Aside from picking a topic and debate for an hour, we redirect our focus on strategies used in speaking or even the voices that are stated in pictures. That includes formal speeches, presentation, posters or flyers in the advertisement. In other words, we learned about rhetorical appeals. There are three which are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos is about how you convince an audience of your credibility. Pathos appeals to emotion which could sometimes be irrational and unpredictable Logos is the use of logic and reason, using factual knowledge to convince the audience. For example, analogy, examples, citations of research or statistics. After trying to comprehend these three rhetorical appeals, we took it to another level by applying one of these three when giving a one-minute speech. You are given three words. Then you need to make connections between the three words and give a persuasive speech using one of the three appeals. It’s very useful to take a closer look at the art of persuasion because, in our daily life, we apply these strategies in our speech without even noticing it.
Solar Pi Grant Writing
In order to get funds to implement the Solar Pi project in two pilot schools, a grant proposal was required. This money is to support the Solar Pi Exploration Round 2, which I am not a part of.
Summary of Solar Pi Exploration: Implement Solar Pi into two government schools to test out the program. If it works well within these two schools, the program can be expanded in a wider range Cambodia. Solar Pi runs by using the converted energy from the sun; it has a long-term durability. In countries like Cambodia, it’ll be an advantage because of the vast amount of sunlight. By using Solar Pi, little to no money is required, unlike electricity. We can install offline applications including English and 3D program that students can self-teach during free time. This will raise their proficiency to the highest levels before graduating from high school which will further be beneficial for the students and Cambodia.
However, without the money, the project won’t process. The grant is strenuous. You have to understand most parts of the project, have every little piece of information, brainstorm an outline for the grant, and finally, fill out all the sections of the grant. Furthermore, persuasive language is necessary. It was really quite a challenge because it was my first time. Lastly, the grant was finalized and sent out and hopefully, it’ll be accepted!
Pchum Ben
During Khmer class, we were working on writing a report about a ceremony called Pchum Ben. Pchum Ben is a ceremony that dedicates those the spirits that we believe are in hell. People believe that during this ceremony, in a period of 15 days, those spirits are freed from hell to get food from their family. So, we wrote a report about the celebration of the ceremony, apparels to go to the pagoda and the history about this event.
Coming of Age Narrative Essay
In English literacy, we have done one main project which is a narrative essay about coming of age. It took us a few weeks to brainstorm, write, revise and finalize. At first, we brainstorm the moment that we feel important in our life, a moment that we feel more mature, the coming of age moment. Second, we try to write up to two to three pages. Then, we revise both grammatical errors and the context, to ensure that it makes sense. Next, we edit with a partner. Lastly, we evaluate ourselves with a rubric. In doing this process, we also learn about parallel sentences and concision.
Mission in Phnom Penh
At the beginning of this school year, after a long summer break, we started our first week with a day to go out and explore the society. In a team of four, I was given tasks to interview people about their beliefs on dinosaurs, contact a place about the price of chickpeas and… We had to walk around Phnom Penh, without any facilitators and using our own ways to navigate the roads in order to complete the tasks. It was a great experience to be on my own with my friends without a teacher.
Frisbee competition in Philippines
On August 16th, I left to the Philippines with the other five students, my learning facilitator, Alli, and the Cambodian Ultimate Frisbee team (including some foreigners). We were a team representing Cambodia to compete in the Asian Oceanic Ultimate and Guts Club Championships. It was my first time ever to travel overseas to compete in sports. Our team lost due to the lack of experience, both playing together as a team and competing in tournaments. However, it was a great experience to attend such an event. We hope to join again next time!
Basketball
Basketball is an after school extension. I join basketball because I feel like in basketball, you really need to collaborate and understand the strategies. Compared to other sports, you have little to no time to hesitate when playing basketball. You have to think and react swiftly. I find it hard to play, shoot and dribble, but I still entertain it very much.
Bambujaya
A new school called “Bambujaya” is opening up and needed to hire curriculum developers to rewrite all the Khmer grade one textbooks, Khmer Literacy, Math and Science and Social Studies. The modifications made were mostly due to gender equity and stereotypes, words that aren’t commonly used, and images that look harmful or aren’t associated with Cambodia. Since photo enhancement is necessary in order to rewrite the textbooks, we have recruited some Liger students to illustrate pictures and take photos for us with a clear written contract. With two weeks left, instead of continuing to revise the textbooks, we have chosen main content (chapter) from each textbook and adding activities to it. Then, we convert all the ideas we brainstormed into Prezi presentations. The Exploration ended, but it continues into an Expertise because we need to keep improving and finalize the product.
Advanced Placement Computer Science (AP Com Sci)
Advanced Placement Computer Science (AP CS) is a course of programming. In this class, we learn how to code with Java. These first several weeks, we learned how to use basic calculations, learned about primitive types and non-primitive types of data and studied the foundations. The class is a preparation for the AP Stats exam in February.
Friction Lab
Physic is a quite hard subject to comprehend because there aren’t a lot of real examples to represent the equations. One of the things we did in class was a lab experiment. Using tape, and different sandpapers on a wooden ramp, we tried to find the coefficient of friction to make the object moves.
Picture of the activity is being sent…