Introducing Mystery Class #4
Porto Alegre, Brazil
30.03583 S, 51.18292 W
WikiCommons/Ricardo André Frantz / CC BY-SA 3.0
"Olá gente! Como estão?" Greetings from Porto Alegre, Brazil!
In Portuguese, our national language, this greeting means "Hello guys! How are you?", and the city name "Porto Alegre" means "Happy Port". This photo is taken at Largo dos Açorianos, a beautiful complex in our city that combines old and new. The building and sculpture are iconic landmarks, including the Administrative Center of Rio Grande do Sul (our state), and the Monumento aos Açorianos which honors the early immigrant couples that came from the Azores to settle or colonize our area.
You Found Us!
We are Mr. Simoes' G5 students at the Pan American School (PAS) of Porto Alegre! We're a small group of 13 students, and as you can see, we wear school uniforms here. We study in English and Portuguese, and it is a really fun place to learn. Our Unit of Inquiry this year has involved all of the topics that are part of the Mystery Class Global Game, so we couldn't have asked for a better time to partner up and be a secret Mystery Class.
Photo: Pan American School of Porto Alegre
Please Come In!
This is a photo of the entrance to our PAS school building. We are the only international English-speaking school in Porto Alegre, and we have students in grades K-12. The school is in two buildings -- the first building is the Pre-School Campus, and the second is the Main Campus for grades 1 to the high school.
Photo: Pan American School of Porto Alegre
The PAS Logo
This is the official logo of PAS. We were founded almost 50 years ago in 1966, and the current enrollment of around 400 students is comprised of 70% Brazilian students with the remainder from more than 20 countries.
Image: Pan American School of Porto Alegre
Favorite Learning Activities
We have several great activities that we like, and one of them is giving presentations at school. For example, we sometimes give presentations during the Elementary school assemblies hosted by each grade level. The assemblies are a great time to have fun and showcase our learning. Can you tell from this photo what our presentation is about? Hint --we are holding a diagram that shows changing daylight, and on the wall we have projected one of the weekly Mystery Site Data pages with sunrise and sunset times for all ten Mystery Classes! Of course, we are also using the globe (and two microphones too!)
Semana Farroupilha Festival at Our School Farroupilha Week is one out of our many grand celebrations! It is a very festive event in our school and city and all across our state of Rio Grande do Sul! It is celebrated on the 14th and 20th of September every year. The festival celebrates the start of the longest revolution and war in Brazilian history. It is a week where all gauchos take to the streets in their best celebration attitude, drinking chimarrão (a tea made with yerba mate, that you will learn about later), and wearing historical outfits!
The women wear a dress typical of a "prenda" and the men dress as gauchos with boots, red scarfs, and a hat! At our school, our G5 students dressed in traditional costumes and performed this traditional gaucho song. You see us and hear us sing on this Youtube video – Enjoy!
PAS Girls' Soccer Team
This is our school's female soccer team. They are the ones who challenge other schools and win ISSL Cups or trophies for us (International Schools Sports League). A round of applause for them! Their team photo was featured in a newsletter for Brazilian company Grupo Volpato, which supports the team.
Photo: Pan American School of Porto Alegre
School Clothes and Traditional Clothes
These photos show the two types of clothes we wear. The first one we always wear, because it's our school uniform. The second picture shows some traditional dresses that girls wear when we celebrate our state traditions.
Photo: Pan American School of Porto Alegre
Photo: Pan American School of Porto Alegre
Local and Regional Drinks Chimarrão is a drink that is made of the mixture of a special plant (dried leaves of yerba mate), and hot water. It is a traditional South American caffeine-rich infused drink, particularly in South Brazil where we are. We drink it in a special cup and we use a special metal straw. Here is a picture of a typical Chimarrão cup with the metal straw.
Another regional drink is the Guaraná soft drink, which contains guaraná extract with LOTS of caffeine. Popular brands include Guaraná Antarctica, Guaraná Jesus, and Kuatt.
Favorite Regional Foods - Churrasco
If you came to visit, there are a few regional foods that you will certainly eat and love, just like us. One of then is Churrasco, which is the word for the way that we roast meat. We eat chicken hearts, cow or ox chest, pig chest, and much more. We have something called a churrasqueira, which is the grill on which we roast the meat.
CC BY-SA 2.5 / Leonardo Carvalho
More Favorite Foods -- Feijoada Feijoada is a stew, best served as a side order, but you can eat it by itself. It has pepper, sausage, some plants, pork ear, pork legs, and some more. This photo is a complete Feijoada dinner with typical side dishes.
CC BY 2.0 /Andre Rebeiro
Our City and our Parks: Porto Alegre
We love going to Parque da Redenção and Parque Moinhos de Vento, also known as Parcão (or "big park") on the weekends. One of the parks has a large pond with walkways, where people gather to sit and relax. If you look closely at the peple seated in this photo, you can see two of then sipping on Chimarrão with the cups with metal straws -- look at the woman in the center in purple and the woman to the left in red.
CC BY 3.0 / Tetraktys
River, Lake, or Lagoon?
You already know that our city is close to our Atlantic Ocean coastline, but did you know that our city is located on another large body of water? That's right, we are located near the north end of "Lagoa dos Patos" (Duck Lake), one of the world's largest natural sources of freshwater. You might not be able to judge it by looking at this aerial photo, but it is over 44 miles long, and it is the biggest lake in Brazil.
In this aerial map image, you can see the Atlantic Ocean in blue to the right, and our Lagoa dos Patos just to the left. Our city is at the north end, and at the south tip of the lake is the city of Rio Grande. Ocean ships enter the Lagoa dos Patos at Rio Grande, and then can come all 44 miles up to our city, which is a major ocean port (remember . . "Porto"!).
Google Maps
Our State
In our state of Rio Grande do Sul, we call ourselves "rio-grandenses". Here is the flag of our state:
Wikimedia Commons
Sports in Brazil
We live in a country that is really famous for soccer. In our state, two of the main teams are Gremio and Inter, and their rivalry is huge. And of course, Brazil has already won the World Cup five times. Brazil is great at many other sports too, including volleyball, tennis, gymnastics, even car racing. We're excited that Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will hold the 2016 Olympics.
CC BY-SA 2.0 / Andre Kiwitz
Flag and Farewell
We hope you have enjoyed learning about our Mystery Site. We leave you with this image of our flag of Brazil! The brazilian flag was sent to the public in 1889. It was created by Raimundo Teixeira Mendes, Miguel Lemos, Manuel Pereira Reis and Decio Vilares.
The brazilian flag has four elements: green represents the green forests that Brazil has, yellow represents the minerals in the Brazilian soil, blue represents the sky in Brazil, and the stars represent the 27 states of Brazil. The line that says Ordem e Progresso (which means "Order and Progress"), was inspired by a Frenchman called Augusto Comte and one of his mottos of positivism. If you'd like to contact us, you can email our teacher Mr. Simoes.
