Brainstorming News Issue no 4, June 2010

brainSTORMING News

Special Issue no.4, May 2010 - ‘Anatol Ghermanschi’ School, Brasov

H

Welcome

ey all.Hope you have a great time and enjoy the reading of this magazine. This “Brainstorming

News” issue is a special one that focuses on the values of democracy. Most of the people forgot that we live in democracy and they are never happy with what they have. Thinking of people from other countries, we should be thankful that we can get a decent workplace and we can live a decent life.So I wish you have a great time reading our magazine. Enjoy your life as it is!

Meet the Team Hi. My name is Daniel Georgescu. In this issue of the magazine I prepared something special, talking about the School Facts and also writing the Editorial. Hope you enjoy reading it!

From Back Left :Daniel, Alina, Grigo, Andreea. Front: Bogdan, Mihai.

Hi, my name is Bogdan Grigoras, and I really love having fun! I enjoy every moment of my life and love the quote: “Don’t worry, be happy.”

GET ON THE- INSIDE Rights Respecting by Daniel Georgescu Cultural Identities-Germans

by Alina Constantinescu

Hi my name is Bogdan Curta, I’m 13 years old and I’ll be writing in the game reviews section for the school magazine.

The review will be made on PC and console games. Hope you have fun!

Hi! My name is Alina Constantinescu. I’m 14 years old and love sports and listening to music. In this Issue of the Magazine I chose to write about Minorities in Romania. In the end I can say that I do what I like and I like what I do, so this is the reason why I write for this newspaper.

Hey hey! My name is Andreea Fota and I am 13 years old.

I enjoy travelling and reading books and that’s why I’ve been assigned to write about these two subjects, focusing on USA and also I wanted to share something with you: the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. Hope you enjoy them!

Hello! My name is Mihai Hrecinuc and I am 13 years old.

I like sports and science very much. That’s why I chose to write about these two subjects. Well, that’s all. Bye!

Sportsmanship - a Necessary Quality by Mihai Hrecinuc A Home in SpAce by miHAi Hrecinuc The Rise of Empires by Bogdan Grigoras Cities XL Game Review by Bogdan Curta Travel in the USA by Andreea Fota

Carta Europeana by Andreea Fota The Blowing Mind of an Artist

by Grigo Freedom by Sinziana Cismas

School Facts

Rights Respecting

teacher is right and you can’t contest his/her decision. Even if some of the kids are not polite when they express their opinion, our right is still not fully respected. Sometimes it is better to shut up even if we are right because we could get a lower grade or the teacher wouldn’t be too kind with us in the near future.

The right to learn and to be taught. This is the most important right that we have because without learning we can’t do anything in life. Most of our teachers do their job, and they do it very well but on the other side there are teachers that don’t do anything in their classes.

‘Sometimes it is better to shut up even if we are right’

The right to have a break between classes. This right is not fully respected because some teachers keep us longer at different classes.

Feature

In the end I want to say that most of our rights are respected but some are not and sometimes this is In this article I will write about pupils’ rights and bad. And sometimes we learn too much and we how they are respected in school. Let’s take for have too much homework or extra work for school, example the right to have your own opinion. but maybe it will help us in the future, who knows.

Sometimes saying your own opinion is bad in our school because most of the teachers

by Daniel Georgescu remained with a communist mentality, that only the

Cultural Identities - Germans In our country, Hungarian Kingdom. besides the Today, Germans are Romanian comunity, slowly integrating in there is a variation of the Romanian other ethnic community. They communities with have the same rights their cultural, and conditions as we, linguistic and the Romanians, have. religious traditions.

Saxon children One of the most attend classes in i m p o r t a n t Romanian schools, communities in trying to integrate Romania from both into the community the past and the present is the German and also, their parents participate in Romanian Community or the Saxons. activities.

Transylvanian Saxons are an ethnic German In the specific cities and even in others, there are population, established in southern and families composed of Saxons and Romanian people too. These share knowledge and habits north-eastern Transylvania. inside the family and outside as well.

The colonization of the Saxons was founded by King Géza the Second, of Hungary. For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend

By Alina Constantinescu the southern border of Transylvania, part of the

Sports

Sportsmanship: a Necessary Quality

By Mihai Hrecinuc Sports are the most used means of relaxation and of competition in the world. And when you say sports, you have to say sportsmanship.

But, what is sportsmanship? Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors.

Being a "good sport" involves being a "good winner" as well as being a "good loser".

Sportsmanship typically is regarded as a component of morality in sport, composed of two related and perhaps overlapping concepts: fair play and character.

Fair play refers to all participants having an equitable chance to pursue victory and acting toward others in an honest, straightforward, firm and dignified manner even when others do not play fairly. It includes respect for others including team members, opponents, and officials.

Character, on the other hand, refers to dispositions, values and habits that determine the way that person normally responds to desires, fears, challenges, opportunities, failures and successes and it is typically seen in polite behaviors towards others such as helping an opponent up or shaking hands after a match. An individual is believed to have a “good character” when those dispositions and habits reflect core ethical values.

Having these said, imagine the world of sports without fair play. That would have to be a very ugly and incorrect world. Because sportsmanship is a necessary quality.

‘The ISS is a proper example of how nations can collaborate and realize great achievements and how democracy is necessary for a peaceful world.’

During the Cold War, the United States of America and Russia were great enemies, each one preparing for a global war which, fortunately, was not triggered. After the fall of communism, both countries have decided to eliminate any divergence between them and to realize a project that would help extend knowledge about space. The International Space Station was born.

The International Space Station (ISS) is an internationally developed research facility that is being assembled in low Earth orbit. On-orbit construction of the station began in 1998 and is scheduled for completion by 2011. The station is expected to remain in operation until at least 2015, and likely 2020. With a greater mass than that of any previous space station, the ISS can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye, and, as of 2010, is the largest artificial satellite orbiting the Earth. The ISS serves as a research laboratory that has a microgravity environment in which crews conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy and meteorology. The station has a unique environment for the testing of the spacecraft

systems that will be required for missions to the Moon and Mars.

The ISS is a synthesis of several space station projects that includes the American Freedom, the Soviet/Russian Mir-2, the European Columbus and the Japanese Kibō. Budget constraints led to the merger of these projects into a single multi-national programme. The ISS project began in 1994 with the Shuttle-Mir programme, and the first module of the station, Zarya, was launched in 1998

by Russia.

Assembly continues, as pressurized modules, external trusses and other components are launched by American space shuttles, Russian Proton rockets and Russian Soyuz rockets. As of February 2010, the station consisted of 13 pressurized modules and an extensive integrated truss structure (ITS). Power is provided by 16 solar arrays mounted on the external truss, in addition to four smaller arrays on the Russian modules. The station is maintained at an orbit between 278 km (173 mi) and 460 km (286 mi) altitude, and travels at an average speed of 27,724 km/h (17,227 mph), completing 15.7 orbits per day.

Operated as a joint project between the five participant space agencies, the station's sections are controlled by mission control centers on the ground operated by the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). With the help of this project, future missions to the Moon and Mars will start from the ISS, making the job easier for the mission crew. The ISS is a proper example of how nations can collaborate and realize great achievements and how democracy is necessary for a peaceful world.

by Mihai Hrecinuc

Science

A Home in SpAce

Game Reviews

‘Rise of Nations’ is a real-time strategy computer game, developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft on May 20, 2003. It is a game that has military, cultural and social standings that shows the player the history in just a few minutes of ‘The Rise of Nations’ .

can’t sign a peace contract with him . The reason is because he is just not advanced enough , his tribes man leaders are not so advanced of course as our president and etc. that is why an agreement with them would be impossible.

Democracy is a very well known principle in this game , although it appears later, after you develop the Eons of History in your specific nation , It has an essential part in winning the game through alliance and many other believes.

Secondly , I’d like to talk about the modern Eons , where Democracy and the man’s rights are used and applied. You can use your menu-in-game to sign a contract with a different nation that means peace and prosperity together that doesn’t include violence. So , even if you are an ally of a country, you can always attack another one. That is the beauty of this War based game. You can do whatever you want with your growing empire , sell it in the name of destruction or , just grow in peace with the other nations and win through prosperity and love .

First , I’d like to present to you the first Eons of the game.

The first and second century where everybody uses spears, you have limitted armed force and just a few ways to conquer the opponents’ village , but if you build a library , and advance throughout the eons , things much more exciting can happen. For example : If you are in the 9th century and the opponent is only at his first advances , you

Just try it ! It will be fun !

by Bogdan Grigoras

Cities XL

by Bogdan Curta

Hey guys, since this issue is on democracy and democratic values I decided to make a review on Cities Xl. This ambitious strategy game will take city-building gameplay and bring it online with multiplayer and social networking.

City-building strategy games have typically put you in the shoes of a virtual mayor as you build out your little town and try to make your little citizens happy by not putting too many air-polluting factories near their apartment buildings. Monte Cristo's Cities XL will attempt to take the concept to an entirely new level and bring it to an absolutely massive scale by combining a full-featured city-building strategy game, a robust 3D graphics engine, online multiplayer, online social networking, and postrelease updates via subscription. The idea is one of the most ambitious designs that we've ever seen for a game of this sort.

Out of the box, Cities XL will be a fully contained city-building strategy game that will let you build massive, sprawling cities with an easy-to-use click-and-drag "paintbrush" interface. This aspect of the game will have plenty to offer, including more than 500 different buildings and more than 25 different possible map layouts right out of the box. A new session of the game will begin at a planet-view splash screen that will broadcast any news updates from the online portion of the game, such as new buildings or mission packs being made available, as well as community announcements.

You can choose to build your city on just about any part of the planet, and although your exact location on the globe isn't all that important, the general area around your city will be.

Cities in different global areas and in different climates will have different resources made available to them; for example, if you're in the market to build an oil empire, you might consider building closer to a coastal region. Resources will be a key part of your city's development, given that they

can not only be used as material components to develop your own homestead, but they can also be traded to other players or sold on the open market. In the interest of keeping the game accessible to a wide audience, Monte Cristo apparently does not have plans to institute resource rarity or random events that might change resource supplies, but in any case, this gameplay nuance is definitely intended to get players to work together.

You might not expect online multiplayer or such a strong integration of Internet-based community elements from a city-building strategy game, but that's just what Monte Cristo is planning to deliver with its ambitious new project. Cities XL. It’s lunch was in early 2009.

If you are wandering what is this game having in common with democratic values, well, the whole game engine is based on the wrights of your citizens. Meaning that they won’t be very happy if you build an oil refinery next to the park where their 10 year olds are playing football.

Who doesn’t believe in those so called “American dreams”? When everyone who’s going to America gets their wishes fulfilled? Of course everyone wants to go there. Admit it, even you want to go! But, imagine that their politicians and politics might be worse than ours.

The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States (the head of state and head of government), Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments. Federal and state elections generally take place within a two-party system, although this is not enshrined in law.

So, they have 2 political parties and also

the Independents one. The party systems are dominated by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. These two parties have won every United States presidential election since 1852 and have controlled the United States Congress since at least 1856.

Several other third parties achieve from time to time relatively minor representation at the national and state levels.

America is more into direct democracy, which is a form of democracy and a theory of civics in which sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate.

Depending on the particular system, this assembly might pass executive motions, make laws, elect or dismiss officials, and conduct trials.

In the end, I do believe democracy is really important to the USA. And the fact that citizens can participate in meetings and tell everyone their point of view gives America a big thumbs-up.

Travel

America - The Land of All Possibilities

by Andreea Fota

By Andreea Fota I guess everyone heard about the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. It’s all about our rights to live with dignity, and it helps us enjoy our lives. It sets out a number of civil, social, economic and political rights that should be available to everyone. It also aims to protect those at risk of poverty and social exclusion.

This new status will help poorer and socially excluded people by ensuring that their needs and rights are taken into account when the EU develops new social and economic policies.

Those most vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion include women, older people, disabled people, immigrants and minority groups like the Roma.

The Charter will help them as it prohibits discrimination on a range of grounds including race, colour, gender, ethnic or social origin, disability, age or membership of a national minority.

It also includes specific articles that recognise and respect the rights of elderly and disabled people to play an active and inclusive role in society.

The Charter recognises that everyone has the right to education and training, as well as access to health care. The European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion will highlight the rights people have to live a dignified life, and help to publicise the goals of the Charter, as well as its new status in EU law.

In my opinion, the rights on the Charter are not yet reality. In the case of disabled children many are actually still deprived of these rights, though they are EU citizens. They neither receive proper health care, nor an adequate education.

In some member countries of the EU disabled children still live in institutions closed off from society. I think people should be more careful and think more about their rights, because if they want their rights to be respected but they don’t respect their fellow citizens as well, then we will get nowhere with this Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Book Review

The Fundamental Rights Make Us Live with Dignity

Arts

The Blowing Mind of an Artist

by Bogdan Grigoras

Interview

I’d like to start by saying that a man’s mind is more important than a man’s fist.

That is what most of the artists understood throughout time. That is why they are so loved for their masterpieces. That is the main reason why they were persecuted in their time. ‘The artist mind’ , as a professor once said, ‘is like a labyrinth. You can get lost , but not if you know the way’.

What I am trying to say is that most of the artists were trying to create a masterpiece that represented

humanity. Most of them were so wild and out-standing because they were trying to share pain through colours. Many artists were impressed by politics and social discriminations in their time that’s why they used their specific art domain as a weapon against them.

Love, Desperation, Humor, Anger, Compassion, these are the regular and frequent thoughts of an artist.

Usually they create their masterpiece for two reasons. Firstly, because they want to provoke the human mind and create an explosion of thoughts that may give the spark that could carve a change. And secondly, because they want to show the world and themselves that they are not ordinary people as they call the rest of the world. They can show their feelings as they are not under the ‘spell’ of the leaders.

Artists are mainly just rebel people expressing themselves in different ways, other than violence.

So, the main idea, is that these remarkable people show the flows of history through different ways, mind blowing ways , or, in this case …. Brain Storming.

Freedom - An Interview with Ms Veronica Leahu

by Sinziana Cismas Ms Veronica Leahu, certified European Teacher, teacher of Civic Education at School 27 from Brasov and teacher trainer for CCD Brasov was interviewed by Sinziana Cismas, student in the 7th grade, the same school. The subject of the interview was the the project ”Freedom”.

The project "Freedom" had as a main objective: ‘the knowledge of human and children rights’.

The project was addressed to teachers and students from pre-university education and focused especially on minorities.It took place in three counties: Brasov, Harghita and Sibiu.

The project's structure was the following one: 1. Human rights.

2. Citizen rights 3. Children rights 4. Minorities and refugees rights 5. Tolerance 6. Legislation for the domains.

There were 2 stages. The first one was about teaching, learning and workshops about the notions mentioned above.

The second one was the evaluation named : "Learn how to change the world" (5th-6th of June 2010).The main focus was to change attitudes towards minorities. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

The sustainability project consists of materials developed by teachers together with students which promote children's rights and minorities' rights (educational films, posters, ads, powerpointuri, didactic games, puzzles, ect.)

The project exists as a result of a grant received by Professor Veronica Leahu and USA and was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy Bucharest The name of this project comes from:Formation Accountability Equal Rights Human

Brainstorming News was created by the help of: Simona Buzea English Teacher Alexandra Ichim Projects Abroad Journalism Coordinator Sinziana Cismas Journalism Collaborator - Student at School 27

www.projects-abroad.co.uk

Jokes on Democracy - Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

- Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

- Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.