Reflection

Two Learner Profile Attributes:

Risk-Taker: I thought that I was a risk-taker in this camp because I had tried a lot of things that were new and different. One of the things that were different was the food. In Thailand, the food was spicy, but I still tried it because it is a new experience for me. Another thing that was new was building bricks. It had not been something that I have tried in life, but I tried it without hesitation, but guess what? It was fun!

Communicator: In this trip, the activity that reflected me as a communicator was communicating with the Thai kids with only sign language. We still spoke english, but they usually don’t understand it. We communicated well by some skills we used, such as sign language. So when we wanted them to sit down, we pushed our in the downwards direction, showing the sign of sitting down. But another way we used to communicate was by leadership. We did the actions ourself, so it was easier for them to understand.

What did the community service activity help you understand about people less privileged than you?

The community service activity helped me understand a lot about people less privileged than me. First, we went to their kitchen as a group, and I found out that their kitchen was 1/10 of our size, and it was around the size of my bedroom  So from this point, I found out that the people their do not have a lot of money. 

Another way I understood about how poor the people were was the brick building project. The school only earns 140,000 Baht a month since each student out of the 100 gives a school fee worth 1,400 Baht. Q, the community service leader, explained to us that all this money is only enough for the food and education for children, so it does not have enough money for building new houses and buildings for the school. So that is why we went to help the school build the new kitchen.

I also found out that their facilities are not as well as ours. In our school, we have two cafeterias and they are both really big in size and really clean. But when I went to their cafeteria, it was around 1/4 of our 12th floor cafeteria, and they also had to combine the assembly hall with the cafeteria! 

How has this trip helped you to appreciate nature?

This trip helped me learn about nature a lot! One of the places I learnt to appreciate nature was in Jungle Survival. It helped me appreciate nature the most because I found out that nature was our life! If you are lost in the woods, and their is no nature, then you can’t find survival needs to build your shelter, fire, etc.

Another reason I have learnt to appreciate nature was that everything was made out of nature. For example, the concrete we used for brick building was all made from nature! According to my teacher, who saw the process of making the concrete, he said that the concrete was made out of different kinds of soil mixed together! In the Hilltribe hike, I saw that the houses in the village were all made out of straws, wood and bamboo!

In this trip, all the surroundings were different than Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, there were buildings everywhere and you can barely see nature at all. But in our resort in Chiang Rai, we could see mountains and grass everywhere, and that helped me appreciate the beauty of nature! Without this trip, I would have never know that nature was so useful.

What is something that surprised you about yourself or about someone else?

What surprised me was that how willing I was to try the confidence course again, even though I fell into the water two times. I was surprised by how determined I was to beat what I have failed and try to succeed, but success doesn’t always come the first or second time. I was also surprised by how strong I was when I passed the rings in the confidence course, because I thought that I would fall into the water for sure!

Picture Link: https://plus.google.com/photos/100978873100881995028/albums/5877277196846609137?authkey=CI7d6869-t6YNA

For the last month, we have been conducting experiments for the KMT Court Case. Our class was split into two parts. The prosecution, which is trying to make Mr. Kirchner go to jail, and the defense, which’s objective is to keep Mr. Kirchner from jail. I was part of the defense side.

At the end of the court case, the jury’s verdict was that the case was hungary  since there were two votes per side. I don’t agree to it, because the prosecution’s data was not really strong.

1. Nicola’s group: They were escaping our question when we were asking them if it was in the 8 Laws of KMT or not, but they were talking about random things.
2. Vincent’s group: They did not prove that the spaces were empty, and if they were particles in them.
3. Sophia’s group: Their point was proving that they don’t think there are particles in it because they could not see it. But scientists need to be sure about their opinions, and they need evidence and proof to back it up.
4. My group: We had strong evidence and we used our observations and reasoning to back up our opinion. Our reasonings were logical.
5. Also, some of  the prosecution teams could not answer our questions, so that means that their case was not that strong and did not go against KMT.

I was a lawyer, and I did my job pretty well. I asked questions with confidence and also sometimes quickly thought of new questions to try and trap my opponent. But I could have helped out with the opening and closing statements because I let my partner say it all.

If I had a different job, I would have chosen the jury because I could listen to other people’s witnesses and I like judging sides from their cases. And I can get a chance to defend the decision I made also.

One thing I learnt from this KMT Court Case was learning a lot of different creative ways to disagree KMT, like pointing out big spaces like window frames and say that is a space, or using another kind of force on a piece of evidence.

Throughout this KMT Court Case and experiments, I have improved as a scientist because I have conducted experiments and were more familiar to the tools, and I had a chance to present my evidence like a real witnesses according to the experiments.

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

I will fall on 2.5 (not most active but almost active) because I listened to new informations learnt and participated in class most of the time, but sometimes I was bored when I saw information I had learnt before.

What was challenging about this unit? What was easy?

What was challenging about this unit was communication without working out the answer. Because in some of these questions the communicating was hard and sometimes frustrating when we had to explain every single detail (about how formulas work, etc). I found the arithmetic easy because we were just applying simple skills we have learnt to numbers will decimal points.

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

Yes, because the classwork and homework I have done helped me learn and practise skills that will guide me in my assessment, and I gave effort into my work and did my best. But some of the effort did not reflect my assessment results because I made a lot of careless mistakes, and that did not appear in my classwork or homework.

What activities did you like in this unit?

I liked how we had a test preparation the day before when we went into different stations because it got to be more involved instead of the teacher standing in the front of the room, asking question because that way only one person is involved at a time. I also liked how we had videos, websites, and different tools to help me understand more about the concept.

Brief summary of unit:

This unit was about decimals. We learnt how to add, subtract, multiply and divide decimals. When adding decimals, we turn the denominators into common denominators by multiply them by an amount, then we add the numerators together. Subtraction is the same concept, except we just subtract the numerators.

In multiplication, we first count the total number of decimal spaces for both numbers. Second, we multiply them the same as whole numbers, then we put the decimals point the number of spaces to the left.

In division, we need to move the decimal point of the divisor to make it a whole number. You have to move the same amount of decimal places with the dividend to make the equation equal. Then just divide it like a normal division problem. One common mistake that people make is move the decimal point after they calculated the answer. Remember, just leave the answer as it is, don’t move the decimal point.

The video is out now!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch this space for my Hong Kong Heritage documentary about The Mosque.

D.E.A.D Day! Drop everything and…Dig? No, it means Drop Everything and Design! Today, we started our Humanities MYP Design Project (there will be a post about it later on, but you probably have to wait for a long time). 

First, we found out about the heritage place we needed to research on, went into our groups and sorted out our roles. Then we Brainstormed about our Research Question and researched some background information about our heritage place. After that, we created a google site that we were going to use for our process later. I found the site confusing because I was used to using blogs, and the function in the websites were quite different. At last, we looked at examples of other people’s documentary that they made about their heritage place and commented on them.

What I had learn today was using a google site. I learnt how to make pages in it and make tabs of it. Also, I was confused about which mosque we were supposed to go to because there were 5 mosques in Hong Kong.

I really enjoyed this day because even though I had trouble sometimes with the computer technology, it was fun and I had a great time learning new information.

I liked how we used google docs and google sites to develop our planning process and for communicating between our group.

I wished the teachers could go around and help us because some people couldn’t see the projector.

What if you could give us more time to explore google sites?

During this unit, I have learnt really well in the different types of patterns. The input and output patterns (functions) and patterns when the number next is formed by doing something with the number before it. I liked how we had exercises every lesson about patterns because it helped me a lot and now I am much better with patterns! For example, we had to do a dinner problem, and that problem was finding the number of students that will sit around 1 table, 2 tables, etc.

Studying Patterns is important because in real life, we will come across a lot of them. For example, when working with money, and someone gives you a monthly fee, you have to calculate how much he will give you after a period of time.

Dinner Table Problem

For Science, we had to make our own bird. I chose to build it with paper mache.

What was strong and made well of my bird is that the adaptations of the bird was seen very clearly, for example I had only two colors, so you could tell the difference between them. The bird also looked realistic. But what I could have done better was to make the bird more stable, because the bird could not stand alone by it’s legs, it needs a piece of cardboard to support it at the back.

I didn’t use my time effectively because in the second period, I could have worked on the bird instead of working on my adaptations, which I could have done it at home. My work outside of class was sufficient because I came in to class every lunchtime to work on my bird. I didn’t manage my time well because my bird could have been better than now (can stand on two legs, etc.). If I could restart this project, I would have started working on my bird earlier and wrap more layers of newspaper for the paper mache because I almost ran out of time and the bird doesn’t have enough layers.

Overall, in this project, I will mark myself 5 in Criterion C because my bird wasn’t perfect, but I had a lot of information.

This is my bird (yes, I forgot to put the eyes on). 

Since November, we had been studying “Shi HuangDi” (秦始皇）as a unit. In this unit, we researched about him, his achievements, his failures, and his impacts on society and culture. We were then put into groups and we created a poster. After that, we each created our own essays. This was a unit with a lot of work, but it was worth it.

From this unit, I had learnt a lot about Shi HuangDi. Before studying this unit, I only knew that he lead the act “Burning of the Books”. But after this unit, I learnt that he had also a lot of other achievements like building the great wall and terracota army. I had been to the great wall before, and I just can’t believe that the whole wall was constructed by his orders. The workers that built this must have been very tired.

I also learnt a lot of skills in this unit. First, I learnt how to use notecards in Noodletools. Noodletools is a source that helps you cite your sources and sort out the information. Notecards in Noodletools are used to sort out information. Something else that I had learnt was writing persuasive essays. I learnt that we write in 4 paragraphs, the introduction, the positive achievements, the negative achievements, and the conclusion. This structure helped a lot because I did not have to spend time to think about the format.

Noodletools: Notecards

In math study of Algebra and Patterns, I am looking at Human Ingenuity as the Area of Interaction because humans made these patterns and they figured out the patterns of inputs and outputs. For example, patterns are used in life when figuring out the number of students in each class. So if there are 50 classes, we have to figure out how many students are in the school.

This is a Scientific Journal of how Science solved Famine.

This is a assignment/assessment of our first unit in Science class. This is an assessment to assess our Criterion A and Criterion B grade (One world and Communications in Science). Enjoy!

How Science Solved Famine

Abstract

This report talks about a problem that occurred in developing countries during the 1950s, and how Norman Borlaug used science to solve it. His discoveries had successes and failures, and this problem and solution interacted most with the factor  “Economic”.

Introduction

The problem that science is used to solve it is that in the 1950s, developing countries such as India, Pakistan, had famine/hunger and lacking food. (“Borlaug”) Also the fact that Mexican wheat is vulnerable to “Stem Rust”,w which means their wheat is not that reliable to eat, which means they are also lacking some food. As you can see, this is a big problem. (“Norman E.”)

Method

To find a high yield product and also a disease-resistant breed of wheat to the “stem rust”, Scientist Norman Borlaug used Science to solve this problem by making trials and experiments to find out a correct crossbreed wheat product. He imported different kinds of wheat and tried crossbreeding it with the Mexican Wheat and see if it was disease-resistant and if it had a high yield. In conclusion, that was how science was used to solve the problem or issue. (Pollack)

Results

So after decades of investigating, he found out that crossbreeding Japanese Dwarf Wheat with the Mexican wheat can help prevent the stem rust, and also it saved the countries from famine. (“Norman Ernest”)

Since then, developing countries like Pakistan, India and Mexico have became richer and wealthier because of the discovery. Also, since those countries grew so much wheat, part of it was exported to other countries, and therefore it can earn more money also. (Midwest)

Discussion

The Scientific Method that was used to solve the problem is partly effective because there were successes and failures that happened from that solution.

There were successes in this discovery. This discovery tripled crop productions in Mexico, China, and Pakistan, and the countries also had higher yields. Also, there are less money spent on Agriculture because the wheat grew is tripled compared to the wheat before. (“Green”)

But there were failures too. Poor farmers could not afford to buy the elements to create this combination of wheat, so only rich farmers could earn more money. (Briney; “Green”) Second, the Dwarf Wheat and Mexican Wheat combination creates more yields, which means more uses of pesticides, a chemical for killing insects, which will harm wildlife and human health. (“Green”; Midwest) Third, more crop productions means providing food to more people, so this solution might lead to overpopulation because of land limit. (“Green”; “Norman E.”)

This affects the factor “Economic” because it interacted with business and money in the developing countries. Before Norman Borlaug used science to solve the problem, the countries had a little money because they had to use it all to buy crops. But after the solution was made, the developing countries can use less money to make high-yields. Also the fact that they have so many crops, they had to export it to other countries, therefore they could earn more money. So the incomes in those countries have risen, and that made the countries less poor. (“Green”)

Conclusion

So overall, Norman Borlaug used science to solve a problem that happened in developing countries then. His solution then had successes and failures, and it interacted with the factor “Economic”.

Works Cited 

“Borlaug, Norman.” Britannica Student Encyclopedia. N.p.: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.,, 2012. N. pag. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. Web. 1 Nov. 2012.

Briney, Amanda. “Green Revolution.” About.Com Geography. About.com, 2012. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://geography.about.com/od/globalproblemsandissues/a/greenrevolution.htm>.

“The Green Revolution Successes and Failures.” Slideshare. SlideShare Inc, 2012. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://www.slideshare.net/cheergalsal/green-revolution>.

Midwest PRS: Hand and Plastic Surgery. Midwest PRS: Hand & Plastic Surgery, 2012. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://www.midwestprs.com/wheat-belly-some-thoughts-about-norman-borlaug-green-revolution>.

“Norman E Borlaug.” Gale Science in Context. N.p.: Gale, 2009. N. pag. Gale Science in Context. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/scic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=SCIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&source=&sortBy=&displayGroups=&search_within_results=&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CK2644110013>.

“Norman Ernest Borlaug.” Student Research Center: Powered by EBSCOhost. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. EBSCOhost. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ulh&AN=39048268&site=src-live>.

Pollack, Andrew. “Changing times challenge world hunger organization.” Gale Science in Context. N.p.: Gale, 2009. N. pag. Gale Science in Context. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/scic/NewsDetailsPage/NewsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=SCIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=News&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&source=&sortBy=&displayGroups=&search_within_results=&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA74543443>.