On Monday we had a visitor from the Health department of West Lothian Council who taught us about what’s in the drinks we drink:
Lauren C: “We learned that caffeine is a drug which takes calcium out of your bones and people think it makes you energetic but it just makes you hyper.”
Finlay: “Caffeine can be found in coffee and almost all types of sugary drinks. Out of Irn Bru, Coke and Pepsi, Irn Bru has the most caffeine. We learned that caffeine dehydrates your body as you need to go to the toilet more often.”
Jack: “I learned that energy drinks have lots of caffeine and some of them I didn’t know had that in them.”
William: “We learned there is lots of sugar in energy drinks and other fizzy juices.”
Paul: “There are 9 teaspoons of sugar in a 330ml can of Coke or Pepsi! It also costs a lot of money. A cheaper alternative is to drink water!”
Flyn: “Energy drinks like Relentless and Rockstar can have up to as much as sixteen teaspoons of sugar in them!”
Callum: “That much sugar is bad for you because it will rot your teeth and it isn’t the best type of energy because our body uses it too quickly. We get better energy from carbohydrates like potatoes and pasta which release sugar slowly.”
On Wednesday we had the second visit from the Tobacco Education department. Here’s what we learned:
Chloe: “We learned that smoking can damage your lungs. We saw that it can turn your lungs black.”
Jay: “We did an experiment using a bottle with a little water in it to represent someone’s lungs. We attached a cigarette at the top of the bottle which symbolised the mouth…”
William: “We squeezed the bottle to symbolise the lungs smoking the cigarette. Afterwards we saw that the filter doesn’t filter very much…”
Olivia: “Because the water went all yellow because of the tar. The cotton bud went yellow as well and this symbolises the damage done to the cilia (little hairs on your tongue and nose) by the cigarette.”
Paul: “We looked at the chemicals inside a cigarette. There is trace amounts of poo, bleach, nail polish remover, fertiliser, formaldehyde, ammonia and over four thousand others!”
Who has impressed?
Finlay: “P2m impressed me by doing very well with their assembly this morning.”
Flyn: “I’m impressed with myself, Kendal and Harry for getting onto step 5 this week.”
Jay: “I’m impressed with my care class (p4m) because they are remembering to sign up for their lunches in the morning.”
Flyn: “I’m impressed with the football for being unbeaten at the football festival and having two wins and two draws.”
Antonia: “I’m impressed with Lauren K for getting 80 out of 80 in Big Maths Beat That.”
Harry: “Taylor impressed me by being one of the winners of the Frozen art competition. She drew a fabulous picture of Olaf.”
Mr Berginis: “I’m impressed with the high standard of debate the class had about a potential smoking ban when they were working with Mrs Waddell on Thursday. They wrote very detailed discursive essays which I enjoyed reading.”
