The Durie Hill Tower area is one which is well utilised by our residents and tourists alike, and should remain a green space, argues reader Fiona Donne.
The Durie Hill Tower area is one which is well utilised by our residents and tourists alike, and should remain a green space, argues reader Fiona Donne.
A garden area for all
Re the possibility of houses being built in the Durie Hill Tower area (Chronicle, August 27)
There are many facilities in our beautiful city that I do not use, but am quite happy for my rates to contribute.
In my view our green spaces arevery important and will become even more so as the city grows and housing increases.
The Durie Hill Tower area is one which is well utilised by our residents and tourists alike, and should remain a green space.
Denise Lockett defends the Taranaki Green School and asks for facts (Letters, September 10).
The Periodic Table, devised by Dmitri Mendeleev, who was a chemist, is a way of displaying the relationships of chemical elements.
It is arranged by atomic number, electron configuration and chemical properties. The only energy possessed by elements is their thermal energy and their mass energy, the famous E = M C-squared, and possibly some mechanical potential and kinetic energy.
There is no hidden energy, magical or otherwise that physicists haven't seen.
Crystal is a solid with a highly structured molecular form that makes a lattice in all directions. Examples of crystals are diamonds, snowflakes, and table salt.
Polycrystals are microscopic crystals fused together but not in a lattice. Examples: metals, rocks, ceramics and ice.
Amorphous solids are not crystals. Examples: glass, wax, and plastics.
Therefore, lead crystal glass is not a crystal. It does not have the lattice structure.
Does the school plan to teach science or issue students with a wand and a book of incantations?
MIKE PHILO Okoia
Raise voting age
Some young people, funded by whom, want to use our court system to make our laws, as to voting age.
Young people have plenty of time if they start voting at 23 years to get bored with voting, or influence how our politicians run the country.
A later start to voting would make them keener to vote, they would not feel it's being forced on them.
Young people's priorities should be education, getting employed, establishing their social circles, then turn your thinking to politics.
Another wants more education in school about voting, we are now getting into an indoctrination scenario, where teachers' opinions form the teaching, and that's the last thing we need, we want teachers teaching facts, we have too many classes where it is opinion that is being taught, sustainable living and changing climate, two striking examples.
Education should stick to factual courses, English, maths, science, history and geography with a class a week of engineering and carpentry, along with sport - that's plenty for our teachers and kids to cope with, and enough that the kids can get on the lifetime learning train.
Teaching how to behave and the rest of the things needed to live a good life is the territory of the parents even though we know some are too lazy to bother.
