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.

 

Microfinance Description

Name of Course: Anatomy 3

 

Learning Facilitator: Jo

 

Number of Students:10 students

 

Days we meet: Thursday and Friday

 

Advanced Enrichment Dates: Session 3 Oct. 20 – Jan. 16

 

Course Description: In Anatomy class we learned about Excretory System (kidney & bladder), Muscular System (muscles) and Skin. Also we all made one presentation each to share in our class and it was about what we learned in the whole Anatomy class. We spent two weeks to do that presentation. That worked really well and everyone wrote a lot of things. We also learned about other things too. One day we learned how to use the microscope. We took fingernails or hair to practice on microscope. We tried to put any things strange like saliva and it was very surprised for us because it looked like two different things. We had some games to play and it was about muscles because we wanted to know more about different types of muscles and how to protect that muscles and to make it stronger. The muscle is help us move. Our body has 360 muscles. We also learned about skin. The skin is the largest organ in human’s body. It weighs about 5 kg and it has three layers. When the end of our class we did a test about what we had been learning before.

Future Career Description

Exploration Name: Future Careers

Exploration Dates: March 10th – May 2nd

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: In Exploration round five we learned about Future Careers. We learned about how jobs will help Cambodia in the future. On the first day, we did personal profiles. We had to include our name, our strengths, our favorite things and our goal. We did that because we wanted everyone to know us when they came to our school. We also had a trip to SGFE (Sustainable Green Fuel Enterprise). It is the place where they make charcoal out of coconut shells. It really helps Cambodia because they take the waste pickers to work in there so that they have a good job and they can get money for their children to go to school. Also, they help the environment by recycling things. The next thing we did was the research project. We researched about the global problems. We got to choose our own topics. The topics were about Mekong River, chemicals in the food, poverty, nuclear energy, dengue fever and etc. Then, we went to job shadow. It means we are the shadow of the worker. We interviewed them about how they are working. Everyone got to go to two workplaces. The places that we went to are Northbridge International School, Plantation hotel, Small Word, Osja studio, A.N.D and more.

Robotics 3 Description

Name of Course: Robotics 3

Learning Facilitator: Max

Number of Students: 9

Days we Meet: Monday/Tuesday

Advanced Enrichment Dates: March 30- June 12

 

Course Description: In Robotics we did many things about programming the robots and also to build the robots by the legos. First we studied how to build the robots by the legos. So we divided into the group of two then we started to build the robots. We built the lego robots by following the instructions the first time. When we finished building the robots we started to study how to program the robots. When we knew about that we started to do the challenges with the programming by using the robots to follow the line. When we finished that challenge we also did the other challenges too. Then we took off all the shapes out from the robots and we started  building the new shapes to make it stronger. We made whatever that we wanted. We did like that because we wanted to do the competition with each other. This competition if we wanted to win we had to make our robots stronger and when we went into the circle we tried to made the other robots go outthe circles.

World Leaders Description

Name of Course: World Leaders

Learning Facilitator: Sophorn

Number of Students: 10

Days we Meet: Thursday to Friday

Advanced Enrichment Dates: October 20 – January 16

 

Course Description: In World Leaders class we learned about the leaders and also the students learned to analyze the good or bad leaders all around the world. The good leaders are supposed to lead the country to develop and the leaders need to make the people get the peace. The bad leaders treat in bad way to the people in the country. We can understand the way how the famous leaders are leading for the country. The important part of our class was to understand the concepts of the leaders which means what are their ideas or inventions to change the country. All the leaders had different concepts like Gandhi. He led by integrity and non-violence. Also we watched a lot of movies because it helped us to get more ideas about the different leaders. The main movie that we watched was Gandhi. He was one of the most famous leaders all around the world because the way that he led shown the integrity. He had the mindset of non-violence. The most interesting part of our class was to learn about the quote of the leaders. For example Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said “If you think you are helpless please help someone” and we think about her quote, do we understand or not. We also went on a the trip to meetMr. Kok Tha. He is the person that can share us a lot of information because he is the good leader. The leaders have many parts it is not just the leaders of the country they call the leaders. World Leaders was really nice because we can learn how to be the leaders.

 

Algebra 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 are learning about Math. This advanced Enrichment last really long and really hard working. We learned the hard math by learning it step by step. There are many clever student in this class and all of them are very patience. Everyday in our class the math are getting harder and harder but we are getting smarter as the time keep going. Sometime we reallight that the math that we had learn could be use in real life.  The important thing that we learn for the whole year are negative number, The Greatest Common Factors, linear equation, y=mx+b form or Slope-interception, parabola,  Quadratic formula/equation….etc. All of this math section is very hard it is something that people will think it hard because they did not try yet and for that people who try they will think it is easy. But for us here we do not think it was hard or easy were just try our best.

 

Forest Ecology Description

Exploration Name: Forest Ecology

Exploration Dates: Jan 20, 2014 – Mar 7, 2014

Number of students: 12

Essential Questions: (1) What is an ecosystem? (2) What is a natural resource?

Description: An ecosystem is the living things and the non-living things connecting with each other. The one example is algae. Algae take the sunlight for food and fish eat algae and then people eat fish. This is one connection. In Ecosystems class we had a journey book to take notes or write keywords that we don’t know what that word means. In Ecology class the first topic that we learned was tropical forest. We did not just learn only tropical forests but we also learned a lot of kinds of forests like conifers and others. A tropical forest is the forest that has rain a lot all year. We also learned about ecological relationships. Ecological relationships mean that one organism and another organism connect with each other. Ecological relationships are divided in five parts. They are parasitism, commensalism, predator-prey, mutualism and competition. Our Ecology group went to Mondulkiri province to study there. We spent six days at Mondolkiri. We met a lot of people like Bunong people. On Saturday we came back to our school and we shared what we learned.

Weekly Journal

This is my weekly journal

On Friday at 24 October, 2014 I went to Chaktomuk theater. The bus were arriving at the front of a school, my friends and I were walking to the bus because we wanted to get to Chaktomuk theater. In Chaktomuk theater we went to watch performance that Sunrise’s kid will perform to us. I was so excited that I could watch the beautiful performance that performed by Sunrise’s kids. I got on a bus for 40 minutes and then the bus arrived the theater. After I arrived for 10 minutes I had dinner and one apple. When I finished my dinner, I felt so full and delighted. My house were take cared by Nou, Matt, Simean and Mary. While I was waiting to go inside the stage, I bought some snack for myself to eat. When I went inside the stage, I felt very happy because it was so beautiful and a lot of people were sitting there. I waited for 10 minutes and then one MC were talking. After the MC finished talking the director of Sunrise came and introduced about her school. After that the MC told the audience to stand up and respected and sang the Cambodia’s national song. When we finished singing, the Cambodia’s musicians came and played the traditional music. During they played the music, there were the actors and actress come out. Almost the actors and actresses are teenager and a few are a kids. They were show in the Khmer empire. There were a king and a queen. There were a lot of type of dancing. It was a beautiful dance. After the Khmer empire finish, there was another generation. This generation was very bad because Pol pot kill the Cambodian people and it was so sad. People lived in a dark situation and they do a hard work. After that, there was a short part that showed about the ghost that tried to scare the people, and then the people tried to fight and got the ghost out of the village. Following the ghost part is the part that I like the most because they showed the Cambodian today. In Cambodian today the characters were dancing and it was very fun. There were some hip hop dancing and they showed a best dance that was really wonderful it. At last when I finished watching the best performance I thought that I want to dance hip hop like them and one thing that I liked was they showed from one generation to another generation.