies from helping to supervise children through to setting up and cleaning up the days activities. Each of the students are visited by their mordiexperience teachers every second day where they get the chance to keep in contact with what is going on back at school and also to give some feedback about their particular experiences. Each of the centres have a contact person who deals directly with the teachers back at mordiexperience HQ and they are also encouraged to give their feedback on the progress of the students and the program in general. The feedback so far from all sources is very positive
and encouraging, and everyone is enjoying the freedom and sense of maturity they are getting from being out in the big, wide world.

My Thoughts..

Right from the start of city experience i enjoyed myself! Everyone had a great time on group excursions, having the whole class around was fun. We never ran out of laughs or chances to have a good time. The best excursions were the Eureka Tower, The Courts and Queen Vic market. We witnessed the beginning of a murder trial on our first day of the city experience, it was cool as! The Eureka Tower was great, seeing the beauty of Melbourne from so high up was just amazing. The Queen Vic market was good because we were able to go and look at stuff that interested us, not having to follow the class was great (the chickens were cute as too)! Deffinately the best part of the City Experience was going on group project adventures. My group and I travelled all around the city going where we needed to go, getting countless numbers of slurpies and eating out most days. The last day going out for lunch was great. Seeing everyone in free dress, eating, chatting and smiling was fabulous. Oh and the pizza was nice. I really enjoyed the whole jouney, it was so much fun!

FINAL DAY

The last day of our city experience dawned and there was mixed feelings among us as we gathered at the morning meeting spot at the top of the super long escalators at Parliament Station. We had an exciting visit to the Museum and an all you can eat pizza extravaganza on Lygon street before us, and yet there was an air of apprehension about having to return to school tomorrow. This experience has been a real eye-opener for all of us involved and we have learnt a lot about ourselves and everyone around us over the last two weeks.
MELBOURNE MUSEUM.
It is so hard to see all the exhibits in 2 hours at the museum. There are also so many other schools visiting today that every viewing point is a competition with other interested school kids. So over-all it was an involving but somewhat frustrating visit to one of Melbourne's favorite destinations.

ALL YOU CAN EAT PIZZA
This was eagerly anticipated all fortnight and everyone was in high spirits as we took our seats and argued over what was the best toppings to have on pizza. The staff at Notturno Pizzeria were swift to bring out pizza and we all appreciated their attention to our group. The pizza was good and there was plenty of it, although there was some boys who claimed they could eat more. Drinks flowed as well and we even got a gelati as we walked out the door. This was a fitting end to the fantastic experience and something I think we will all remember as we look back on our school years.

WEDNESDAY 4TH JUNE.

The last chance to work on our group projects was a foggy day in Melbourne. It has been fresh most mornings on our trips into the city but generally the afternoons have been warmer and the sun has peeked out between the buildings. We signed out and moved off to our destinations and gathered the last of the information we needed then we returned to the Hub and began putting the finishing touches to our presentations.

OLD MELBOURNE GOAL.

This is a visit to one of the links with the past that are around in the Melbourne city block. As we stepped through the door we were transported back in time. There was a raw and sinister feel to this place and it was kind of a relief to get out of there.