Our trip to Hoy

We had great weather on our trip to Hoy.

Our activities were canoeing, abseiling, archery, raft building, a walk to the Old Man of Hoy and a forest adventure.

We also had some evening activities and games which involved a lot of running around!

Here is a slide show from some of the activities which Miss Mackay was at.

Mr Bichan has video footage and it will be posted here soon.

A slideshow of the Glaitness School Primary 6 class trip to Hoy 2010.

The Chocolate Trade game

Did you know that we spend £78 per person per year on chocolate? But where does it come from and what happens between the cocoa tree and the chocolate bar?

Today we played a game which helped us understand the cocoa trading chain between the poorer countries in the south who produce the cocoa and the richer countries in the north who process and consume the chocolate.

The Big Chocolate Company says the deal is off.

The Fair Trade Chocolate company tries to reason with the supermarket.

The shoppers try to get a good deal.

The cocoa producers negotiate with the Big Chocolate company.

Shoppers wait while the supermarkets and chocolate companies thrash out the deal.

We learned that the supermarkets and the big companies are very powerful and that the cocoa producers get a poor deal unless there is a fair trade company to trade with. We also understood that the shoppers (US!) are the ultimately the most powerful, if we decide we want fair trade goods the supermarkets will eventually have to provide it.

Everyone was very motivated and worked well in groups.

It was great fun too!

Some things we have learned about the mountains in Colorado.

The tallest mountain in the state of Colorado is Pike's Peak.

The Rocky Mountains run right through the state of Colorado.

The width of the Rocky Mountain Range is 122km to 650km.

There is tectonic plate movement in the Rocky Mountains.

The Rocky Mountains are 4800km from northern BC in Canada to Mexico.

The average temperature in winter in Colorado is 33.4 degrees F, but in the mountains it is usually colder because it is at a higher altitude.

Our ePals

We have been emailing our ePals in Colorado. We have been finding out about the mountains and what it is like living in the middle of a continent, next to a huge mountain range, compared with here in Orkney.

There are lots of children in Mr Cleland's class compared with our 'peedie' class.

Ready to post!

The parcel is ready to post and we are ready to email our ePals at Ridgeview Elementary School.

We are so excited!

Packing the box

We have put together a box of interesting things from Orkney to send to Colorado. We hope the children at our link school enjoy opening the box and discovering what is inside.

Ridgeview Elementary School, CO, USA

View Ridgeview Elementary School, Colorado Springs, USA in a larger map

Zoom in to find our link school!