Category: My Liger Learning

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Tropical Forest Ecology

 

Name: Tropical Forest Ecology

Date: May 5 2014 – June 17 2014

Number of People: 12

Essential Questions:

1. How are organisms and the nonliving environment interconnected in the world around us?

2.  What is the value of tropical forest ecosystems for Cambodia?

3. How do humans impact tropical forest ecosystems in Cambodia? Is it possible to use tropical forests sustainably?

Description: In Tropical Forest Ecology we learned about Ecosystems. Ecosystems are a community of organisms that are interconnected and connected with non-living things. We went on two trips because we wanted to experience and see forest directly.We went to Preah Vihear and Koh Kong provinces. When we came back we compared the dry deciduous dipterocarp forest ecosystem (Preah Vihear province) with the evergreen forest ecosystem (Koh Kong province). In Preah Vihear we went to Tmatboey community and in Koh Kong we went to Chi Phat community. We learned about conservation. Conservation means taking care or protecting something. While we learned about conservation, we also learned about sustainable and unsustainable. Sustainable is the action that does not destroy the ecosystem. Unsustainable is the action that destroys the ecosystem. We learned about ecotourism. Ecotourism is tourism that uses and benefits the ecosystem. That is one way that we use ecosystems sustainably.Also we learned about ecological services. Ecological services are the benefits that people get from ecosystems. There are three ecological services such as provisioning services, regulating services and cultural services. Provisioning services are how the ecosystem provides us directly. Ex: Trees give us resin. Regulating services are how the ecosystem regulates the climate. Ex: Trees stop the floods by absorbing the water. Cultural services are how the ecosystems give us something culturally. Ex: Bambuti people use forest plants to smoke for their ceremonies.  We answered our essential questions by using the knowledge that we got from our trips.

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Filming Description

Name of Course: Filmmaking

Learning Facilitator: Mr. Jeff

Number of Students: 12

Dates: January 19 – March 27

Days we Meet: Thursday and Friday

Course Description: Our group studied about filmmaking. When we started to study our Advanced Enrichment we started to study in Internet by watching a video and how many kinds of the tricks that they used to do their videos. When we studied in the Internet already we all started to make one video that talked about the book. When we made the video we were not taking the video in video camera. Our way was we took a picture then we put it in the folder in our computer. Then we used one program in our computer to do our sponser video book. That program is called Movie Maker. Then when we did it already we started a new things. The new thing is that we took a picture of our school then we made it into a video and that video we needed to make it perfect. Some ways that we can make us to have a good video is that our video needed to have three things: 1. good sound on the video 2. picture is clear 3. have a good information. Then our filmmaking thought about a new ideas. Some people thought that they wanted to make a movie about the sticky hand can play the Minecraft in the computer. Some more people said they would like to do a movie about the stickman dancing and one more big ideas was they like to make a movie about the stick girl. We thought that this was very important things so we started to make a movie. The movie like stick men, sticky hand, it just took only a little bit of time but for the stick girl movie it took very long time to make a movie. The title of the movie that talked about the girl was Charlie Lima. This story was really hard to film because we have many scenes to film and one scene maybe took for two days to film because is hard and this story told about the stick girl wanting to be like a human. So it was a little bit related to the people so we needed to make the stick girl look real. That video took us nearly one month to make this movie and until now we not finished yet. Unfortunately the time went so fast so we don’t have enough time to finish our movie but we hope we will. Filmmaking group were really excited because they can study how to make a video and acting and how it hard when we do the movie. Everyday of our study we were trying hard and working together as a team and everyone was happy. We all were really happy to study about filmmaking because filmmaking is the part of the things that is important for us.

Charlie Lima Website: https://d3hzrtb9p6to3i.cloudfront.net/e0/00c290b5ae11e3af71fdca9d7f259a/CharlieLima.mp4

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Algebra A Description

Name of Course: Algebra A

Learning Facilitator: Jeff Boucher

Number of Students: 14

Dates: August 12 – January 16

Days we Meet: Monday – Tuesday

Course Description: In our Advanced Enrichment we learned about Math. This Advanced Enrichment lasted really long and the students had a really hard time working on that. We learned the hard math by learning it step by step. There are many clever students in this class and all of them are very patient. Every day in our class the math got harder and harder but we got smarter as the time kept going. Sometimes we realized that the math that we had learned could be used in real life. The important things that we learned for the whole year were negative numbers, the Greatest Common Factors, linear equations, y=mx+b form or Slope-interception, parabolas, Quadratic formula/equation, etc. All of these math sections were very hard. It is something that people will think that it is hard because they did not try yet and for those people who try they will think it is easy. But for us here we do not think it was hard or easy we were just trying our best.

 

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Zoology B Description

Name of Course: Zoology B

Learning Facilitator: Jojo

Number of Students: 8

Days we Meet: Thursday-Friday

Advanced Enrichment Dates: March 30 – June 12

Course Description: In the Zoology class, we studied about animals. We learned about what animals are made out of but it’s not really about physical. We also studied about cells which are all the organisms made out of. The other things that we studied were classification and types of animals (are they vertebrates or invertebrates). We used microscopes to see the cells. Sometimes in the Zoology class, some students found the fungi (mushroom) or the endoskeleton. Then we all had a look under the microscope. While we were studying about the Animal Kingdom, we used some real things like the Sand Dollars and Coral Reef to make us understand more. We used Youtube to see the videos about the things that we didn’t know. Studying Zoology must have some difficult words that we don’t know because we all are studying English and also the words in Zoology are mostly scientific words so it is hard for us. All students enjoy in Zoology because we all like learning about animals and they all are very interesting, especially Echinoderms and Cnidaria.

 

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Scratch Description

Name of Course: Scratch

Learning Facilitator: Max

Number of Students: 13

Advanced Enrichment Dates: August 12-Oct 17

Days we Meet: Thursday and Friday

Course Description: In our Advanced Enrichment class we learned how to program in Scratch. Scratch is a program for making continuous animation, games, simulation, music and art. This program uses custom programming language. We learned each category of custom programming language: Motion, Control, Looks, Sensing, Sounds and Pen. Motion is moving custom program. Control is controlling custom program, for example when we click right arrow the avatar go to right. Looks is size, avatar, and communicating custom program. Sensing is sensor custom program, for example when we touch color black the avatar turn to black. Sounds is sounds custom program, for example when we press space avatar say hello. Pen is coloring custom program. We learned what the categories mean and we translated in Khmer to make more understand and remember. We played with the program to change the color to make it big. We thought what story we were going to make. Then we made the stories in Scratch. Also some of us made the games. When we had some of questions we asked teacher or our friends to help. We played with makey makey that connects to Scratch. One example of a game we made is when we touch the Earth material that connects to makey makey and the makey makey connects to computer. The computer plays the sounds.

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Robotics Description

Name of Course: Robotics 2

Learning Facilitator: Max

Number of Students: 13

Advanced Enrichment Dates: Session 2: Oct. 20 – Jan. 16

 

Days we Meet: Thursday/Friday

Course Description: In our Advanced Enrichment class we learned how to build a robot and programming. When we know how to build and program we did some challenges that teacher tell us to do so teacher can know the knowledge of us. We worked as a pair and one group have one computer for program. Robot we build it from a lego brick. We used touch sensor, light sensor, gyro sensor, and ultrasonic sensor to do the challenge. The challenge that teacher gave us to do have like to help a people from a dragon and follow the shape such as a square. When we do a challenge that teacher give us to do is our robot low battery so we need to charge and spend more time on it. Sometimes we need a teacher to help us on programming a robot because it’s a hard part to learn in robot class. When we did a challenge finish at the end of the class we have a sumo game for a robot.

 

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Social Business Description

Exploration Name: Social Business

Exploration Dates: Nov 20 – Dec 17

Number of Students: 12

Essential Questions: How does social business alleviate poverty? What is the role of women in microcredit systems?

In Social Business class we learned about microfinance, Tong Tin and saving money. Microfinance is the bank that is for the poor people to loan the money. We learned about microfinance in Cambodia. We went on a trip to interview community people about microfinance. They microfinance is good for them because they can loan the money to make the business. We learned about Tong Tin. Tong Tin is very common at Cambodia. At Cambodia people like to play Tong Tin because they can win money on it but it might take a long time like maybe one year or more. Tong Tin can be bad and can be good. The bad thing about that game is we need to pay a lot of interest. The good thing is we can win the money. One day we learned how to play Tong Tin. We also learned about saving money. We went to Phnom Penh to visit the Kok Tha. Kok Tha is the manager of a savings group. We had a lot of trips and it was very helpful for our team.

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Renewable Energy Description

Exploration Name: Renewable Energy in Cambodia (Poo)

Exploration Dates: Oct 7 to Nov 19

Number of students: 13 students

Essential Questions:

1. Are biogas and solar energy sources practical and cost effective in Cambodia?

2. What are the benefits and drawbacks to using biogas and solar energy in Cambodia?

Description:

In our Exploration class we had three things to work on. The first area was the solar system. The solar system is a resource that can create the energy from the sun. Solar has four types: solar panel, solar cooker, solar water heater and solar lamp. A solar panel is the solar thing that creates the energy to run the electricity. A solar cooker is the solar thing that creates the energy for cooking. A solar water heater is the solar thing the creates the energy to turn the normal water to the hot water. A solar lamp is the solar thing that creates the energy to light the house if that house doesn’t have the electricity. The next thing that we learned about was the biodigester. A biodigester is a natural system that can create biogas by using poo from the animals. Cow poo is the best. It has a lot of benefits. Example: (1) saving the money, (2) healthier than using firewood, (3) save a tree. The last thing that we learned was about hydroelectricity. Hydroelectricity is a thing that creates the energy by using water. It usually is built over the river. The biggest dam in the world is in China. Our goal was to make Cambodians know that all of these things can create energy. Also we wanted them to use these three things because they are good and can save a lot of money. We also had a trip too. The trip was to go to Kampong Speu. Our target was to install two biodigesters. We install them in Camkids and the orphanage called HAP because we wanted to make them easy instead of using the firewood. Both of the biodigesters cost $1100. When we went to to Kampong Speu we also taught some students too. We also slept at Kampong Speu too. We had good days when we were in Kampong Speu.

 

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Water Description

Exploration Name: Liger Water System

Exploration Dates: August 12 – September 26

Number of Students: 12

Description: In our water group we learned about the pH of water. The full words of pH is Percent Hydrogen. That is the kind of scale that people use to measure the acids and bases. The scale of pH is 0-14. From 0-7 is acidic, 7-14 is basic and 7 is neutral. The hydrogen (H+) is acid and hydroxide (OH-) is base. When we learned about pH we did the experiment with 13 liquid things. For ex: the coca-cola and pond water. The coca-cola was 2.0 so it means acidic. If we drink it a lot like every day we would get sick but if we drink in 1 week only 1 it will be good. The pond was 10.0 so it means basic and if it has a lot of basic like this it also not good for our health either. So we can eat or drink only higher than 7 to 9 or lower than 7 to 5, so it not really have many bases or acids. In this class we also studied about algae. Algae is the kind of plants that live in water and it uses the sun as it food. When this plant lives in water it will make water become basic. We studied our own pond at Liger to learn about this. One other thing that we learned was the water cycle. We learned when the sun rises then it does the evaporation with water. When water goes up it is not yet become the clouds but when the temperature is cool then it makes condensation so it becomes the cloud. When the cloud in the sky catches the cool temperature it will become the rain again. To learn about water we went on the trip to RDI. RDI is the place that makes the water filters to sell. One thing that we learned from there is why they made this RDI place because they saw that some people here don’t have the clean water to drink so they can buy it to get the filter and clean for them. Another reason is when they sell the water filter they sell as cheaply as they can to help the people in Cambodia.

 

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Future Jobs Description

Exploration Name: Future Jobs

Exploration Dates: January 20th – March 7th

Number of Students: 12

Essential Questions:

1. How will jobs that help Cambodia look different in the future?

2. What motivates people to choose the job they do?

Description:

During the round four exploration we learned about Future Jobs. In Future Jobs we had to develop the presentation questions (ask more questions). We asked more questions because in our Exploration we had a lot of trips that taught us about the jobs in the real life. After that we learned about Nanotechnology, Water crisis and Alternative fuels. Nanotechnology is smaller than atoms. One thing we learned was that it is waterproof and can go underground without breaking. In Water crisis topic we learned that 70% of the Earth is seawater and 30% is land. But just 3% is good water. 884 million people don’t have good water and nearly 1,000,000,000 don’t have water. The last topic was Alternative fuel. We noticed that the gas can live 60 years, oil can live 60 years and coal can live 1000 years. Last we prepared for our job shadow on the next day. Job shadow means to go to the real place of work to do the job with the people that are in the job that helps Cambodia a lot. All of us went to different places with our partner. For example, some of us went to World Vision and some went to Northbridge International School.