Physics Behind Everyday Activities

In physics class, we have a pause from equations, solving problems, inclined planes; however, change the topic to look at physics behind everyday activities. Our task before and after water festival holiday is to research of physics behind everyday activities. We chose our own topic to research on and present it to the class after the holiday. My partner and I had chosen the physics behind mirrors. We have to research the physics of mirrors like – what kind of law is it apply to..etc. Since this task is asked to research and do on our own, there are many contents that we haven’t learn yet. We’ve tried our best to deliver a simpler explanation of the physics of mirror. We didn’t get very deep into it because we don’t have enough time, furthermore, it’s complicated.

We have researched and found out that physics of mirrors involved in two laws including the law of reflection and conservation of energy. We also choose an important question about mirror: Do mirrors flip us horizontally and vertically? Ever wonder when you raise your right hand, the mirror raises your left hand; however, why don’t mirror flip us upside down when we stand upright. In the presentation, we covered law of reflection, conservation of energy, and how a mirror works especially does mirror flip us?

You can access more explanation of this research by this link:

Physics Behind Mirror

Halloween Story

In our last day of literacy class before Water Festival, we decided to do something fun since it is Halloween. So, we wrote a scary story of Halloween by passing the story one by one to another friend in a big table to let them continue the story until it returns to me.  This is my story:

“It was a cold Halloween night when I saw a house full of spooky and creepy stuff with a light on-off-on-off; furthermore, with a clock ticking sound as loud as a big speaker. I walk past and see a bunch of silhouettes upon the wall with a weird shape that got my spine-chilling. Even though it looks creepy, it might be a Halloween decoration; I thought to myself. Due to my curiosity, I walk through the gate and straight to ring the bell. I got no fear that time because I think that this is my neighborhood. * Bream *Bream – the sound of the bell ring. The door suddenly opens without anyone opens it. “Welcome little girl, come on and don’t be afraid.”, said the sweetest voice from the inside. As I entered the hallway, a piece of note slides from one of the doors. It says, “Find Me!” “Are we playing hide and seek?”, I said. I heard nothing and I see nothing. I just walking with joy thinking that my neighborhood is going to make something fun on this Halloween day. This is a big house when I arrive the living room I see a doll moves on a chair back and forth; instantly, there’s a scary voice, “haa-ha–haa-ha–haa-ha” that keeps getting louder and louder. It’s not like someone laughing, it’s a REAL creepy voice. “What? A doll moves by itself? Who are you? Are you an……Annabelle just like the movie say? And where is the sound comes from?” Suddenly, cups, vases, and pictures hanging on the wall start dropping and windows and doors keep close-open-close-open without anyone. “Get away from me, take my candies, and let me go.”, I shouted. I literally stuck in that house don’t know anything to do. The light goes off, I fainted, and I’m gone. STOP! I realize I’m just watching a movie about A girl in a Halloween house. In a moment, I look around and I noticed that I’m exactly in that same house with the same scene going on. I SCREAM so hard and SHOUT for help. STOP! I woke up from my dream and it’s 10:00 in the morning. “Happy Halloween my Dear!”, a warm welcome from everyone.”

Image result for halloween

TRIP! – 26th-29th October

Our second trip is from the 26th-29th of October. The goal of this trip is to test how well we can identify fish because we need to know how to identify fish in order to do the fish survey. Therefore, our schedule will be diving, learn how to identify fishes, and look at the surveys. We’ve changed our dive teams in order for everybody to feel comfortable with every each of us. We’ve dive for a total of 3 dives in this trip with our team along with our instructor just hanging out watch out for us, but most of the time, we’re on our own. We dive with navigation including compass, dive computer, and natural guide. As I heard from everyone, diving’s only getting better and better and even more appealing to me. Therefore, each dives that we took is only bringing to another level of becoming scuba divers.

The first dive after last time since I’ve dive was totally awesome. Our first time is at Koh Seh Home reef, it was fun; however, the visibility wasn’t that good, so which means we didn’t get a full dive on that day. However, on the next day, it was the best dive for me so far, we dove at Koh Mak Prang, which located 15 minutes away from Koh Seh. We dove about 45 minutes with good visibility, good navigation, amazing views, especially, I got a good neutral buoyancy. It was a good depth and dive.

However, on the afternoon of that day, we dove another time. This time I am a dive leader which means I need to lead the whole team underwater. I always wear my prescription mask whenever I’m underwater, there are two people in the team that need to wear a prescription mask, but we only have one. Therefore, the solution is to divide us into different teams. But, something happened and make us in the same team which means my friend got the mask because his eyes are worse than me. The dive turns out to be okay, but I couldn’t see anything. Only when I look up close rather than that I can’t literally see anything. As a result, I’m survived, I’m relieved. Thanks to the whole team who supports me from the side. As a joke, it somehow turns out to be a blind dive, as I called it.

Despite all the consequences, we made it again. To me, diving is where I can forget everything and dive down underwater while keeping all the stress and everything on the surface. Going to dive is like going to my home. Because of how much I love the ocean. I can’t believe of how passionate and determined every one of us had.

Our Dive Team (Four per team)
Whole Team

                                

 

 

Research

In our Khmer literacy class, our facilitator asked us to do a small research about the word “Research”. What does it mean? Therefore, we gather in small groups of 3-4 to find definitions of this word at least from 5 dictionaries. For my group, we chose to use Cambridge, Longman, Oxford, Khmer Dictionary, and Tovnah.com website. After all of these definitions from all different dictionaries, we found out that the there’s no much different meaning from each other. Furthermore, the teacher also gave us to write those definitions in a big poster to describe what is it means.

After writing definitions for the word “Research”, we were asked to write about where can we find sources for research. There are such places such as Library, Ministry, Museum, Bookstore, Pagoda, Organization, Company…etc.

Last but not least, we need to write about what can we find as resources for researching such as Video, Audio, People, Dictionary, Newspaper, Magazines, Internet, Interview, Book…etc.

After all of these works, we were expected to understand all the components of RESEARCH; therefore, we can always use the resources and the answer that we’ve learned to implement it in real research. 

Inequalities

For past weeks, my math class has been working on inequalities. We have been focusing on this lesson for quite a few weeks. So, an inequality is a statement which indicates that one quantity is greater than or less than another. We can write the statement using symbols such as “<“, “>”, “≥”, and “≤”. But, this concept has gotten deeper rather than just 1 < 2. However, we have done lots of activities associated with inequalities such as Inequalities word problem, Two-step inequalities, compound inequalities; furthermore, we also looked at inequalities systems and graphs which includes Graphs of Inequalities, Systems of inequalities graphs…etc. On the other hand, we’re not just learning in a textbook, but all of these activities come from Khanacademy.org website which allows us to practice lots of math in an efficient way. 

MUN – Model United Nations

Model United Nations, also known as Model UN or MUN is an extra-curricular activity class where students represent countries as a delegate in UN committees. It is when students come together into committees and discuss to find resolutions on certain topics. Liger has lots of experiences regarding over MUN. When I first come, I also got inspired by other students standing and talking representing their own country. Therefore this year, I’ve decided to join ISPPMUN which is a Model United Nations conference hosted by The International school Phnom Penh for the first time. Before joining this conference, I need to build up my courage and getting prepared because this is my first MUN conference. For some reasons, I was scared of public speaking and presenting to a crowd of people. Nevertheless, I’ve decided to join and break the door of shyness. I got a lot of help from my facilitators to write draft resolutions and my opening speech. The conference last for 3 days from 20-22nd of October. 

In the conference, we’ve assigned three countries including The United States of America, Mexico, and Algeria along with 10 committees such as Junior General Assembly 1 and 2, General Assembly 1-4, Security Council, Environmental Council, Human Right Council, and Economic and Social Council. Therefore, I chose to join General Assembly 4: Special Political and Decolonization representing Algeria. The theme of ISPPMUN this year is “Collaboration not Confrontation”. I was quite nervous of this, after a long wait, the ISPPMUN has come. On Friday is the day that we do our opening speech and writing draft resolutions. I was nervous because Algeria is the first country to do the opening speech alphabetically. On Saturday is continue writing resolutions and debate and last but not least, Sunday which will be the Plenary debate and Closing Ceremony. Despite all the nervousness, I manage to do my opening speech with confidence with memorization. On the second day was an intense day because it was full day writing resolutions and debating. There are three topics in my committee including, The question of Compensation of Atomic radiation damage, Repatriation of Colonial Artifacts and Government Transparency. Among these three topics, I was the Main Submitter of the Repatriation of Colonial Artifacts’s resolution. Therefore, I need to go up to the podium, read the resolutions and giving a speech. I was quiet during the first debate because I wanted to observe what is it going to look like first. Later on, I was pretty much active in other debate by asking questions and making speeches.

The conference went well thanks to the chairs, all GA4 delegates, my friends, and facilitators; furthermore, it’s me who can build up this courage to be able to speak and be the main submitter in my first MUN conference. Additionally, I strongly believe that this will continue to motivate me to join more conferences in the near future.

 

Literacy

In our literacy class, we have one big project is to write a narrative essay about our coming of age moment. This narrative essay is about describing a moment where you feel like you’ve become an adult. The time that you feel like you have reached the age when you can act independently and have a mature mindset. I have written a 4-pages long narrative essay with one moment that is personal that I felt like I’m old enough to think and it’s when my maturity started to grow. This wordle is the highlight of the narrative essay that I’ve done:

Things that do not belong or meant to be with me won’t stay with me. Therefore, I need to find people or things or whatever that belong and meant to be with me. Soon after, I will somehow lose everything and get out of here because of my absence in life, so while I still have a presence here, continue living because life’s a one time offer, I’ll use it well.  Thanks to those who had present in my life and forgot those who absent in my life.

 

Changing Cambodia – 2016-2017

Cambodia is a developing country, what this country want is people to be change agents and now this exists. In term of just approaching the Liger Learning Center, Liger did a really great job on connecting how each thing that they provide us affect Cambodia and also help to make changes. Everything that we give intention on always results as the effect of something. So, there are some reasons to prove that we’re changing Cambodia and we truly are.

A throwback to the exploration called “Geology of Cambodia”, this exploration gave such an inspirational things to help Cambodia. In this exploration, we are studying the history of how rocks form and geological history of Cambodia. Why it is shaped like the way they look now. The goal for this exploration is to spread information about geology to others Cambodian since there weren’t many sources about geology in Cambodia. In this exploration, we traveled to 5 provinces to see, learn about rocks and also do a lot of field research with pencil and notebook in each hand. In term of that, we are the first young bright mind Cambodians who came up with our own problems and solve it. For example, when we travel to the provinces, we saw lots of different rocks that look like ordinary rocks, but despite that we desperately curious of how that rocks are formed and decide to learn and find it out together. We were learning how Cambodia used to look like since it is the rare subject for our national curriculum. Moreover, we had created facebook group and blog for spreading the information about Geology of Cambodia to the public. While we are learning, lots of sources that we are using are from other countries. So, we eager to create our own source for Cambodia about this subject. We are changing Cambodia by commencing to learn a subject that Cambodia hasn’t thought of for a long time ago. By that, I hope that in the future, I have a chance to write a book about all the information about geology and share it to all over the country.

Previously, I am a part of the Khmer Rouge round 4 explorations, one of the final products for our exploration in term of what we have learned is hosting an event at DC-Cam in the favor of having an exhibition about all of the Khmer Rouge products from round 1 until round 4. In round 4, we are in the process of learning the downfall of Khmer Rouge and from now until the future. We have been to Killing field, S-21 and soon will be ECCC. By having what we have known, we want to inspire lots of other people to look back to their past and think. So, the good way of doing that is hosting an exhibition of Khmer Rouge products at DC-Cam since this organization is the most well-known place for Khmer Rouge documentary. We want to share our information about Khmer Rouge to High Schoolers, Workers and many other people to look how Cambodia has grown so far since the Khmer Rouge had fallen. In this exploration, we are trying really hard to come up with a solution to know which is the best way to share. Right now, we had solved it by increasing the next level of thinking and calculating problem to solve and it is also one of the change agents characteristics. In this point, we are trying to change Cambodia by the braveness and intention of young kids to do something that related to its own history. Now, we will do it. We are doing what Cambodia wants the young generation to do. I expect that everyone that join this event will be inspired.

Recently, there is an opportunity offered by Karen and MCC about being a long-term marine field researchers. As one of the students of the Liger Marine Research Team. This opportunity gives a really big impact on Cambodia on Marine Ecosystems. This opportunity is about doing work in a science field and also learning to scuba dive. The goal is to survey the fish population in different marine ecosystems such as Coral reefs, Seagrass beds, and mangroves along the Cambodian coastline of the Kep Archipelago. We will learn how to properly do marine survey including reef, invertebrates, substrates, seahorses, and seagrasses. We will focus strongly on marine organisms while having a good partnership from MCC. As we all know that illegal fishing such as trawling is really causing a big damage to Cambodia marine ecosystems. We came up with a possible solution on surveying marine organisms, including the way to protect our fish population for example by deploying artificial reefs and others project. Some of us will be taking an AP statistics class next year in order to learn how to make statistics of something or how to make a graph about something way more easier. This is a big impact on Cambodia as a new generation to study and do field research about marine ecosystems in a long term. Moreover, it is about the passionate on these students to eager not just to learn, but to implement and deploy our own projects in the real science field. This is a big adventure and challenge for us since we need to travel to our field work to do the projects every month. This opportunity allows us to involve and care more about our marine ecosystem since there are lots of things happening to our ocean. Historically, Liger had many different opportunities for students to learn about their marine biologies such as marine conservation in Cambodia, crimes in Cambodia and lots more project that involve marine ecosystem. This is what happens when Liger introduces them to their underwater marine ecosystems. We will start this project next year after our summer break. These eight students will have a strong commitment and strong intention to put all together the hard work for these long-term marine research.

To sum up, it is important for us as students to start to do something that helps to make changes for our own country. Throughout these projects, such as, Geology of Cambodia, DC-Cam event and one of the students that participate in Liger Marine Research Team, we can know how much Cambodian kids had done and about to start more of their inspirational projects. I hope that in the future, we can create something that more extremely impacts Cambodia as a young kid.        

 

Thank you!

ASE – Building Drone

After school, we have another schedule which called after-school extensions. We have lots of activities lead by different people to bring some fun for students after school ends. My extension is an innovation which is building a drone. In this extension, students get to choose what project they want to do such as building robot arms, submarine, CNC machine, drone…etc. On every Wednesday and Thursday after school, we have a one-hour extension spending on this project. We write our drone progress every day. First, we started off by 3D printing the drone frames, assemble it together, start looking at schematic and wiring the wires and the very last step is to start programming the drone, how it will fly. We are now started wiring all the wires together and expect all the best for this drones.  Here is what the drone looks like:

Expertise – Creative Technologies

Another curriculum, expertise, is where we learn all extra skills from a different field. One of my expertises is creative technologies where we learn technologies that differ from arts. We studied programming and electronics components. We have this expertise three days per week and one hour a day. Technologies also one of my favorite field to learn. I’ve learned some programming and getting to know more components including Arduino, breadboard…etc.

Currently, we are having a project. Our project is to create a mini robot to race with other robots. We have divided into small teams to work together. In that robot, we need to place Arduino, breadboard, batteries, motors, and wireless chips. Students need to design their own base and wheel to create this robot. We expected this project to finish as soon as possible.