Experience Week Chiang Rai (Thailand) Reflection
20 May, 2013

  This year, we had 2 choices for our experience week trip which lasts around 5 or 6 days. The options were Chiang Rai which is in Thailand, or Beijing, the majority of people went to Chiang Rai because they have already been to Beijing and want to experience a new place.  Chiang Rai’s activities were really fun, there were loads of activities like archery, confidence course, which is where there is a bunch of obstacles you have to do, like rope swing, monkey bars and balancing beams. Then there are hiking, kayaking, jungle survival, community service, which is making bricks and making the walls smooth. Theres also loads of night activities we did, some of them were team technology, which is making a contraption to safely carry an egg down from the top of the building, then there are field games, night games, and sala games. All of them were really fun and I enjoyed it a lot.
   One of the learner profile attributes I think I displayed during the trip was principled. I always did the right thing like putting my plates and utensils away after eating breakfast, lunch or dinner. That way, other people wouldn’t have to waste their time cleaning up my mess when I could have easily done it on my own. Also, when we were in a dangerous spot like hiking on a steep hill, I didn’t try to play with my friends and risk us getting injured. We mostly remained silent during the dangerous parts so that we can focus on what is happening around us, like where to put our next step.

  The second learner profile attribute I think I displayed is risk-taker, when I was doing an activity I wasn’t confident on like rock climbing or the confidence course, I try to ignore my fears and try my best. For rock climbing, I try to not look down but look up and keep going until I can ring the bell, that way I will not have to be reminded of my fear of height when I look down. Also, for the confidence course, I try to take everything slowly and not rush anything, especially for the balancing beams. That part was really difficult because I’m not used to walking in such narrow platforms, and also have to do a challenge, which is doing a 360 spin.

  In conclusion, I think the experience trip to Chiang Rai is really fun and I learned a lot from it. I liked the activities because you can test your  physical strength and also learn a bunch of cool facts a long the way. For example, during the hill tribe hike, I learned the uses of bamboo and why they are valuable. Bamboo can be used for a variety of things, and can be carved to make daily household items. Like chopsticks, bowls etc. It was a fun trip and I hope we can do another one soon.

]]> http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/2013/05/20/experience-week-chiang-rai-thailand-reflection/feed/ 0 http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/2013/05/14/humanities-poverty-article/ http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/2013/05/14/humanities-poverty-article/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 09:43:56 +0000 043050 http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/?p=678

Humanities-Poverty Article
14 May, 2013

Link to article

 This is related to one of the millenium goals, which is poverty.

The main point about this article is talking about how low people have to live to, and what the minimum standards should be. Extreme poverty is living around $1.25 each day, and poverty is only living around $2 each day. The global median income is around 3 to 4 dollars each day, but yet 50% of the population in this planet lives below that budget each day. Lant Pritchett estimated that those living less than 2 dollars a day in a developing country, will see infant morality more than does living in one of the poorest and most deprived areas of rich countries. It is possible to avoid death by using cheap techniques, and saving money which could be a matter of life and death when it could be buying medicine, like antibiotics.

Pritchett says that the global floor standards for each day should be around 15 or 10 dollars. Somewhere in the world shy of 2 million dollars, live over $10 a day. But places like sub-Saharan Africa, only 2% of the population lives over 10 dollars a day. Which means that we should try to strive so that each person can at least live over 10 dollars a day. If we don’t, people may continue to die because they don’t have enough food or enough money to buy medical supplies.

In my opinion, I think if we can get everyone in the world above 10 dollars a day. It would be a huge accomplishment, that way, we can continue to strive and maybe exceed 10 dollars a day. If everyone can be well fed everyday, then we can avoid diseases. But if people are constantly tired and weakened due to hunger, then new diseases can easily strike. Causing even more difficulties if the disease were to spread from towns to countries. Doctors would have to work hard to find a cure and hope that it will not be a serious disease that can lead to death.

We had a court case on KMT last week, you were either on the defense team or the prosecution’s. We had about 3 weeks to do a variety of experiments to get lots of valid and reliable data which can help defend or attack KMT. There were 6 jobs that might be assigned to you, being the jury, the bailiff, the prosecution team, the defense team, the photographer and the person who types out everything that is happening during the court. The court had to be extended to 2 class periods because there were lots of evidence being presented and lots of questions being pressed on to both team.

1)    Pictures/videos from the class website

2)    Do you agree with the jury’s verdict? Why or why not? Include at least 5 facts from evidence that was presented during the trial.

At the end of the court case, the jury decided to go with the defense team. I agree with the jury’s choice because we presented our data in a neat organized way, and we answered our questions as clearly as possible. Trying to avoid any unnecessary information which may confuse the other team, the jury or the judge. A lot of the information that we presented were hard to counter, for example, for the food coloring experiment, it was hard to counter how the food coloring spreads due to collision force and not gravity pulling it down since the food coloring also spreads side to side. Also, for the ice cube melting experiment, it was hard to counter how the ice cube changes states of matter from a solid to a liquid then evaporated.

3)    What was your job? Explain how you fulfilled your responsibilities.

My job is to be a member of the defense team, and I fulfilled by responsibilities by making good labs for each experiment and submitting my information to the bailiff in time. So that those information will be able to be presented during court, and will be used when presenting evidence. I also fulfilled my responsibilities by contributing a decent amount to our group google doc, I gave many suggestions to how the cross examination could work out and also proof read other people’s information. To make sure it is correct and won’t cause any confusion.

4)    If you could do a different job during the court case, which would you have volunteered for and why?

If I could do a different job during the court case, I would volunteer to present information for the defense team because I might be able to present information that could help counter what the prosecution might ask. For example, if the prosecution planned on asking about the M&Ms and why some of the color dissolves faster, I would try to put more information on the M&M part. So that we could use what we said during the cross examining part.

5)    Explain one or more thing you learned about KMT during the investigations

One of the things I learned about KMT during the investigation is why the line graph for the ice cube melting experiment sometimes go at the same temperature but then rises quickly at some places. I learned that is because that temperature is the melting process, and the temperature rised quickly afterwards is because the water is becoming hotter and hotter until it will start boiling. At the evaporation state, the line will also go at the same temperature because all the hot water is slowly evaporating.

6)    Explain how you improved as a scientist during the KMT investigations and the trial.

I improved as a scientist during the KMT investigation, I now know how important it is to control your variables, to write down the date, the temperature or anything that is important on your notebook. Because if you don’t, the other team may call you data invalid because you didn’t control you variables and the whole experiment might be wrong. For example, if you didn’t take the temperature of the tap water, then the water temperature might have changed per experiment because of someone changing the temperature of the tap water.

English- “The Other Side of Truth Novel” Reflection
18 April, 2013

1. What did you like/dislike about the novel?

One thing I liked about this novel is the way the book progressed, there were series of events that happened in the book and it may be hard to keep track of it all if the book progressed too slow or too fast. For example, in one part of the book, the children was lost in the streets of London. The author didn’t expand that situation for far too long, not too long to make us  forget that they’re dad is trying to find them. So I think that the pace of this book is good for the audience to understand and be able to keep track of everything that is happening.

2. For the project, what skills did you learn or apply in a different way than you had before?

One skill that I applied to this project is making a script, it was a lot easier if a script to be able to plan out what we have to say, and what pictures we should add to go with that voiceover. If we haven’t used this skill for our project, our keynote presentation would be scrambled with unorganized information and various pictures all over the place that might not be relevant to your information. I also learned how to use Keynote’s voiceover to record our voices, to make our presentation have a voiceover. It can help the audience understand better to have a voiceover in the background instead of reading a bunch of text.

3. If you worked with a partner, evaluate your own contributions.

I think I contributed a pretty good chunk in our presentation. During research time, I try my best to find the best websites which can give us good information which is relevant to our research question. When we make the script, I also contribute my ideas and thoughts on how the script can go and what we should say to make the audience better understand. I try to find good pictures which will be relevant to what we will be saying, and I also contributed to almost half of the slides on our keynote presentation.

The Other Side of Truth Novel:

Source of picture:

http://www.elliottbaybook.com/book/9780064410021

Math- Fraction and Decimal Unit Reflection
17 April, 2013

1. Where would you fall on the stress and learning graph? Why?

I think I would fall on a 3 on the stress and learning graph, I understood most of the activities that we are learning, and the lessons. Even if I don’t understand something during the fractions and decimals, I would ask one of my classmate. Who would usually be able to help me figure out what I’m doing wrong, and correct me. For example, when we would model out fraction problems, I would usually understand most of them, but some questions I get stuck on, I would get help from my peers.

 2. What was challenging about this unit? What was easy?

The challenging part about this unit is modeling fraction problems, and only using equations to find the answer to double check with our modeled answers. It also challenging to model the remainders in a fraction, it was confusing at first, but after a couple of practices I got the hang of it. It was easy converting fractions into decimals, only needing to know how to long divide.

3. How was your effort in class and at home reflected in your assessment results?

I think my effort in class and at home are at a “good” level, I do all my homework and pay attention during class. I also try my best at doing textbook homework, and try to figure out the problem again if I don’t get the right answer. That way, I can learn from my mistakes and not do it again. All the in-class work, I also tried my best doing it such as the fraction word problem modeling.

4. What activities did you like in this unit?

I liked the activity where we had 2 strings, and moving the strings in different direction would mean a different meaning in a fraction term. So moving the string to the right could mean adding 1/2 to the equation, or tying the strings together could be multiplying by 1/2. It helped us understand how to add and multiply fractions.

Watch my documentary on St.Andrews Church

You can view how the movie in progress at my website.

7D St Andrews Anglican Church 2013 from Nicolas C (Cdnis) on Vimeo.

D.E.A.D Day Reflection
14 March, 2013

D.E.A.D day stands for “Drop everything and design”, it only happens twice a year. During that day, we skip all classes and learn about technology and what our upcoming project is.  The project that we will be doing is to make a documentary about a place in Hong Kong, each group gets a different location. We work in groups of 3 and have to know its history, how its change the culture and film about it. I’ve learned how to make a website using google, and also how to make your website better by adding tabs and different sections to it.

During today’s D.E.A.D day, I liked the way we learned about designing and technology. By having everyone at 1 place, where we can all learn together. Then if we get confused, we can ask someone near by. This way, teachers won’t have to keep switching between different classrooms to teach. I wished that there wouldn’t be that much technical difficulties, like sometimes loss of internet. The reason why we lose internet is probably because there are a lot of students using it at once, there isn’t really a way to stop it, but it’d be nice to have perfect internet while everyone is still using it. If I were to start over this design day again, I would try to speed up my process. For example, I would try to make my website faster, but I got confused by some of the controls.

]]> http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/2013/03/14/d-e-a-d-day-reflection/feed/ 0 http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/2013/02/08/authors-choice-task-reflection/ http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/2013/02/08/authors-choice-task-reflection/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:19:46 +0000 043050 http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/students/043050/?p=627

Author’s Choice Reflection
8 February, 2013

We had a big assessment for English, it is called Author’s Choice. We had to create our own short story based on something that happened to us. We also had to look at other people’s presentations and observed the positive and negatives, and based on those notes make a presentation that explains the choices that I made in my short story.

I have used Keynote for a very long time, and know how to use it effectively in a presentation. So instead on improving my visuals, I try to improve my speech and the way I explain. I try not to stutter and spoke slowly, I did not want my audience to be confused on what I’m saying. I made my voice clear and loud, so the whole class can hear and understand me.

If I could do my presentation over again, I would have added a slide in my keynote where it would have a summary on my short story. So that when I explained how I used sensory imagery or similes, they won’t be confused on who the protagonist and antagonist are. But overall, I think I clearly explained why I made my choices in my short story presentation.

Short Story name: “Take And Run”.

TAP- How can habit hurt you?
6 February, 2013

Bad habits can hurt you in many ways. I myself have a bad habit, my bad habit is that I do not share my ideas or thoughts often. I bottle them inside myself until sooner or later someone else also gets the same idea or we move on, this bad habit could hinder me in the future. For example, if I get a job and I have a great idea to improve the store or market then I won’t share it because I’m to shy to or until someone else shares it and they get the recognition. I think to start overcoming this bad habit is to start communicating more in class, start sharing more ideas little by little. For example, maybe share 1 idea per class and start working up to 2 ideas per class and so on. If I do this, then I won’t have to fear of sharing my ideas or presenting. So in conclusion, I think its the decision of a person of whether they decide to do something about it, or just let the bad habit hinder you in life.

Mathematics: Pattern Unit Reflection
24 January, 2013

 During the pattern unit, I liked learning the input, output table. I completely understood the input, output and I could easily find the formula depending on how hard it is. For example, if it is a level 5-6 question, I could probably do it. But when I encounter a level 7-8 question, I would have to take my time and think because it is something that we are unfamiliar with. I do not like number sequences because I am familiar with finding formulas, but not just finding the patterns. For example, not being able to use “X” and “Y” was difficult for me. Finding the formula from the input/output table was easy for me to learn. I could easily identify the formula depending on how hard it is.

Studying patterns is important because it can help us in real life situations. For example, by learning patterns, we could predict what will happen next. Like in the dinner table problem, we have to predict how much people can sit in 8 tables. That can help us in real life, like planning a wedding, or planning a birthday party.