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STEAM/PBL

STEAM/PBL

What is PBL?

  • Project-based learning (PBL) Key Points:
  • educational method (not just a teaching or learning style)
  • actively explore
  • real-world problems, challenges
  • deeper knowledge, skills, experiences
  • outside of the classroom
  • learning by doing (experiential)
  • realistic products, solutions or outcomes

Definition

Project-based learning is an educational method that involves inspiring students in problem-solving and investigative activities to gain deeper knowledge, skills, and experiences; giving students the opportunity to actively explore challenging questions and real-world problems outside of the classroom resulting in realistic products, solutions or other outcomes.

This are the pictures from our trip (Chbar Ompov highschool, Kratie)

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Changing Cambodia III

Time flies fast, new experiences, new people…. Right now I’m currently studying in high school. High school life is difficult. During this 2016-2017 I guessed I have change Cambodian more than last year. I learned new thing and experience new things such as working with people in the community. Sharing my knowledge with the community and children are very fun.

What is an amazing experience? Working with all my creative, genius and friendly members of Preventative Health Exploration. This was a totally new experience for me. I think this exploration was so different from the other ones I’ve been in because this exploration was when I could show my knowledge in class, and at the same time, I could try a lot of new things such as snorkeling and scuba diving. In addition, I enjoyed teaching the students about preventative health. At that time, I could see a big difference of presenting to the Juniors and to the students at the community on Koh Rong island. Also, learning about health is very helpful and I like doing it. I really enjoy sharing my knowledge with other young Cambodian students that don’t have the opportunity to us. Working and playing with those kids brought me joy. I respectfully believe that they will pass out the information and knowledge that my team members taught to others, especially their family and neighborhood. It wasn’t just about having fun but also I got to talk with them about the problems they currently face in their daily life and helped shared ideas in order to bring solutions to them.

One of the best experiences in this exploration was exploring coral reefs, seagrass, many biodiversity and other ecosystems. Marine life is one of the major ecosystems on earth and I think everyone deserved to understand about it more. Understanding marine biodiversity is very important for a number of reasons. The importance of marine biodiversity falls into a few categories such as Adaptation, food, habitat, and climate. Adaptation is biodiversity allows the environment to adapt to changing conditions, as has been the case since life was created. Food is a very important commodity that can be provided by our oceans including fishes, invertebrates, and algae. Very few of the world’s fish are utilized commercially and thus, the oceans are a source for unutilized resources. The marine environment supplies many kinds of habitats that support marine life. Marine life depends in some way on the saltwater that is in the sea. A habitat is an ecological or environmental area inhabited by one or more living species.

My third rounds exploration was Game Design. Game design is an exploration that invented the Climate Change board game. The ideas of this board game are to help students in Cambodia to understand more about climate by learning the impact of climate change and implement solutions to it. In the game, we will move to the future which is the year 2500 and the world are faced with a huge problem. That problem is climate change. Climate change causes natural disaster such as tsunamis, droughts, and floods that will cause sickness to a lot of people on in the world, face with starvation and homelessness. You and your other three friends will have to travel back to in time to change history and save our future. You have to study hard, value your education, and build solutions in each province in Cambodia to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, rescue our country and the world from natural disaster caused by climate change. Not just focusing on building the game our exploration also learning in-depth into climate change that our world currently faces. I loved working with the government school students by teaching them about the game and sharing information about climate change also. As what my teammates and I observed while working with the students, none of them knew anything about climate change. So, by playing through this game it helps them to understand deeply about it. I love seeing the students are having fun while playing the game. Even though I can’t share my knowledge to all the government school students but I’m proud of making a small change in Cambodia.

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Waste Management 3

Project Summary

The exploration module follows the waste explorations of the previous two rounds, where the students have already determined the lines of business and started to experiment with the concepts relating to these businesses. The focus of the exploration to develop the compost creating the side of the business. We will not only continue our experiments with composting but will also see how possible it is to get community buy-in, by attempting a small-scale operation of the business with households in Phum Champous-Kaek, particularly asking households and businesses to separate their organic waste for us. The final goal of the exploration will be to further refine a previously-started business plan that can be used as a solution for areas of Cambodia that have a lack of sufficient garbage collection.

Project Outcome

What will students be able to do/write/create/build?

  • Create an effective and more complete business plan

  • Learn the various purposes of a business plan

  • Plan and conduct community outreach

  • Conduct experiments with compost that can be used to vet business concepts

  • Develop business plans and objectives

  • Conduct experiments on compost yield

Trip to Battambang 

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Photography Extension

People start doing photography (versus taking snaps or selfies) for many reasons. It might be a major life event coming up – new baby, wedding, special birthday – or that overseas trip saved up for over many years. It might be that the capabilities of your phone frustrate you enough to want to get real about photography. However it happens, suddenly you find yourself with an empty bank account and some form of camera gear that you now need to figure out how and where and maybe even, why to use it.

  1. Recording events and capturing memories
  2. Have fun
  3. Learning is good for the brain
  4. Health and fitness
  5. Creativity
  6. Travel
  7. Meet new people
  8. Join a photographic community
  9. Develop a personal style
  10. It’s all about the light

So much fun can be had with a camera. You could be out with the family at the beach or a picnic, local sports games, randomly roaming your city streets photographing strangers without them noticing, stalking wildlife, hiking up a mountain for a stunning view, or standing under the stars at 2 a.m. watching the Milky Way slowly move across the heavens. So many opportunities to do new, interesting, and fun things with your camera that you likely may not have otherwise done.

All sorts of things become interesting when they can provide you with material for photographic adventures. Cultural festivals, parades, sports events, a wander along the beach, exploring parts of your city previously undiscovered, architectural details on buildings, intricate details of flowers, people watching, difficulties of photographing wildlife, meeting people who have different interests and hobbies – just for a few ideas. Most people are willing to share their passion with you if you take some time to talk to them. There are endless opportunities for photographic inspiration – even the contents of your fridge or pantry can be fascinating when viewed through a macro lens. All you need to do is make an effort to look.

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Investigation – Making Organic Pesticides

In my investigation expertise, I’m making two organic pesticides from tomato juice and microbial organic pesticide.

Aphids on plant

  • What are aphids?
    • Known as plant lice is a small sap-sucking insect. Aphids are soft-bodied insects that use their sharp sucking mouthparts to feed on plant sap. They normally take place in colonies on the underside of tender terminal growth. Heavily-infested leaves can turn yellow because of more than necessary sap removal. Aphids produce very large amounts of a sugary liquid waste called “honeydew”. The main predator of aphids is ladybug and lacewing. This two main predators will appear on the plants when there are heavy aphids infestations.  Aphids are among the most destructive (negative, very harmful) on the plant in temperature regions (Cambodia). They’re having the high ability to in numbers by asexual reproduction. The damages they do to plants has made them enemies of the farmers all around the world. There are thousands of aphid species exist in this world. This insect is so small when they extend their wind they can float for hundreds of miles on the wind. Aphids are most commonly in green color but they also can be red, brown or black.
  • Why does farmer hate aphids?

Farmer hates aphids because they do so much damaging to the crop. It uses its sharp mouth by pierce the vascular systems of the plants to feed on their juices. They extracted the protein but excreting sugar because their bodies don’t need it. This remains is called honeydew and many other insects and bugs such as ant lap its up.

  • Natural Enemies
    • Ladybugs
    • Hoverfly
    • Crabs spiders
    • Neuroptera
  • Relationship between red ants and aphids

The relationship between aphids and ants is symbiotic in that both receive some benefit from the arrangement. Aphids help to protectants from its predators. So how do aphids help ants? Aphids feed ants food and submissively allow themselves to move if the ants require them to relocate. Farmed ants produced larger drops of honeydew and more offspring. This sweet sticky thing stuff is a favorite food for ants, where it also take it back to feed larvae. 

  • Intersection observation
    • Soft bodies with sugary water
    • Tiny legs
    • Baby – brown color
    • Adult – darker brown with bigger body
    • Not really develop
  • Why use tomato juice to repel aphids? Tomato plants are part of the nightshade family. It contains alkaloids such as the aptly named tomatine. Tomatine can effectively control aphids and another insect.

 

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Branches of Physics

When learning about and discussing physics, we focus heavily on energy, the core element of the science. To better understand this connection, it helps to refer to a solid working definition of physics.
o sum it all up in the easiest of terms, physics is the study of matter and energy, and how they relate to one another. Some people, especially those more creatively inclined, might want to look at it in terms of form and content-form being matter, and content being energy.​ Energy may manifest itself in many forms, such as light, motion, gravity, radiation, electricity, and others. Matter, on the other hand, covers any and every physical manifestation, from the smallest particles such as atoms and sub-atomic particles, further into larger physical groups such as stars, universes, and galaxies.As a whole, physics is closely related to mathematics, for it provides the logical structure in which physical laws may be formulated and their predictions quantified. A great many of physics’ definitions, models, and theories are expressed using mathematical symbols and formulas.

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Using Khan Academy as a learning tool

Khan Academy is a free Online Courses, Lessons & Practice. Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. I use Khan Academy to practice my math by practicing the exercise and watch the video tutorials. I also use this online course to practice my SAT test. On Octuber 14, I did my first Pretest SAT. My score was unexpected and I’m glad to use this website as my learning tool.

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Narrative Essay – Coming of Age

“My life has only just begun at 14. New adventures await me. I will take the lessons I’ve learned as a kid and teenager and use them to become a better adult. Becoming an adult is a part of life and is the next stage. My life does not stop at 14; rather, it is only just beginning. One of the most important lessons I learned was during my junior year. A wise man told me, “It’s your world,” a quote that stuck with me and made realize how much control I have over my life. I told myself that there is nothing in the world I can’t accomplish. I won’t let anyone convince me that a dream isn’t feasible. I tell myself that there is no such thing as ‘can’t’ because I can have it all-it’s my world! Life is an ongoing lesson in itself. As I grow, I experience and learn, however, this cycle is repeated lifelong.  I will obviously find better ways of doing things I did in the past. Sometimes, I might also feel frustrated, because, by the time I gain enough experience to face hardships of life, most of us have already passed through them. These life lessons can change the way I am and hence, these same life lessons are extremely important for teenagers to comprehend. Everything I teach myself today will affect and play a role in who I become tomorrow.”……………

 

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Pchum Ben

Pchum Ben, the ancestors’ festival, is a Cambodian religious festival celebrated by Buddhists. It is one of the longest festivals in Cambodia, lasting for 15 days. A Ben is an offering. The first 14 days are called Kan Ben, where villages take turns making offerings, and the last day is Ben Thom, great offering, where all families make offerings. Pchum Ben is celebrated every year in the beginning of the 10th month, Phutrobot, of the Khmer calendar. (Around October in the western calendar.)

Continue reading “Pchum Ben”

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ISPP International Day

One of the most anticipated events of the year, ISPP’s International Day is a wonderful celebration of the different nationalities and cultures that constitute the ISPP school community. Parents, students, teachers and staff all come together to share and learn about each other’s cultures. Country booths, the Parade of Nations, a number of scheduled performances, food stalls, organized games, and a lucky draw are some of the main highlights. I’ve joined the event with others Liger students and discover more about each country.