Last week while the other grade 7′s were on their experience week trip, I stayed at school and did volunteer work. During that time, I demonstrated the learner profile attributes principled and caring.

I think I demonstrated the attribute caring because I helped the grade 2′s with their class work and also helped the teachers by creating activities for their students. During that time, I helped a young girl with her classwork, at first she kept on daydreaming. But after the session, she understood everything and walked out with a big smile. The grade 2′s were a pleasure to work with and they seemed to be enjoying themselves when I was there to help them with the areas that were difficult to them.

I think I demonstrated the attribute principled because I was a good role model during the time I was helping them. I could tell right from wrong and was always honest about everything I was doing. I was always serious and concentrated when important work had to be done, and showed integrity while I was doing it.

Did you get to know someone new during your volunteer work?

Other than demonstrating the learner profile attributes, there were some other important points that tagged along this amazing volunteer experience, such as, meeting new different students and teachers in grade 2. For example, during that time I met a teacher who helped different classes, I found out that she used to be a student at the school. We got talking and ended up having a really good time together.

How did you show personal responsibility during the volunteer work?

I realized that I showed responsibility during the time with the grade 2′s. I cleaned up the mess I made (without any help) and concentrated on my own thing without any distractions. I took care of the things that needed to be done. I never thought I could be this responsible until I did the volunteer work. Which helped me a lot.

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

During the time helping out the grade 2′s I really surprised myself when I was abled to teach an eight year old girl her class work. I was really surprised because I never thought I could “successfully teach someone how to do their own classwork.

Overall, this week has been an absolute blast! I really enjoyed working with the grade 2′s and meeting new people. I really enjoyed this learning and helping experience and I hope to do something like this again!

Hey Everyone! So recently I have been working on a documentary to promote a really important heritage site in Hong Kong. Click HERE to catch the behind the scenes features, and be sure to watch the documentary on the website or watch it here right now!

Thank you!

During the past three science classes we have been pulling all our data, investigations and exhibits together to start our KMT Court Case. This court case involved two teams: the prosecution team and the defense team. The prosecution team had to prove Mr. Kirchner guilty for providing fake information about the KMT and the Defense team had to prove Mr. Kirchner non-guilty. As I mentioned, the court case went on for about three classes. The first day was for the prosecution, the second day was for the defense, and the last and final day was for recalling witnesses and closing arguments from both sides. Today was the last day for closing arguments and recalling witnesses, so that ment that the Jury members had to decide whether the prosecution team would win or the defense. At the end of the day, the Jury members said that… the prosecution team got two votes and the defense got two also… which basically ment that we tied. In my opinion, I personally think that the Jury members should have made us the winning team because, in the real world (according to the scientific community) the KMT is true. And since the defense got the same amount of votes as us, it means that they had ALL the answers right infront of them but still didn’t prove all the points of the KMT. And as for the prosecution side, we proved that KMT doesn’t exist with supported facts and basically… a harder base to start with. Since I was only an expert witness during this court case, all my questions had to be asked through a lawyer, which made it really difficult when I had a really important question and had to wait for a long time before the lawyer could actually consider asking my question. But other than that, I think that I fulfilled my responsibilities as an expert witness by proving the defense lawyers wrong with my group members. Even though this has been a really interesting court case, I kind of regret not volunteering to be the second photographer. I regret this because, I think it would be a big help if more pictures would get taken. Finally, throughout this court case I have learned a lot more about the KMT (such as, you can’t see particles directly from the naked eye, it has to be seen from a really professional telescope etc…). I really do think that I have became a better scientist because now I can prove my points clearly, supporting observations and claims that have occurred in my experiment. Overall, this court case has been an absolute blast and I hope i’ll get a chance to do something like this again!

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

On the stress graph I would fall on four because this has been one of the more difficult units for me to follow. As mentioned in my previous posts and reflections, fractions and decimals have never been one of my strong math topics. Actually, math has never been one of my strong subjects. Thats why I thought this unit was challenging and hard to follow. This unit has made me feel more stressed than I did with the other units, thats why this has made me realized that I need to review and try to catch up!

What was challenging about this unit? What was easy?

This whole entire unit has been quite challenging for me, there were some parts that I could do well, but the other parts were just too confusing for me to understand. At the start of the unit when we were learning a

Hey Everyone!

Watch this space for my Hong Kong Heritage documentary about the Tin Hau Temple in Yau Ma Tei. You can watch the movie in progress at MY WEBSITE!

Stay tuned for the documentary coming out in April!

Thanks!

One of my bad habits are being afraid to ask questions, since I was about six years old, I started my first year in primary school. I was never the girl who would stand out in the class, I would always try to find a way to make myself not visible. I guess what put me back from getting a lot of full marks and positive feedback was because of my lack of confidence and gut to ask the simplest question in the entire world, “I don’t understand”. This habit has traveled everywhere with me, around school, around my neighborhood even in my daily life. You might think that i’ve tried getting rid of this habit, trust me I have… for seven years. The reason why getting rid of this habit never really worked out for me is because I never tried. After growing up and learning more everyday I have learnt that if you never try you will never succeed. I really want to get rid of this habit because I don’t want to be held back from getting good results in life and school. I have learnt that questions are like unlimited chances that will be with you forever, if you don’t understand something there is always someone to ask. Even when your on the street, looking for a destination, you can still ask someone. But in my case, I never asked anyone, after years of not asking questions I have realized that it has really dragged me back. That is why this is the first priority that i’m setting up for myself, ask questions when you don’t understand. In my opinion, the only way to change a this habit is to take risks. The only reason why your not asking a question is because you don’t know what other people will think of you. But sometimes, you just need to take the risk, in order for yourself to improve in life. From past experiences at school, I was taking a math test and I didn’t understand a question, I was about to ask a question but I looked around the room and saw that now one was asking a question. That was the thing that stopped me from asking the question that could get me a higher level in math, but the thing that pushed me back was my lack of confidence to ask a simple question, I don’t understand. So starting from today, I am going to build up my confidence, which will lead me to the risk to ask the question, I don’t understand.

During the past few weeks we have been working on the unit about Shi Huang Di, The first Emperor of China. Shi Huang Di is known to be one of the most selfish and demanding emperors of all time but there were many good achievements that he was involved in. He was responsible for the building of the Great Wall and Terracotta Army. During this unit I have learned many things about Shi Huang Di but have also learned a variety of new skills that I can carry on towards my learning. For example, I have learned how to write a proper but “good” outline, I have learned how to use the notecards properly when doing research, siting my sources properly, and many more. Even though I have learned many skills,the most important skill I have learned would be learning how to write a good outline. The reason why I think learning how to write a good outline is because if you know how to write a proper outline it can really lead to writing a good and detailed essay. As I mentioned, during this unit we were involved in many activities and assignments like the Shi Huang Di poster (oral presentation). During that activity I have learned more about the C.R.A.P. principles and how you can relate them to different kinds of activities which was a really good skill to have learned. The Shi Huang Di oral presentation were one of my favorite activities because I really enjoyed working in a group with people that i’ve never gotten a chance to work with before! Overall, this has been an extremely fun unit and I really really enjoyed it

Here is a small part of my Shi Huang Di essay! Enjoy

Shi Huang Di is known to be one of the most demanding and cruel emperors of all time, but the real question is “To what extent was Shi Huang Di a good emperor”?

Qin Shi Huang Di was born in 259 B.C. to King Zhuangxiang of Qin and Queen Dowager Zhao in Handan, China. He died on August 11th 210 B.C. at the age of 48 from taking too many mercury pills for immortality. His given name was known to be “Ying Zhao Zheng” but he then changed it to Qin Shi Huang Di when he became emperor, the name Qin Shi Huang Di means the first Emperor. Shi Huang Di was crowned emperor at the age of 13 in 247 B.C., he had his coronation in 238 B.C.

In Math we are studying algebraic patterns. I am looking at Human Ingenuity as the Area of Interaction because I think that mathematics and human ingenuity relate to each other more than the other Area of Interaction, you can use it in your daily life.

Alexander Fleming: The Discovery of Penicillin

Abstract:

For the scientific journal I investigated on Alexander Fleming. I explained the different problems, factors, meanings, and results that Alexander Fleming had when he was discovering penicillin. Alexander Fleming is best known for his discovery of penicillin in 1928. He calls his discovery of penicillin an “dramatic discovery”, meaning he did not intend to discover penicillin. Furthermore, this journal addresses how penicillin has affected death rates and even modern life. As a result,  Alexander Fleming’s “dramatic discovery” of penicillin has helped millions of lives in the past, as well as today, and will continue on in the future. (Britannica Online School Edition)

Intro:

Before penicillin was discovered the death rates were really high. Many people died from bacteria growth, causing blood poisoning and other fatal diseases. In the past, many people had deep wounds that got infected and could not be sanitized or cleaned. Even a simple everyday cut could cause infections and death. Bacteria growth caused millions of deaths, penicillin was the first type of antibiotic that saved millions of people from dying.

(Britannica Online School Edition)

Methods:

On a September morning in 1928, Alexander Fleming took out a pile of petri dishes he had placed on a bench before he left to go on a vacation with his family. Fleming was looking through the dishes to see which ones he could retain, but many of the dishes were contaminated. He then placed each of those in an ever growing pile in a tray of Lysol. Alexander Fleming was mainly in search of a “wonder drug” that would not harm the human body, only to kill the bacteria. While sorting out the petri dishes he noticed something strange about one dish. He noticed that a mold had grown on the dish when he was away. However, the mold had seemed to kill the bacteria surrounding it. After observing the petri dish, Fleming realized that the mold had capability of killing bacteria. Fleming spent weeks growing more mold and figuring out the substance the mold had that could kill the bacteria. But after finding out more about the mold, Fleming wanted to figure out where the mold had came from. It turned out that the mold belonged to La Touche’s room below Fleming’s. It seemed to have travelled all the way up to Fleming’s room. Fleming continued conduct numerous experiments to verify the effect of the mold and weather it would kill other harmful bacteria. Surprisingly, the mold had killed a large amount of the bacteria. (About, Britannica Online School Edition)

Results:

While Fleming was discovering deadly bacteria in 1928, he found a mold forming on one of his bacteria cultures. He noticed that the bacteria surrounding the mold had disappeared. Fleming kept a strain of mold alive and began testing it on laboratory animals. In 1929 he published his first medical paper about a powerful microbe killer that did not injure human tissue. Later on in 1938 a team of Oxford University scientists, Howard Florey and Ernst B. Chain remembered the research paper. Both of the Oxford scientists were credited for refining Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. (Britannica Online School Edition, Zephyrus)

Discussion:

Fleming’s discovery of antibiotics has environmental factors. To start of with the environmental factor, it relates to Fleming’s discovery of antibiotics because of the use on animals. Since the beginning of antibiotics, animals were affected. Antibiotics would not have been in use today if it had not been tested on laboratory animals such as guinea pigs, and rats. When antibiotics was first discovered, it was tested on humans. Sir Howard Florey started using mice because he only had a little amount of penicillin left,  leading him to not test it on humans. Florey kept on testing penicillin on animals because the results on the mice were so convincing. Antibiotics has not only affected animals in the past it is still affecting them now. In places like the United States, Livestock producers are feeding antibiotics to animals to make them grow fatter and faster. Many people have been complaining and saying that they should not be feeding them to make them grow, they should be feeding antibiotics to animals in need of it. Antibiotics is a drug used to treat sick human beings and animals, it is not supposed to be used on animals for growth promotion. Feeding drugs to healthy animals is not doing any good for the animals,  the environment and as well as for our future. (Chicago Tribune)

Works Sited:

Eng, Monica. “FDA says stop feeding antibiotics to healthy animals for growth promotion.” Chicago Tribune. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-11/features/chi-food-policy-fda-issue-new-guidelines-on-antibiotic-in-animals-20120411_1_growth-promotion-animal-health-institute-food-animal-production>.

“Fleming, Alexander.” Fleming, Alexander: 1-1. Britannica Online School Edition. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://www.school.ebonline.com/comptons/article-9274340?query=alexander%20fleming&ct=null>.

Rosenberg, Jennifer. “Alexander Fleming Discovers Penicillin” ["Alexander Fleming Discovers Penicillin"]. About.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. <http://history1900s.about.com/od/medicaladvancesissues/a/penicillin_2.htm>.

Zephyrus. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. <http://www.zephyrus.co.uk/alexanderfleming.html>.

For this particular issue I think it refers to Human Ingenuity more than Environmental. Both the Lorax and the Man Made Beach are about how humans are building and making things with natural resources that have a big impact to the environment. The Lorax is mainly about “Once-ler” who is wasting trees on knitting and wasting a lot of natural resources. While on the other hand, the Man Made Beach is about a man who wants to “make” a man made beach, which is harming the environment. I think that Human Ingenuity is more relevant because it doesn’t harm any marine and bird species. Even though wasting natural resources isn’t the best way to treat the environment, many species are getting extinct and we want to save as may of them as possible. All though I think Human Ingenuity is more relevant, natural resources are going to run out if we don’t use it efficiently. I think that we should use natural resources instead of harming species, but we should definitely use our natural resources more efficiently and with care.

Ng, Jyce. “Chief Executive Leung Angers Activists by Backing Man-made Beach.”South China Morning Post. South China Morning Post, 26 Oct. 201. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1069894/chief-executive-backs-plan-man-made-beach-lung-mei-tai-po>.

Rachel Leung’s notes

An artist’s impression of the new man-made beach at Lung Mei