Welcome Back!!!

Here we are ! After "a long"and exciting ( I hope ) summer, Autumn has arrived and with it school. Are you prepared for the new challenges? I guess you are. Now you are in 3rd year : you have new subjects, new teachers, new books, new classroom, new classmates, ..., sounds appealing, doesn't it?

We have many things to learn and share and time to enjoy.

I invite you all to post things in this new blog, c'mon don´t be shy!!!!

Fieldtrip to Gredos

As a culmination of a fantastic school year we, the bilingual team, organized a fieldtrip to Gredos, our beloved mountains, a very good place for enhacing the friendship among the students of the different bilingual classes. It was going to be the first time that 1st, 2nd and 3rd were going to have a fieldtrip together, an "only english spoken" fieldtrip. Do you want to know what happened?, here the pictures go!.

Victor "herding the flock" (just kidding)

1st year students starting the trail

3rd year students at the beginning of the trail

A nice mixture: 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students talking while walking

some veterans of the bilingual project

Jara, Alba, Cristina and Laura try to avoid the mud.

We are already in Prado Pozas.

3rd grade students having lunch.

1st and some 2nd grade students having lunch

Girls from 1st on the rigth, from 3rd on the left,

and Abraham in the middle

Some students stayed at the "Prado de las Pozas", others continued

the hike towards the proposed goal, to reach the "Laguna Grande de Gredos"

Crossing anothe river in our way up to "Barrerones"

Elisabeth and Alba resting once the mission was acomplished.

We are at the Laguna Grande!!

Diego and Aisa eating a deserved sandwich

Cristina, Paula and Ana, resting at the edge of the glacier lake

Other pal is staring at us (Lacerta hispanica)

The group who get to the Laguna Grande

On the summit of Barrerones, from left to right, Aaron

Paula, Ana, Cristina, Rocío, Robert, Fernando and Stanimir

Fernando, Carlos, Diego and Rocio at the Barrerones summit

Rocio trying to get close to a wild female goat

All the group together at the ¨Prado de las Pozas¨

So one more school year is done, and you guys are getting to start the last year of secondary, but before you have to enjoy your summer, so remember, HAVE FUN AND BE NICE!!, see you next september guys!

Let’s go to the swimming pool

Next monday we are going to swim in the swimming pool.

We will stay there only for 4 days (30th April; 7th, 21st and 28th of May).

You must take with you these clothes:

• Swimming cap
• Swimming suit
• Flip flops
• Towel
• Swimming googles (optional)

We will learn something about the way of swimming and some games to play inside. We will have a funny time.

The principal objective we take from this is that you are in a moment of your life when your body is changing, so you must accept what you are.

If you can’t do the activity for whatever reason, you will have to take an exam

REMEMBER: you can learn with illusion and hapinness

And DON’T FEEL SHAME

4, 3, 2, 1 ... AEROBIC

Nos encontramos un la Unidad Didáctica de Aerobic, pero
¿por qué es importante?

El Aerobic es una actividad física muy completa y que nos desarrolla tanto de manera física, social como de manera cognitiva-intelectual.
Desde el punto de vista físico, mientras nos movemos estamos trabajando todo nuestro cuerpo. Si estamos haciendo un paso como el step touch, al que le unimos brazos, conseguimos poner en funcionamiento toda nuestra principal musculatura. Cuanto más énfasis le pongamos a la coreografía, más implicación muscular pondremos en funcionamiento.
Si analizamos la manera de realizar los movimientos (casi siempre en grupos), favorecemos las relaciones sociales, tanto con los amigos/as que ya tenemos como con aquellos/as que tenemos al lado y que no le prestamos la suficiente atención. Cuando sólo por el hecho de mirar al compañero y ayudar (o dejarme ayudar) por él/ella, estamos consiguiendo entablar una conversación y una relación que favorece nuestra amistad.
Pero, ¿cuándo ponemos en funcionamiento la parte cognitiva (la inteligencia)? parad a pensar por un momento la siguiente situación: ¿por qué paso tengo que empezar?¿cuál viene después?¿cuánto dura este paso?¿y cuál puedo hacer detrás?. El Aerobic tiene una alta implicación de la inteligencia, porque al tener que pensar cómo hacer un paso, cómo el siguiente, cuál viene ahora, cuándo entro, cómo va el ritmo, ... , si te das cuenta, estamos empleando la inteligencia de manera continua sin darnos cuenta.



Sólo os doy un consejo para estas sesiones: DISFRUTA, LIBÉRATE DE LA VERGÜENZA (que es algo pasajero y depende del punto de vista con el que participes en las sesiones) Y APRENDE

The cholesterol

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a waxy substance our body uses to protect nerves, make cell tissues and produce certain hormones. Most of the cholesterol in our body is made by our liver. Some cholesterol also comes from foods such as eggs, meats and dairy products.

Why is a high cholesterol level unhealthy?

While some cholesterol is needed for good health, too much cholesterol in our blood can raise our risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

The extra cholesterol in our blood may be stored in our arteries (blood vessels that carry blood from our heart to the rest of our body). Buildup of cholesterol, or "plaque," in our arteries will cause them to narrow. This is called atherosclerosis. Large deposits of cholesterol can completely block an artery, so the blood can't flow through.

If the coronary artery (the blood vessel that supplies blood to the muscles in your heart) becomes blocked, a heart attack can occur. If an artery that supplies blood to your brain becomes blocked, a stroke can occur.

Cholesterol in food

• Food with a big amount of cholestherol: pork,sausages,ham,lamb,goose-pimples,yolk,seafood,bacon,croissants.
• Food with a small amount of cholestherol: hake,cod,beef,ox,horse,rabbit,milk without grass.
• Food without cholestherol:cereals,rice,sweetcorn,potatos,fruits,vegetables,oil olive,sweetcorn olive,milk,yogourt.
• Food with "good" cholestherol:nuts,olive oil, black chocolat,blue fish(sardine,mackerel).

Bulimia

Bulimia is a very serious nutritional problem..
Bulimic persons are unable to control their impulses to eat, but then the guilty feelings get them to vomit all that they ate before,to prevent rising their weight up.
Causes
In the origen of these illness there are these factors:BIOLOGIC,PSICOLOGIC,and, SOCIAL FACTORS.
This illness affect to young people generally to the females. The age is around 16-19. There are two types:
1)PURGING:the sick person use the vomit.
2)NON PURGING: in this case the ill person doesn´t eat, doing a lot of exercise.....
Bulimic persons try to hide the vomits, the selfsteem go down....
Diagnosing bulimia
The first step towards a diagnosis is to admit the existence of an eating disorder.
What are the symptoms of bulimia?
Eating incontrollably, purging, vigorous exercise, abusing of laxatives, vomiting blood, depression or swing mood, swollen glands in neck and face, irregular periods, using bathroom after eating, worrying of body weight, feeling out of control, bloodshot eyes, heart burn, bloating, indigestion, constipation, dental problem.......
What is bulimia?
Bulimia is also called nervous bulimia, is a psycological eating disorder.
What are some other symptoms of bulimia?
Persons with bulimia have depressive symptoms and unhappy feelings.
If you have bulimia:
1) Tell to someone you trust( parent, friend,boyfrien...)
2) The behavior is addictiveSome expert recomend: supportive groups, cognitive-behavior therapy.....

Anorexia

In the chapter we are going to start in Science class we will talk about nutrition and the way we eat. So I would like to talk about the problems connected with food. One of them is anorexia.

Anorexia is an eating disorder that occurs mainly in teenagers girls. But it can also occur in teenage boys, and adult women and men. Ballet dancers, models and gymnasts are more likely to be anorexic.

Anorexia is when a person loses a lot of weight because he/she thinks that is he or she is very fat and he/she doesn’t want to be fat.

Normally anorexic people start leaving carbohydrates out of his meals because people think that they are what makes you put on weight, but they are not. Then they leave out the fats, the proteins and even the liquids creating cases of dehydration. Then they start taking laxatives,vomiting, diuretics and doing a excess of sport.

Also anorexia is related with psychological problems that change the behaviour of the person.

There is a difference between anorexia and bulimia. Bulimic people eat a lot and then they punish themselves by vomiting to take out of the body the food that the ate before. And anorexic people only the loose weight by not eating.

Fashion is responible for the problem of anorexia, because people try to be a size 32 or 34 like the models. Now a days the models are putting on weight because they forced to do it.

But there are other psychological factors that make a person being anorexic like the death of a member of the family or a friend, divorce of the parents, dropping down of their marks at school, accidents…

Usually the family is the one that detect the cases of anorexia because the people who have it are always worried about the calories in food, have a constant cold sensation, have an obsession with their image and the bathroom scale, and in the women stop having periods.

The treatment of the anorexia is to make the person put on weight in a short period of time and to treat it psychologically.

If you have anorexia, bulimia or another eating disorder, tell someone about it because you are risking your life if you hide behind silence and at any moment it could be too late.

Protozoa

Protozoans are the most abundant living beings in the world having their own kingdom (protoctista) shared with sea weeds and imperfect mushrooms. Their main importance is as consumers of bacterias (prokaryotes belonging to the Monera kingdom). Bacterias play a major role in maintaining the Earth as a suitable place for inhabitation by other forms of life and protozoans play a vital role in controlling their numbers and biomass.Protozoans are defined as single-celled eukaryotic organisms, that feed heterotrophically and exhibit diverse motility mechanisms.Four major groups of protozoa are recognized and often given the status of phylum. The groups are:

• Flagellates
• Amebae
• Sporozoans
• Ciliates

Amoeba

A paramecium, the most abundant ciliate

Some cool websites for learning about protozoans

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/trnov01b.htm

http://www.uga.edu/protozoa/education/students/for_students_sop_web_ora.doc

Bacterias

This is the name that the unicellular organisms that don’t have nucleus and reproduce themselves with a simple cellular division receive.

Electron microscope image of Escherischia coli,

a bacteria thet lives in our intestine

Bacteria are very very small between 1 and 10 micrometers of length and they are very variable on the way they obtain the energy and the food.
Bacteria are all around us, they are in the air, in water; we can classify bacteria depending on shape, way of feeding, if they do the respiration or not....

Not all the bacteria have the capacity of movement but the one that have this capacity they move because they have a flagellum. Flagellum can be located in one of the extreme of the bacteria or all around its surface.

Depending on the direction that the flagellum moves, bacteria can move forward or waving to a fixed direction. Flagellum moves with a rotation movement and doing the movement of a snake.

If we look at bacteria from the outside to the interior we can find:
the capsule, cell wall, membrane, pilus, flagellum, cytoplasm, ribosomes, mesosomes, plasmids, and the DNA without nucleus, REMEMBER!!.

Inner structure of a bacteria

Some useful links to study bacterias:

• http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/bacteria.html
• http://www.microbeworld.org/
  

LA "PELOTA LOCA"

Sí, es verdad, tenemos que construir una "pelota loca" , pero, ¿para qué?. La respuesta es muy sencilla, para utilizarla en las clases de educación física, cuando trabajemos la unidad didáctica de Deportes de raqueta.

La importancia de fabricar esta pelota loca radica en valorar la necesidad de cuidar el material y de preocuparse por su mantenimiento.

Estos son los pasos básicos para la construcción de la "pelota loca":

1. Conseguir y preparar el material necesario.
   Para construir la pelota necesitaremos: de 10 a 15 globos medianos; 1 ó 2 globos pequeños; tijeras y el principal elemento: PACIENCIA
   
2. Comienza la construcción: el primer paso consiste en llenar el globo pequeño de agua, pero no lo llenaremos mucho, sólamente unos 3 ó 4 centímetros. Lo haremos un nudo y lo apartaremos para utilizarlo más adelante
3. Seguidamente tenemos que inflar y desinflar todos los globos medianos (los inflamos unas dos veces para que la goma se estire).
4. ¡Que le corten la cabeza! En el siguiente paso tenemos que utilizar las tijeras para dividir los globos medianos en tres partes: por un lado cortamos el globo por donde empieza a ensancharse (separamos el cuello del cuerpo del globo). Y luego le cortamos la boquilla del cuello. Guardaremos todas las partes para luego utilizarlas, excepto las boquillas de los globos, que no nos servirán y las podemos tirar.
5. A continuación unimos todas las partes de la siguiente manera: el globo pequeño de agua lo metemos dentro de un cuerpo de globo mediano. Luego, volvemos a introducir otro globo mediano dentro de la estructura que ya tenemos. Y así sucesivamente hasta que he introducido todos los cuerpos de los globos.
6. Para rematar la "faena", tenemos que utilizar los cuellos de los globos para irle dando una forma redondeada a la pelota loca.

La clave para que se quede redonda y dura, es estirar mucho los globos cuando los estoy metiendo.

Esta Pelota loca la teneis que entregar el lunes 5 de febrero. Os recuerdo que es muy importante que la entregueis ese día, porque este trabajo forma parte de la nota teórica de la asignatura.

¡CUIDADO, QUE VIENEN LAS PELOTAS LOCAS!

Ya hemos empezado el segundo trimestre, hemos dejado atrás el entrenamiento de la condición física y durante este periodo vamos a trabajar las habilidades deportivas y la expresión corporal.

Por un lado vamos a ver algunos deportes colectivos, siempre desde un punto de vista educativo, donde debemos participar entre tod@s e intentar ayudarnos mutuamente. Los deportes que trataremos serán: Fútbol Sala (que ya lo estamos trabajando), deportes de raqueta (en esta unidad didáctica nos tendremos que autofabricar una "pelota loca", que ya os contaré más adelante cómo se hace) y balonmano o baloncesto.

Además, estamos introduciéndonos en la Expresión Corporal. A través de juegos de expresión y comunicación iremos conociendo las posibilidades expresivas de nuestro cuerpo, la capacidad que tenemos de expresar sentimientos, emociones y estados de ánimo o cómo contamos al resto de compañeros una historia sin hablar, y todo mediante gestos. Vamos a jugar a imitar a compañeros, imitar a famosos e incluso a realizar un pequeño teatro o "pantomima", donde debereis caracterizaros para dicha actuación.

Y os preguntareis: ¿y esto para qué sirve?. Es muy sencillo, en el periodo en el que os encontrais como es la pubertad y la adolescencia, se producen una serie de cambios físicos, mentales y sociales que debemos ir orientando para que su asimilación sea más rápida. Cuanto antes conozcamos y aceptemos de lo que somos capaces de hacer, de nuestras posibilidades y limitaciones, antes evitaremos problemas de tener vergüenza constante o de sentir un ridículo espantoso, sólamente por hablar en público. Con estos juegos logramos que, sin darnos cuenta, nos liberemos de todos nuestros miedos y podamos expresarnos con total libertad.

Todo orientado para poder disfrutar del deporte y de la Educación Física.

Día contra la violencia de género

Hoy se han realizado una serie de actos en el instituto para sensibilizar a los alumnos contra la violencia de género. Las actividades han sido las siguientes:

• Proyección de las películas "solas" y "te doy mis ojos".
• Elaboración de un mural donde los alumnos han escrito sus impresiones sobre el tema.
• Un minuto de silencio en recuerdo de las víctimas de la violencia de género en la puerta principal del instituto con la lectura de un manifiesto.

Aquí podeís ver algunos de estos momentos:

Alumnos escribiendo sus impresiones en el mural

Detalle de uno de los escritos del mural
Al final del minuto de silencio

Si quereís ver mas fotos en este enlace http://britishpcuartos1.blogspot.com/

FILES OF THE EARTH H ISTORY

Geologists collect and study rocks to find out about the geological history from a part of the earth. Thus if they find granit 400 million years old (m.y.o) in a location, they can state that this region was an active magmatic area during this specific period.
What are some of the most abundant rocks telling us about ancient processes?.
LIMESTONE: a very common sedimentary rock in Spain, specially in the east end north . Places with this kind of rock were once under the sea (not very deep) or they were coral reefs.

Limestone strata

SLATE: metamorphic rock that comes from mudstone when temperature and pressure is high. These mudstones originate from sediments settled on the floor of the ocean, therefore the fossils that we find in the slate come from the fauna who lived over there time ago. Slate in Montes de Toledo has abundant fossils so we can figure out very accurately about the animals existing in the earth oceans 440 million years ago.

fossil "trilobites" on slate

BASALT: rock raised when the volcano lava cools fast. If you find this rock in some place, you can infer that this area was once close to an active volcano.

Every rock has an history. When we put together the histories of different places, we can find out about the big history, THE HISTORY OF OUR PLANET.

PARTNER SCHOOL

We have got in touch with a secondary school in Manchester, England, and we plan to develop a number of common projects to work together.
During this week we will be recording a presentation video that will be sent to them as an intruduction of ourselves.

1st Contact with Manchester

We have already started to write our presentation letters to the pupils in our partner school in Manchester.
All the students in 1ºE, 2ºE and 3ºD are writing a letter in English about themselves. All the letters will be sent by mail to the school in Manchester together with a picture of the students per class. Once the students there get our letters they will have to guess to whom each letter belongs( the descriptions and pictures will help them), and write back.
We hope students and teachers enjoy the activities we carry out.
We'll keep you posted.

¿QUÉ HE COMIDO HOY?

Es una pregunta muy frecuente, pero nunca nos hemos parado a pensar realmente si hoy he comido bien. El trabajo que he mandado en clase y que estais haciendo en estos momentos (o eso espero), intenta provocar en vosotros y vuestro entorno un análisis de cómo es mi alimentación diaria.

Todos sabemos que os encontrais en un periodo de cambios (físicos, mentales o psicológicos y sociales), pues es en este momento donde la alimentación, la actividad física y los hábitos posturales diarios cobran una mayor importancia.

Lo importante es comer (porque dejando de comer no se adelgaza), pero hay que comer bien, variado, equilibrado, desayunar mucho y todos los días, no comer grasas en exceso, comer dulces (con moderación, y no que sean única y exclusivamente la base de nuestra alimentación), y un largo etcétera de aspectos que poco a poco iremos tratando en clase de Educación Física.
Existen muchas tablas o pirámides de la alimentación, pero lo importante es que cada un@ en su casa siga unos consejos básicos: comer de todo (aunque no me guste: ¿lo habeis probado de verdad?), muchas frutas y verduras, que la grasa o los dulces se coman de forma esporádica, no comer con demasiada sal y sobre todo, desayunar bien.


RECORDAD: en vuestro trabajo teneis que apuntar lo que comeis y bebeis durante una semana, intentando concretar algunos aspectos


ES VUESTRA GASOLINA ¡QUE APROVECHE!

Field trip to Gredos postponed

Due to adverse weather conditions and forecast the field trip to Gredos is postponed untill next wednesday

We go on a field trip to Gredos!!

On next Wednesday October the 18th the three ¨British¨ groups are going on a friendship field trip to the well known place ¨La Laguna Grande de Gredos¨ an impressive place in the heart of our beloved mountains.
It will be two hours walking and the students will have to wear comfortable clothes and shoes as well as to carry appropiate food. Don't carry trash like fizzy drink cans or chips!! you will have to carry the litter back down the valley!!.

Students will perform observations and will gather data to work in class about the mountain environment.

La Laguna Grande de Gredos
as viewed from Barrerones

Mistery Mineral Match

We have started already studying about minerals in the science class. Yesterday we went to the laboratory to perform some tests that geologists use to discover the minerals present in rock samples.
All rocks are composed of minerals. The combination of minerals determines the rock type. Rocks with high concentrations of valuable minerals are mined for human use. Minerals have characteristic properties that can be used by geologists to help identify them, such as color, hardness, or shape.
Geologists are the scientists who prospect, or explore, for minerals found inside the Earth. These scientists carefully make observations and record data to help them answer questions about the resources contained inside the Earth's crust. Through careful study, geologist have discovered that although there are over 3000 different minerals, 90% of the Earth's crust is made of only 20 of them.
The minerals that make them up are important to us because we derive, or take what we need from them. For example, lead can be derived from the mineral galena. People use lead to make batteries, ammunition and antiknock additives for gasoline. Mining minerals is expensive, but we have come to depend on minerals in manufacturing the products we use every day. Minerals that are rare or especially beautiful are called gemstones. Most gemstones are colorful crystals of common minerals. Graphite, or pencil "lead", changes into diamond under enormous pressure.

Welcome students!

Welcome folks to this new and estimulating school year. We are just starting it but you already know very well your classmates becouse you have been with them since 1st of E.S.O. Anyway your body and mind are changing very fast and sometimes you don't feel very confident about how to behave in all the situations.
I hope this blog will be very helpfull for both, parents and students as well as a way to comunicate for students and teachers.
As your new tutor I wish you to have an incredible and very succesful school year.