Trial of a new reference database…Points of View Reference Centre

Where do you stand? – Australia/New Zealand Points of View

Just when you think you have something straight in your head someone yells “fake news” and you are not too sure what to think anymore. Luckily the library is trialing a wonderful new online resource called Australia/New Zealand Points of View Reference Centre

We have a trial of the Australia/New Zealand Points of View Reference Centre

 

This resource covers a wide range of topics, such as banning rodeos, freedom camping and gun control and everything in between including recent views on COVID 19. Each of the over 225 topics contain an overview (objective background/description), a point (argument), and counterpoint (opposing argument), and a guide to the critical analysis of each topic.

Many subjects are covered in the Points of View Reference Centre

 

All of these tools are designed to help you develop your own perspective on the issues and write or debate an effective argument on the topic.

Never lose an argument across the dinner table or within the classroom again. This resource is fact checked and reflects both sides of any story. All you need to do is see both sides and declare where you stand. Remember those who stand for nothing fall for anything!

Conservation Week 2020: A critique of rock stacking

Conservation Week 2020 is running from the 13th-23rd of August. It is a time to reflect and discuss matters pertaining to nature, the environment and our role within it.

I would like to take a moment to talk to all those people who are following the latest social media fad of stacking rocks. This is a world wide phenonium as rock stacks have started to appear on beaches, riverbeds and mountain areas right around the globe. The activity is strongly driven by social media usually with photos of the constructors standing with their work.

A typical rock stack….

Some people see this as a form of art but this is not art! While it may be attractive to some people many others see it as a desecration of the natural world.

Track marker cairns are o.k. as they serve a valuable purpose

In their natural location and in their natural state rocks provide a complex eco-system for a multitude of species. When you disturb rocks, move them around and try to reorder them you destroy this fragile system. Rock stacks are also a very intrusive form of visual pollution. They look unnatural as you will rarely see perfect stacks of rocks in nature.

Unfortunately one rock stack begets many rock stacks…

This Conservation Week I would like to ask everyone to stop building rock stacks and ask you to encourage other outdoor users in a polite way to cease this activity. If you encounter a field of rock stacks I would encourage you to dismantle the stacks and place the materials back into their original location.

Spread the dismantled stacks out over a wide area & try to make the result look as natural as possible.

 

 No stacks of rocks in nature…Pororairi River, Paparoa National Park

Everyone should know and follow the Leave No Trace precepts when interacting with the natural world, the precepts are:

The Seven Principles of Leave No Trace (LNT)

 

Leave No Trace means just that…leaving no trace of your presence after you are gone. I think you will agree with me that leaving a huge stack of rocks does not follow the LNT precepts.

 

Suppress your desire to leave your mark on the environment and just enjoy it on its own terms. Let others experience our iconic scenery as nature intended it to be seen.

 

 

Thank You

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Competition 2020

The Ara Wellbeing Action Group is running their annual Chocolate Chip Cookie Competition at City Campus on Wednesday the 26th August. This event is open to both staff and students.

No prior registration is required to enter…you simply bring a batch of your favorite home baked chocolate chip cookies to the Atrium in the Rakaia Centre between 10 and 11 am on the day of the competition. Note: a batch is defined as at least 8 cookies.

Bake a batch of your most tasty chocolate chip cookies

There are two categories: Classic Chocolate Chip (standard recipe no extras added) and Freestyle (must have chocolate chips/chunks but other ingredients are allowed).

Entries will be judged from 11-12 noon after which the will be sold as a fund raising for the St John Ambulance Service. There will be prizes for 1st and 2nd place winners and also for the most “interesting” take on the main theme.

Proceeds go to St Johns Ambulance Service, Christchurch

Why not get your bake on and show off your cookery skills while helping a worthy cause. See you there!!!

75th Anniversary of VJ Day…the end of World War II

The 14th August, 2020 was the 75th anniversary of VJ Day marking the official end to World War II. A series of remembrance events had been planned right across the world but due to Covid-19 most of them have been cancelled.

 

New Zealand was a major combatant in the Pacific theater of operations in WW II with the 3rd Infantry Division, Coast Watchers, Royal New Zealand Navy and RNZAF forces all taking part in the Pacific War. Over 1000 New Zealand lives were lost during the four years of fighting.

New Zealand soldiers of the 14th Bde land at Baka Baka, Vella Lavella to relieve the U.S. 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Division, on September 17, 1943.

RNZAF Corsairs over Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands 1944 from NZ History website

 

In what later became known as VJ Day, an official announcement of Japan’s unconditional surrender. Even though Japan’s War Council, urged by Emperor Hirohito, had already submitted a formal declaration of surrender to the Allies, via ambassadors, on August 10, fighting continued between the Japanese and the Soviets in Manchuria and between the Japanese and the United States in the South Pacific.

On the afternoon of August 14 (August 15 in Japan, because of time-zone differences), Japanese radio announced that an Imperial Proclamation was soon to be made, accepting the terms of unconditional surrender drawn up by the Allied powers.

 

The news did not go over well, as more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers stormed the Imperial Palace in an attempt to find the proclamation and prevent its being transmitted to the Allies. Soldiers still loyal to Emperor Hirohito repulsed the attackers.

 

VJ Day celebrations in New York City, USA

At the White House, U.S. president Harry S Truman relayed the news to the American people; spontaneous celebrations broke out in Washington, D.C. in the United States and right across the world as the news was relayed. After six savage years of fighting the war was finally over…

Here are some resources about New Zealand’s role in the Pacific theater:

NZ History: New Zealanders in the Pacific War

Kiwis over the Pacific: The RNZAF in World War II

NZ History: The Royal New Zealand Navy in the Second World War

Ara and Timaru Boys High School collaboration in food technology.

Jill Milburn, Bakery Tutor, from Ara (Timaru Campus) has been working with a Timaru Boys’ High School, Yr 10 Food Technology class on their digital cake designs. This is part of the new school curriculum for Digital Technology and Ara jumped at the opportunity to support them in this new and revolutionary project.

 

Jill Millburn and the TBHS students discuss ideas for their designs

Timaru Boys’ High School  (TBHS) are the first in the country to attempt this new and innovative way of using digital technology within their Food Technology Department. Jill is helping to support the students and will be showing them cake decoration designs and techniques before their final presentation to the School in a few weeks’ time.

Author: Helen Purdon (Posted by Jonathan Moake)

 

LinkedIn Learning – Get creative and learn for free by video

LinkedIn Learning is a database of free courses.  If you browse the Creative Library in LinkedIn Learning  there is an amazing range of videos delivering tools and skills for creative, design, and engineering applications.  These include  graphic design, UX, video, photography, 3D, audio and music, architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing and more.

How do I find LinkedIn Learning at Ara?

You can access it from Primo Library Search in My Ara on the Databases A-Z under L

If this is your first time to log in to LinkedIn Learning here are:

• LinkedIn Learning instructions for Ara students [PDF] and
• LinkedIn Learning instructions for Ara staff [PDF]

some LinkedIn Learning Pathways on offer

• Becoming a recording engineer
• Become an industrial design CAD technician

• Improve your drawing skills

• Improve your web design coding skills

• Become a songwriter

• Publish an ebook

• Master Photoshop for web design

• Become a digital painter

If you have any questions about using LinkedIn Learning feel free to drop in to Ara Library at City campus, Christchurch or Timaru or email library@ara.ac.nz

Ara Library Edible Book Competition

Yesterday the Library held its annual Edible Book Competition. If you passed through the Rakaia Centre during the morning you may have noticed the entries on display, and possibly have voted for the ‘People’s Choice, or devoured some of the delicious baking.

Sofia Nygren and her winning entry We’re off to see the Wizard

The winning entries:

People’s Choice & Best in Show – We’re off to see the Wizard

Most Imaginative – Big Little Lies

Most Delectable – I Spy

Funniest – Handmaid’s Tale

For pictures of the 21 entries go to the Library Facebook page

 

 

 

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

“Indigenous peoples have rich and ancient cultures, and view their social, economic, environmental and spiritual systems as interdependent, and have beliefs that are crucial to the sustainable development of the Earth.”

Selwyn Katene and Rawiri Taonui

Image by rmadison from Pixabay

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples seeks to raise awareness of the indigenous peoples’ fight for recognition and justice across the globe. Throughout colonisation processes, indigenous peoples experienced different levels of physical and symbolic violence, land dispossession, cultural assimilation and a loss of language. The legacy of colonialism, however, is not restricted to the past. Today many groups still struggle with persisting inequality. Supporting indigenous peoples’ rights and valuing indigenous peoples’ knowledge and culture is the responsibility of all of us.

You can learn about this year’s theme “COVID-19 and indigenous peoples’ resilience” and the history of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2020 on the United Nations website.

If you would like to know more about indigenous peoples’ rights and the impacts of colonialism, here are some of the resources available in the library:

Cant, G., Goodall, A., & Inns, J. (Eds.) (2005). Discourses and silences: Indigenous peoples, risks and resistance. Christchurch, New Zealand: University of Canterbury.

Consedine, B., & Consedine, J. (2012). Healing our history: The challenge of the Treaty of Waitangi (Rev. ed.). Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin.

Cooper, F. (2005). Colonialism in question: Theory, knowledge, history. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Hokowhitu, B., Kermoal, N., Andersen, C., Petersen, A., Reilly, M., Altamirano-Jiménez, I., & Rewi, P. (Eds.) (2010). Indigenous identity and resistance: Researching the diversity of knowledge. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.

Katene, S., & Taonui, R. (Eds.) (2018). Conversations about Indigenous rights: The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Massey University Press.

Sorrenson, M. (2014). Ko te whenua te utu = Land is the price: Essays on Māori history, land and politics. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press.

Tidwell, A., & Zellen, B. (Eds.) (2016). Land, indigenous peoples and conflict. London, England: Routledge.

Whitt, L. (2009). Science, colonialism, and indigenous peoples: The cultural politics of law and knowledge. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.