Category: 2013-2014

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Tropical Forest Ecology Description

Name: Tropical Forest Ecology

Date: May 5 2014 – June 17 2014

Number of People: 12

Essential Questions:

1. How are organisms and the nonliving environment interconnected in the world around us?

2.  What is the value of tropical forest ecosystems for Cambodia?

3. How do humans impact tropical forest ecosystems in Cambodia? Is it possible to use tropical forests sustainably?

Description: In Tropical Forest Ecology we learned about Ecosystems. Ecosystems are a community of organisms that are interconnected and connected with non-living things. We went on two trips because we wanted to experience and see forest directly.We went to Preah Vihear and Koh Kong provinces. When we came back we compared the dry deciduous dipterocarp forest ecosystem (Preah Vihear province) with the evergreen forest ecosystem (Koh Kong province). In Preah Vihear we went to Tmatboey community and in Koh Kong we went to Chi Phat community. We learned about conservation. Conservation means taking care or protecting something. While we learned about conservation, we also learned about sustainable and unsustainable. Sustainable is the action that does not destroy the ecosystem. Unsustainable is the action that destroys the ecosystem. We learned about ecotourism. Ecotourism is tourism that uses and benefits the ecosystem. That is one way that we use ecosystems sustainably.Also we learned about ecological services. Ecological services are the benefits that people get from ecosystems. There are three ecological services such as provisioning services, regulating services and cultural services. Provisioning services are how the ecosystem provides us directly. Ex: Trees give us resin. Regulating services are how the ecosystem regulates the climate. Ex: Trees stop the floods by absorbing the water. Cultural services are how the ecosystems give us something culturally. Ex: Bambuti people use forest plants to smoke for their ceremonies.  We answered our essential questions by using the knowledge that we got from our trips.IMG_2369 (1024x683)

 

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Anatomy 3 Description

Name of Course: Anatomy 3

Learning Facilitator: Jo

Number of Students:10 students

Days we meet: Thursday and Friday

Advanced Enrichment Dates: Session 3 Oct. 20 – Jan. 16

Course Description: In Anatomy class we learned about Excretory System (kidney & bladder), Muscular System (muscles) and Skin. Also we all made one presentation each to share in our class and it was about what we learned in the whole Anatomy class. We spent two weeks to do that presentation. That worked really well and everyone wrote a lot of things. We also learned about other things too. One day we learned how to use the microscope. We took fingernails or hair to practice on microscope. We tried to put any things strange like saliva and it was very surprised for us because it looked like two different things. We had some games to play and it was about muscles because we wanted to know more about different types of muscles and how to protect that muscles and to make it stronger. The muscle is help us move. Our body has 360 muscles. We also learned about skin. The skin is the largest organ in human’s body. It weighs about 5 kg andit has three layers. When the end of our class we did a test about what we had been learning before.

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Anatomy 1 Description

Name of Course: Anatomy 1

Learning Facilitator: Jo

Number of Students: 12 students

Days We meet: August 12 – October 17

Course Description: In this Advanced Enrichment we learned about body. Our bodies have four systems: Skeletal system (bones), Digestive system (stomach), Respiratory system (lungs), Circulatory system (heart). We watched the video about people’s bodies. The digestive system is the system that help to break down the food and take the nutrients from the food and take the waste out of body. Digestive system is very important for our body because it helps you to break down the food into small pieces. The skeletal system is also important in our body because if you break the bones you will have a big problem. You have to go to the hospital and tell the doctor what is the problem. We also did the presentation for people to listen because we want people to take care of their health. In our group we shared into four teams and one team had three people. We had to share our position in the group: one was patient and two were nurse and doctor. We presented four things and they were Skeletal system, Digestive system, Respiratory system and Circulatory system. People used some clothes to wear when they were acting. We watched the videos and read the books to find information.

 

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Algebra A Description

Name of Course: Algebra A

Learning Facilitator: Jeff Boucher

Number of Students: 14

Dates: August 12 – January 16

Days we Meet: Monday – Tuesday

 

Course Description: In our Advanced Enrichment we learned about Math. This Advanced Enrichment lasted really long and the students had a really hard time working on that. We learned the hard math by learning it step by step. There are many clever students in this class and all of them are very patient. Every day in our class the math got harder and harder but we got smarter as the time kept going. Sometimes we realized that the math that we had learned could be used in real life. The important things that we learned for the whole year were negative numbers, the Greatest Common Factors, linear equations, y=mx+b form or Slope-interception, parabolas, Quadratic formula/equation, etc. All of these math sections were very hard. It is something that people will think that it is hard because they did not try yet and for those people who try they will think it is easy. But for us here we do not think it was hard or easy we were just trying our best.

 

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World Leaders Description

Name of Course: World Leaders

Learning Facilitator: Sophorn

Number of Students: 10

Days we Meet: Thursday to Friday

Advanced Enrichment Dates: October 20 – January 16

 

Course Description: In World Leaders class we learned about the leaders and also the students learned to analyze the good or bad leaders all around the world. The good leaders are supposed to lead the country to develop and the leaders need to make the people get the peace. The bad leaders treat in bad way to the people in the country. We can understand the way how the famous leaders are leading for the country. The important part of our class was to understand the concepts of the leaders which means what are their ideas or inventions to change the country. All the leaders had different concepts like Gandhi. He led by integrity and non-violence. Also we watched a lot of movies because it helped us to get more ideas about the different leaders. The main movie that we watched was Gandhi. He was one of the most famous leaders all around the world because the way that he led shown the integrity. He had the mindset of non-violence. The most interesting part of our class was to learn about the quote of the leaders. For example Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said “If you think you are helpless please help someone” and we think about her quote, do we understand or not. We also went on a the trip to meetMr. Kok Tha. He is the person that can share us a lot of information because he is the good leader. The leaders have many parts it is not just the leaders of the country they call the leaders. World Leaders was really nice because we can learn how to be the leaders.

 

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Life on Cambodian Border Description

Exploration Name: Life on Border

Exploration Dates: March 10 – May 2

Number of Students: 15

Essential Questions/Areas:

(1) What do students know about planning and running Exploration projects?

(2) What are the steps of running Exploration project?

(3) How to keep track ofworking process?

(4) How to use resources efficiently and transparently?

(5) How is the situation of people living along the border such as: education, health, economic and immigration?

(7) Why do people move there?

(8) What are the advantages and disadvantages of living there?

Description:

In our Life On Border group we learned a lot of  things about border. Students know how to run the Exploration very well. Students know the goal to run their project. The first step that we can run our project is we learn about our goal. Our goal is Project Summary, Project Outcome, Project Mentors, Field Experiences, 21st Century Learning Skills and Core Curriculum Areas. After we learned about our goal we planned and thought. The situation of the people that live along the border is normal. Some people don’t have money so they don’t have work. Some people go to find work at Thailand so when the people go already some of the people can’t come back. People’s health is not so good at the border because they don’t have money to buy their food. They move to the border because if the people have the money they come to border to sell something because the border have a lot of people came from Russia to the Cambodia. So that why people want to make their business there. The advantage to live there is there are not a lot of bad people at there so it safe for people. The disadvantage to live there is if people don’t have money and they don’t have work they will not be safe for their life. We went to the border to learn and we saw some people have a work and some people don’t have work. Some people have a work but it like cart worker it is not easy to get the money. We interview the cart worker and the sellers. We went to casino to visit, but we didn’t get a chance to go in.

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Water Description

Exploration Name: Liger Water System

Exploration Dates: August 12 – September 26

Number of Students: 12

Description: In our water group we learned about the pH of water. The full words of pH is Percent Hydrogen. That is the kind of scale that people use to measure the acids and bases. The scale of pH is 0-14. From 0-7 is acidic, 7-14 is basic and 7 is neutral. The hydrogen (H+) is acid and hydroxide (OH-) is base. When we learned about pH we did the experiment with 13 liquid things. For ex: the coca-cola and pond water. The coca-cola was 2.0 so it means acidic. If we drink it a lot like every day we would get sick but if we drink in 1 week only 1 it will be good. The pond was 10.0 so it means basic and if it has a lot of basic like this it also not good for our health either. So we can eat or drink only higher than 7 to 9 or lower than 7 to 5, so it not really have many bases or acids. In this class we also studied about algae. Algae is the kind of plants that live in water and it uses the sun as it food. When this plant lives in water it will make water become basic. We studied our own pond at Liger to learn about this. One other thing that we learned was the water cycle. We learned when the sun rises then it does the evaporation with water. When water goes up it is not yet become the clouds but when the temperature is cool then it makes condensation so it becomes the cloud. When the cloud in the sky catches the cool temperature it will become the rain again. To learn about water we went on the trip to RDI. RDI is the place that makes the water filters to sell. One thing that we learned from there is why they made this RDI place because they saw that some people here don’t have the clean water to drink so they can buy it to get the filter and clean for them. Another reason is when they sell the water filter they sell as cheaply as they can to help the people in Cambodia.

 

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Newspaper Description

Exploration Name: Newspapers

Exploration Dates: October 7 to November 19

Number of students: 12

Essential Questions:

(1) Why do we have newspapers?

(2) Historically, what have newspapers sought to do?

(3) How is the purpose enhanced or diminished by external factors (freedom of speech, infrastructure)?

(4) What do reporters do and what are their ethical responsibilities?

(5) What is the process of creating a newspaper from start to finish? What role does technology play?

Description:

In our newspaper class we had a lot of hard things to do but there were fun things to do too. The first thing we did was get introduced to some of the old and famous newspapers. Later on we got the name of one of the newspapers and did the research in pairs or groups. On Friday afternoon we had assembly so we did our presentation one by one. Everyday we learned new things about newspapers and it was very exciting. The most hard and exciting part was we made our own newspaper about our school. Also we went on a late night trip to the Phnom Penh Post printing press at 10:00pm. It was so late we got to sleep in the teacher apartment. The name of our newspaper is Liger Post. We sold it at NISC, ICan, coffee shops and restaurants. At the end we made about $280. We gave some to the Documentary group to do the bike race and some to the orphanage at Siem Reap. Each student on the team also got some money, about $8 each.

 

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FLL Robotics Description

Exploration Name: Robotics

Exploration Dates: Exploration 3: November 20 – January 17 and Exploration 4: January 20 – March 7

Number of Students: 6

Description: In our Exploration class we learned about natural disasters and how to make the robot with the lego bricks. The lego brick is really complicated to do the robot because it is small. The lego box has four sensors: ultrasonic sensor, color sensor, touch sensor and gyro sensor. The ultrasonic sensor is used for measuring the length. The color sensor is used for measuring the reflection of color. The touch sensor is used for touching something that tells about the place. It will send the information to the brain. We learned about how to program, build and about natural disasters. Each of these are very important and it gave lots of advantages because we needed to use all of the skills to do it. Building is the most important, which gives most advantages too because building is the first step to make the robot. Programming is the most difficult part because we need to write the code to make the robot work. When we started to learn our group needed to think about the ideas to make a robot that can do the challenge and complete the four goals of the challenge. They are Mechanical Design, Strategy & Innovation, Robot Performance and Programming. The natural disaster was divided into three parts: Presentation, Innovation Solution means how creative was the solution that we did and Research. The challenge was we needed to make the robot knock down the building, tsunami, take the track and the ambulance to the end zone.The students needed to work ìn a team with six people to have success in the FIRST® LEGO® League in Singapore. We had to look and watch lots of videos to get more ideas. We also looked at the rules of the game in order to learn more about the challenge. Then we went to Singapore to do the challenge.

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