Today we started with a team meeting. We received an email from Sarah in management responding to our concerns from the last meeting. Everything has been organised to allow us to focus on our new project of designing an informative foyer for our NZ COSSA building. We have been given extensions on our current research deadlines and a budget for equipment and materials we may need, even Georgia’s trip to France is being re-scheduled!
After our morning meeting we quickly settled to finding answers to our research questions that we wrote last week. The projects we are working on in our groups include:
• Phytoplankton and zooplankton in Antarctic waters,
• The decline of silverfish in Antarctic waters,
• Sea floor geography around New Zealand,
• Ocean currents and temperatures in the waters around New Zealand, and
• Reading cores to find out what lies beneath the sea floor.
We have been looking at maps, websites, research articles, photos, newspaper clippings, and books to find answers to our questions. We are starting to become real experts! We have been highlighting, note taking, and questioning as we go, and explaining and sharing our new knowledge with the team. We have been learning to decide on which research questions are the most useful and relevant to our topic, create headings to take notes under, and put things we read and understand into our own words. Today we worked individually, in small groups, and as a whole team.
