Spain is divided into two different camps: if bullfights are culture or animal abuse.
By África Otero Quintero
February 11th, 2021
Spectators follow a bullfight at the Las Ventas bullring during the 2019 San Isidro festival in Madrid.
Bullfighting has been part of Spanish culture for centuries, but nowadays many people don’t consider it an art.
Bullfighting is the use of bulls to create so-called art. There are different forms of bullfighting in Spain.
Here is where the problem is.
Part of the Spanish society is against bullfighting because in their opinion, since the bull enters the bullring and begins to be fought, he suffers until his death.
They also think that they are unnecessary deaths, simply to entertain the public.
The people who support the bullfights defend that the suffering of the animal isn’t the purpose.
Another argument they use is that bulls are destined to die like other bovine animals.
These opinions provoke disagreements between anti-bullfighting people and people who support bullfighting.
In conclusion, there isn’t a correct opinion. You have to think about the arguments people offer and think if you agree with them to form your own opinion.
A great variety of flying fauna can be seen on the beaches of Vigo
By Mario Villatoro Suárez
March 20th, 2021
When you take a walk on the beach of Vao, Samil or any beach that you fancy on the coast of Vigo, you’d surely spot some of the fowls of which this article will talk about in the following lines. Some of these species are only seen in a specific time of the year, called the pre-nuptial step, which is when a bird goes from one place to another in spring, and the post-nuptial step, which is the same, but in fall.
First, the most recognizable species in Vigo, the Larus michahellis, or yellow-legged gull, is a sedentary bird who has a noticeable breeding colony placed in the Cies Islands. They are pretty aggressive and territorial, and have a bad influence on other species of gulls. Their diet isn’t really complex, they are omnivores and foragers.
A young yellow-legged gull; they change the colors of their beaks and wings when they become adults. (Photo by Mario Villatoro Suárez)
We can usually find the Phalacrocorax aristotelis or common shag. They can be often spotted resting on rocks after fishing.
Once they’re adults, they are completely black, with yellow spots near their beak. Their diet is composed of fish, since they dive into the seas to find food.
Another species that can be spotted on the seas of Vigo is the Calidris alpina or dunlin. They are usually spotted in winter, the pre-nuptial step and the post-nuptial step. Their bellies are black, just like their beak and their feet, while their wings are brown. They eat searching on the ground for bugs.
Usually spotted in the pre-nuptial step and in winter, the Arenaria interpres or ruddy turnstone, isn’t an exception on the list. This bird’s wings are brown with black spots, and they’ve got a black stain below their beaks, of the same color. They are always migrating and can be in groups of 100.
On the other hand, we can find the Actitis hypoleucos or common sandpiper. They can be seen in winter and in the post-nuptial step. While their bellies are completely white, their wings, head and beak are light brown.
And last but not least, the Egretta garzetta or Little egret. They’re completely white except for their beaks, which are black. Their necks are also undulating. These birds can be spotted almost all the year, for the breeding period.
So, next time you go for a promenade on the beach, make sure to bring some binoculars.
The Black Lives Matter movement is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
By José Montero Cimas
January 30th, 2021
We all have heard about the Black Lives Matter movement: on TV, in the newspaper or even talking with a friend. On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, MN, USA, by police officer Derek Chauvin. After this event, many people started protesting to end racism and xenophobia. And the result is worth it.
The wave of demonstrations and the fight against racial discrimination have led to a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize because of the movement’s social impact and its capacity to change the world nowadays. Petter Aide, a Norwegian politician, in an interview with the newspaper “Klassekampen” said that the Black Lives Matter has done a lot in our society since last year, and it continues helping us to end racism in the world nowadays.
The ceremony will take place in Oslo on December 10th as always, but we will have to wait until October to know who the winner is. Other nominations are the “Boy Scout Organization”, the “CEPI” and the “GAVI”.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscious stupidity.”
By Nora Barros López, Miguel Cruz Vázquez and Rosa Barahona Malvar
WHAT IS SKATEBOARDING?
Skateboarding was born in California in the 50s, when a group of surfers decided to put some wheels on a table to keep rolling when the weather wasn’t good enough to surf.
Later, in the 60s, it became more popular, but it quickly lost popularity.
Fortunately, in the 70s, a new invention changed the way people practised skating. Urethane wheels were invented, but the best was about to come: Alan Gelfand invented the ollie, which is a trick that consists of kicking the top of the table with the ground to elevate it. This brand new trick opened the doors to a new whole variety of skate.
Later on, modern skateboarding started to appear with the emergence of Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero or Rodney Mullen. We will talk about them later. Nowadays it’s an important sport which is practised either on the street or in skateparks.
WHERE TO SKATE IN VIGO
Nowadays, we can see how skating in Vigo is one of the most recognized and practised sports, but where do people exactly skate in Vigo?
Well, the answer is everywhere. Some skaters prefer skating near their homes, and some others prefer going to a skatepark. Luckily, one of the most important skateparks in this country is here, in Navia. This skatepark was opened two years ago, and its success continues. It is a structure made of cement and is 2000 m² in size. It became one of the favorite places to skate for many experts, but not so much for beginners.
Another excellent place for skating is “La plaza de la estrella”, near the Náutico. It’s a concrete skatepark, with banks, stairs… the skating landmark in the city.
Every day, especially on Friday and Saturday, a group of skaters from every corner in the city meet there and spend a great time together. Most of them are young skaters, between 16 and 19 years old, and some of them, beginners.
Near this skatepark is the famous “Náutico”, where teenagers from Vigo meet their friends. This is a less visited place because most of the people there aren’t skating, so it’s more difficult to do this sport there. However, lots of skaters prefer going there, because there are some great structures where you can try new and advanced tricks, like high stairs, noticeable slopes…
It doesn’t matter where you skate as long as you enjoy it and try to do your best.
O MARISQUIÑO
From 2001 until now, O Marisquiño has become the largest Urban Culture and Action Sports event in southern Europe. It’s a great, free of charge outdoor festival in the middle of August, in front of the sea. It lasts three days during which there are ten sports competitions as well as different cultural events like break dance, graffiti exhibitions, and live music.
A man skating in the Marisquiño competition.
Every year O Marisquiño presents 3 competition events: World Cup Skateboarding Street, World Cup Skateboarding Mini Ramp and Dirt FMB World Tour scoring in global rankings, where the best national and international riders meet. And since last year, a new sport discipline has also been added, the FIBA 3×3 Basketball, which will finally be in the Olympics in Japan 2021.
The festival is held the second weekend of August and in each edition, more than 160,000 people enjoy the competitions, exhibitions, concerts, gastronomy and the unique atmosphere that is generated around the seaport of the city of Vigo.
In addition, in the last four years, O Marisquiño has been broadcast live to more than fifty countries through live streaming on the Internet.
TRICKS
A beginner trying his first ollie.
When you first start skateboarding, you have to gain some confidence with your skating, so the first thing that you learn is how to stand on your board. When you know how to do that, you can try to skate fast, and maybe flip your board. You don’t have to be afraid of falling; skating is about practising and getting up on the floor. After that, you can try some simple tricks like the “Strawberry milkshake”, where you turn your board with one of your feet without standing on it. It’s a good beginner trick because you can’t fall doing it, but you also can make it more difficult. The first real trick that a skater learns is the “ollie”, which is the trick where you jump and dodge obstacles. Then, there are some more advanced tricks like the “nollie” (similar to ollie), the manual, the kickflip, the pop shove it, the varial flip… and thousands more.
FAMOUS SKATERS
Tony Hawk’s 900.
The most famous skater in the world is Tony Hawk. He’s a legend for skateboarding fanatics, and his name is everywhere in this little world. His career in skating is brilliant and successful. In 1990, the magazine Thrasher named him “Skater of the Year”. Nowadays, he’s trying to encourage young people to skate, building skateparks where he thinks it’s necessary. We can appreciate his virtuosity in skateboarding when he does one of the most difficult tricks: the 900.
Another famous skater that every skater must know is Bob Burnquist. He’s a Brazilian skater. He’s really creative and an acclaimed skater.
There are a lot of great and fantastic skaters such as Steve Caballero, Rodney Mullen, Danny Way, Mark Gonzales… They all inspire new and young people to try skating and to not be afraid of dreaming.
SKATE SHOPS IN VIGO
There are two main skate shops in Vigo: Woodtown, in Camelias, 20, and Novalbos, in Pintor Laxeiro, 16. Of course Decathlon sells skates, but they have less quality and buying skates there doesn’t support local skateboarding.
IMPORTANT BRANDS
There are a lot of well-known brands which were born out of skating. Vans, for example, is a very famous brand for shoes, and they have a reputation for being one of the best for skateboarding.
Thrasher, for example, is also well-known for their sweatshirts, but they’re in fact a skate magazine.
Another example of a brand that found its reputation around the skate world is Supreme, which was founded in 1994 in New York, and has had a quick boom since then. It wasn’t only about skating, instead it was based in urban culture and streetwear.
VIDEO GAMES
It’s quite interesting the huge variety of video games about skateboarding, to the point that most players don’t even like skateboarding, but they enjoy playing video games. Probably the most famous is Tony Hawk Pro Skater, which has been in the market since 2000 and is still getting updated.
Feminism is a social and political movement that formally began at the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement is the awareness of women as a group fighting against oppression, domination and exploitation.
Despite the advances that happened since then, there is still a long way to go for men and women to be treated the same.
Even today no country in the world has achieved equal pay for men and women, and in some African territories, women still do not have the right to vote.
However, we don’t have to travel that far to find these differences. In our ordinary lives, there is still a lot of gender inequality. It is known that most men earn more wages than women for the
simple reason of being a female.
The average time of working is higher for women than men. Household tasks are also unevenly distributed. In general, women spend an average of 20 hours a week doing house chores, while men only spend an average of 11 hours.
This inequality is not only seen at work. Most of it is in our society: women are represented as delicate and very feminine girls and men as strong and insensible boys.
Feminism doesn’t put the woman over everyone, it looks for equality for both genders and to achieve that we need to normalize many things. Women shouldn’t leave their houses at night terrified of being kidnapped, and they shouldn’t stop wearing their favourite clothes because of others’ opinions or being called many things because of the way they look. Men don’t have these problems and that’s why we need to stop these things and try to be more equal.
6 out of 10 teenagers admit they don’t have a high self-esteem, due to our society’s stereotypes.
By Mencía García and África Otero
March 7th, 2021
Our young people today have a serious problem of self-esteem and self-love due to the stereotypes that society establishes about what is considered beauty.
Society has always set standards of beauty, for both men and women, reaching the point that many people have come to feel bad about themselves for not being able to achieve them. There are standards related to appearance and also to personality.
Some physical stereotypes for women are: to be thin, to have big breasts and buttocks, a small waist and big hips, to have a flat stomach, light eyes and long hair, and be shaved. And some physical stereotypes for men are: to be muscular and tall with light eyes.
Some personality stereotypes for women are: to be superficial, this means that women only can love going shopping, or putting on make-up. Some men’s personality stereotypes are: to be strong, don’t express their feelings.
The only way…is loving ourselves, without thinking about what others may say.
These patterns are received every day through publicity and social media.
Thanks to this, there are more and more cases of teenagers developing eating disorders. They also hide their insecurities as much as they can.
We have to end these stereotypes of trying to follow a «perfect» body. The only way to do it is loving ourselves, without thinking about what others may say. Only in this way can we make sure subsequent generations are not so boxed-in and can be themselves.
«Black Lives Matter»: from hashtag to global movement
By Marta Areal
March 10th, 2021
Peaceful protest in Minneapolis.
George Floyd is the name of the African American man who changed everyone’s way of thinking. We are one step closer to the end of racism thanks to the world’s reaction to his death.
He was 46 when he was violently and unfairly murdered by a white police officer. Nowadays, his name is known all over the world, together with Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King.
It was May 25th, 2020 when a global movement and hundreds of peaceful protests began. Everything started when a video went viral where a police officer was arresting and choking this man to the point of leaving him without breath and committing murder. What truly happened, according to what the police officer said, is that George Floyd, who used to be a security guard, was trying to buy something at a shop in Minneapolis with a fake $20 bill. When this police officer saw this, he arrested him without hesitating. He was putting his knee on George’s neck, making him unable to breathe properly.
A woman was walking through when she saw what was
happening and started recording the video where you could see this situation, the unjust racism towards George Floyd. You could even hear him multiple times saying “I can’t breathe” and asking for help, until he ended up dying.
After this day, the video went very viral and the hashtag “Black Lives Matter” was created and spread on social media. People started doing memorials in some cities such as Houston, the place where he grew up, or Minneapolis.
His story started to be very known all around the globe and many peaceful protests were made. In these protests, people were only asking for equality and saying ‘’Black Lives Matter’’ on their placards.
Many celebrities attended these protests, some of them are Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Harry Styles and a lot more. These protests are very important if we want to make a change in society and stop discriminating against certain groups or qualities of some people.
Durante o confinamento do curso 2019-2020 o alumnado traballou desde casa. A falta dun taller para realizar os nosos proxectos, a linguaxe de programación Scratch nos deixou xogos tan creativos como o que veredes a continuación.
Se queres ver máis xogos dos producidos en confinamento polo noso alumnado de 2º de ESO (agora xa en terceiro) preme na ligazón:
Empeza o curso preocupados polas máscaras, así que o alumnado de 3º deseña os seus portamáscaras. Que ninguén perda a máscara. Que modelo prefires?
Este curso os proxectos son individuais, pero vemos como o noso alumnado de 3º de ESO amosa as súa faceta máis creativa neste conxunto de proxectos de mecanismos.
