About 2 weeks ago, grade 7 went on their experience week to Chiang Mai (in Thailand). During experience week, students get to experience new and many different things that they wouldn’t be able to do in Hong Kong. We got to do a lot of activities, majority of the activities are physical. For example, kayaking, hiking, confidence course, rock climbing etc.

Maekok River Resort

Risk-Taker

I was a risk taker during the trip because I tried my best in unfamiliar situations. For example, we did an activity called ‘The Confidence Course’, it was a special activity pushing you to try new things and gain more confidence by doing it. It takes a lot of courage and bravery to try new things or even things you know you’re not good at. For example, the confidence course has 4 stages, and if you fall, you fall in to a mini pond of water. The last stage was to either do the monkey bars or the rings. Knowing that I haven’t gone on the monkey bars or the rings for years, I was a bit scared and I was almost sure that I was going to fall in to the water. But when I actually got to that stage, I went on the monkey bars and surprised myself because I didn’t fall in to the water and passed the confidence course.

The Confidence Course

Another reason I was a risk taker on the trip was because we did an activity that I have never done before, kayaking. Since it was my first time, I was kind of nervous. But it turned out really fun because we all had to cap-size (another thing I have never done before), and then paddle for a really long distance. It was one of the best activities during experience week. It was better than I had expected.

Kayaking Pond --> River

Balanced

During the experience week, I think that I became more balanced than I have ever been. This was because for everyday of that week, we did a physical activity which required a lot of knowledge and exercise. Although we were mainly doing physical activities, it still required a lot of thinking. I have learnt a lot from doing those activities, I learnt many techniques and strategies.

Rock Climbing Wall

I was also balanced during the trip because I became more social than I was when I was just at home sitting in front of my computer. I became healthier during the trip, this was because we learnt how to cook stir fry and curry. We also got a very different food choice compared to Hong Kong.

Social - Student Pool

I surprised myself by doing the physical activities. For example, like I said, I didn’t think I would pass the confidence course with out falling in to the water. Also, for rock climbing, I didn’t know that I could achieve the level that I did.

The Community Service activity I did made me realize how fortunate we were to have what we have right now. It  made me more aware of what is happening around the world and the people who are less privileged  I’m glad I got to help out by making bricks and painting the wall to help the school build a cafeteria.

Making Bricks

Experience week was great. I got to learn and do many new things, I also met many new people. It was really fun.

My class is now studying MUN also known as Model United Nations, in Humanities. MUN is basically where 192 countries all around the world who would come together and talk about global issues such as hunger and poverty, human rights and freedom. Their goal (MUN) is to try to solve or help with the important global issues to make the world a better place.

UN’s Main goals: Peace, Human Rights, Foster Freedom, Poverty & Hunger

8 UNO Goals/Millenium Goals: Eradicate Poverty & Hunger, Education for all, Promote gender equality, Reduce childhood mortality, improve maternal health, combat diseases, environmental stability, develop global partnerships.

News Article :  Long Term Study Says Global Warming Is Epic - Environmental Stability

This article is about how global warming is taking over the earth and how much it has impacted on us and our lives. According to the news article,  ’global warming has propelled Earth’s climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest, in just one century.’ The cause of this is mainly because of the man-made resources that we produce that has impacted the world greatly.

I think that even if one person contributes to the world such as recycling, save electricity and reduce, it would make a huge difference towards the environment. I do think that if MUN comes together and tries to raise awareness or to even help with this issue, it would make a great impact (everyone can help). Since there are a few representatives for each country in MUN, each of the countries can help by starting a campaign, raise awareness etc…

I think that MUN does help our world become a better place since they are trying to solve and recognize important global issues.

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

Learning: 4 (good)

I think that I put myself on a 4 out of 5. This is because the content of this unit was pretty easy. I think that this is because of the different activities and explanations Ms. St Amand taught and gave us so we can understand the concept and problem. I also gave myself a 4 our of 5 because to me, it was a review, and the exercises we did were very affective.

Stress: 1-2 (not so much)

I gave myself a 1-2 out of a 5 for the stress rate. This is because I didn’t really worry about how or what to do in math/math problems. I think that it is because I had a good understanding on what we are doing and also because I revised at home so I don’t have much to worry about.

What was challenging about this unit? What was easy?

There weren’t many challenges things in this unit. But if I had to pick, I thought that word problems were the most challenging. This is because it makes and helps your brain think about what the question is asking you. For example, I think that word problems that depend on each other are the most challenging. Like if you get the first question of the word problem wrong, you get the rest wrong.

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

I think my effort in class and at home did help my assessment results, especially for fractions. This is because I did spend time at home doing self revision and searching up online how to do math problems. I also asked for my friends help on how and what to do in order to find the answer.
My effort in class and at home did help me in my decimal assessment, but not as much as it did for my fractions test. I think that this is because I didn’t really revise/look in to word problems for the assessment.

What activities did you like in this unit?

One of my favorite activities for this unit is converting fraction in to decimal. I like this activity very much because I think that it would help both, fraction and decimal. Converting fractions and decimals are my favorite because it give you a better understanding on the value of the number and on the overall topic.

From the beginning of this unit, our class had to read a novel called ‘The Other Side Of The Truth‘. This novel is about refugees trying to seek asylum and stay alive. Right now, we are working on presentation about refugees. My presentation is about the challenges that the North Koreans face when they cross the boarder to China. I think that the novel really helped me to understand different parts of the topic. This is because, I think that my presentation can relate back to the novel and make a connection between them. Both, my presentation and novel, have a similar story to it, it is about families seeking refuge and asylum in another country. There are also similar points that connect between the book, and presentation.

Connections Between the Novel & Presentation

I was really interested in this novel because of its story behind it and what it meant. It also gave me an idea of what people are going through around the world. It talked about the process and changes through their lives and what it meant. I liked  how the author explained in depth about how and why people want to seek refuge in other countries. It really helped me in my presentation. It gave me a clear overview of what I’m suppose to research on, I applied what I learnt from the novel to my project by giving a clear explanation/introduction on to ‘why’ people would want to seek refuge. This is because the audience can understand and engage in to my topic even more.

Process, Changes, Experiences

One of the skills/techniques that I have learnt is to ‘create a conversation’ so the audience would be more interested. I liked this project because it gave me a chance to understand what people have gone through and how to raise more awareness around the world. I also really liked this project because creating this presentation, it could teach people to stand up for whats right/what you believe in, instead of hiding in the shadows.

Background Information

For my refugee project, I did work with a partner. We came up with small sub-topics to talk about in our presentation to help us answer the unit question and our research questions. We talked about the changes, challenges an experiences. We also talked about the the people who were doing that to the refugees. My partner and I decided to split the work up. We both worked on this presentation equally. For example, after one of us had fixed up the script/presentation, the other one would check and edit so it would be improved. We also collaborated through google docs so we can both share and look in to our data that we got.

Overall, I have learnt a lot from doing this presentation. I learnt how to summarize my notes/research data in to small jot notes on the slide so the audience wont zone out because of the amount of words there are.

In CDNIS, every student from the upper school are required to volunteer to provide community service in and outside of school.

Last month, my friend and I volunteered for community service outside of school. We were volunteers at a BBQ charity event to collect donations that were going specifically to a charity and the Guinness world record of hitting 8000+ golf balls in 8 hours. So then the record holder would  donate all the money to a charity. My friend and I went around selling raffle tickets and accepting donations for the donation box.

I think that doing community service and volunteering to help people is a great way to interact with the world and getting to know different things that are happening around the world. It would also make an impact in your own and other peoples lives.This is because it would help our community because after the money goes to the charity, it could help people around the world in need. I would still try and continue to volunteer for community service when I get an opportunity to help and volunteer myself for the community.

Watch this space for my Hong Kong Heritage documentary about 1881 Heritage Former Fire Station.

You can watch the movie in progress at my website.

7D Hong Kong 1881 Heritage – Former Marine Fire Station 2013 from Tiffany Wong on Vimeo.

For the past few weeks, our class has been working on our English summative task. It is to write a short story based on an experience you had (at home) and then make a presentation on why we chose what we chose to use in our story (skills, technique, literary language, sensory imagery,character etc…). Our presentation has to be about 1-2 minutes long, 3 minutes max.

Evidence: Imagery

I think that the skills that I learnt from the Author’s Choice process are the different techniques that I used in my story. I also refined some of my skill of improving my work better. For example, I made appropriate changes to my story when needed (add more personification, literary devices etc.)

If I can make my presentation over again I think I could improve it by adding more evidence and explain the process of my work so then the audience can have a better understanding on why I chose what I chose to put in my short story. Another thing I think I could improve on, on my presentation is to ask the audience to engage more. For example, next time I could ask them questions about what they think the mood was to see if my story was effective.

Evidence: Before & After Improved

I think I was pretty successful because I explained why I did what I did and how it relates back to my story. I also thought that I was successful because I provided evidence from my story so then I can support the information that I am explaining. According to the picture above “Evidence: Before & After Improved” I explained how I changed it and why so then the audience can have a better understanding about why and what I created.

I liked to solve and find the rules for the Input Output Table because there are a variety of ways to do that. I also like to solve word problems/scenarios because there are a lot of interesting ways to solve it. I think that I understand the patterns of the number sequence the best because we have done a lot of activities and learned a lot of formulas to help us better understand the problem. I  don’t have any questions about this unit, but I would love to learn more ways to solve different kinds of problems. The study of patterns is important because you can apply it in to your daily life and predict the patterns of the future/helps you with your real life scenarios.

The Dinner Table – Evidence

We needed to complete this graph and explain the patterns and differences.

Ex. I have created and combined 3 different types of data in to one graph to see the differences.

4= 4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20 etc

6= 6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22 etc

8= 8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24 etc

Going by 2′s (Number sequence)

Dinner Table Graph - Patterns

What I learnt: 

In this unit, we had to learn about Shi Huangdi. Our goal for the end of this unit is to know what extent did Shi Huangdi’s achievements help modernize China. One of our main assessment is to create a poster about the given topic/question about Shi Huangdi with our own groups that Ms. Kirchner chose for us. The second part of this assessment is to create one paragraph based on what we learnt in the process of making the poster. My group was suppose to answer the question and teach the class how Shi Huangdi’s leadership impact society and culture. In the poster we talked about what Shi Huangdi did (eg. legalism, burning of the books, killing the scholars). Another thing that I learnt from this unit is Shi Huangdi’s negative and positive achievements. For example, Shi Huangdi ordered about 4-5 million people to build the Great Wall of China for him to protect the country (positive), but in the process of making the great wall, many of those innocent people died because Shi Huangdi worked them to death 2-3 million people died in the making of the Great Wall). This shows us that even though Shi Huangdi has achieved positive things, there might also be a negative side to it.

Skills That I have learnt:

In this unit, we have done a lot of different activities that helps us improve/learn about the different skills such as sentence fluency, taking notes, researching, writing format etc. One of the activities we did was to take notes on Noodletools and create notecards and form our own ideas to help us with our paragraph about Shi Huangdi (assessment). We practiced on talking notes and thinking out of the box to form new and different perspectives on the data that we have collected.

Our class also learnt about sentence fluency when we had to do out summative assessment (essay about Shi Huangdi in different perspectives). We learnt how to revise paragraphs so it won’t sound that awkward.  My teacher also taught our class how to us different kinds of transition words so the paragraph/ essay/ writing would sound better and not so repetitive.

During this unit, the third thing my class learnt was how to create a timeline. We needed to know how to create a timeline because we needed a reference for Shi Huangdi’s life and all of the positive and negative achievements. Another thing related to timelines that our class has learnt was chronology. We needed to order all of Shi Huangdi’s life achievements/ what he did in to a timeline.

Noodletools Notecard (forming ideas):

This is an example of one of the skills that I have learnt. It is creating notecards, I have made these notecards so then it could help me with my Shi Huangdi paragraph. On the top left box, we had to copy and paste the data directly from the source so we can decide which information we would use for our research. The box next to that (top right texts), we needed to use our own words to re-state the information that we found (use our own words to explain data). The most important part of creating a notecard is to form your own ideas about the data that you have collected (bottom box).