On Tuesday 28th of November, some students from the Hereora cluster spent their day at Burnside High School, experiencing different subjects such as maths, digi-tech, dance, visual arts and science. 

On Tuesday 28th of November, some students from the Hereora cluster spent their day at Burnside High School, experiencing different subjects such as maths, digi-tech, dance, visual arts and science. We were asked to participate in this day in the maths department doing activities related to this area of learning.

When everyone who was invited arrived, the Principal greeted us to his school in the Aurora Centre. Shortly after that, the students got separated in their specific subject and went to different parts of the school. Us

three and the rest of the group followed the teacher into the D block, which was where we were going to be for that day.

For our first lesson we did code breaking taught by Mr Paull. We learnt how to crack a code using a key the teacher gave us. If you correctly solved it, you got a message. With the first code, we got a lollipop that was taped under our chairs, only to be found by those who completely deciphered it. We also learnt how to crack a code using our knowledge of the most common letters of the alphabet which applies to code that swaps letters for another letter in the english alphabet. After we had those letters, then using our common knowledge of words and the context of the text, we managed to unscramble the letters and find out what was written. For our last code we learnt the Vigenere Cipher. To use this code you need to have a keyword that you and the receiver know plus a grid of the entire alphabet which you can find on the internet when searching this cipher. This code scrambles your letters very effectively and it was used by the British during the war. The Vigenere Cipher was so hard to crack, the opposing side could never decode it. We ended the lesson learning about this and then had a 20 minute break.

Twenty minutes later, back in the same room, we did a type of maths which included diagrams and drawing the problem and seeing it before solving it. It started off easy with questions like; John has $30, Mary has twice as much, how much money do they have altogether? These questions were easily solved in your head but it eventually got harder, where you had to use the diagram to figure it out. One question where we heavily relied on drawing a diagram was this one; James and Lily started with the same amount of lollipops. James ate 25 and Lily ate 31. After eating them, James has twice as many left as Lily. How much lollipops did they have at the start each? This method of learning is very similar to algebra except it uses drawn items instead of variables.

By the time we finished lunch, we were back in the classroom ready for the last lesson of the day. One of the teachers at Burnside High School named Mrs Given taught us about how math isn’t just numbers and can be found in patterns and things like origami. This lead to the whole class being taught how to make a Sonobe Cube.

Written by Tania H - Hereora 12