Siyensya | (She-ent-sha), Bisaya for Science

I took my first Bisaya lesson on Thursday in Davao. My teacher is Bebe, and she is helping me to learn to speak the native language here in Mindanao. I have been trying to learn on my own, but it’s difficult as there are few resources available for self study. Bisaya, aka Cebuano, is mostly an oral language. Everyone speaks it here, but few understand it’s grammar and structure.

Bob over at LiP is also learning Bisaya and he recommended Bebe. I’m glad he did as she is a very good teacher. My goal is to learn the first nine lessons in the first book that I was given. I’ve completed lesson one and two and I have five pages of homework for this week. I will continue to take one or two lessons every week, depending on the difficulty.

I don’t want to just get through each lesson, I want to make sure that I have plenty of practice with each new concept before I move on. It’s also important to me that I spend time to internalize the new vocabulary and to get the correct pronunciation. Luckily, I have everyone here to help me every day. Ako si Kevin. Maestro ko.

Hello from the Philippines. It was a long flight, actually three flights in total, but we made it here safely. We are in the southern Philippines, on the island of Mindanao. Everyone was happy to see us as it has been almost three years since we’ve been here. I took video of our property and our new fence here. As you can see, we have some banana and abocado plants inside the fence. Mom planted some colorful flowers on the outside which gives the property a pleasing look.

We don’t have internet access in the house, but we do over at my sister-in-law’s home. She has a Smart Bro wireless connection which is ok, but not as fast as I like. I’m looking into the possibility of connecting my laptop into the network of the local internet cafe because they have a DSL connection. If I can get a fast connection, I would like to teach the Peg System class over at Wiziq. Stay tuned as I will also introduce my new Ning network for science teachers.

On a different topic, I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Martin and his wife Feyma over at the SM mall in Davao the other day. He’s got a really nice magazine blog over at Live in the Philippines. We talked about many things and it’s good to have someone near who knows the ropes for living here in this area. Check out his site, I read it all the time.

Yes, school is done till next school year. The Mars habitat went smoothly and the rest of the end of year activities were completed on time. I am now in packing mode as my wife and I and our three year old daughter are getting ready for out trip to the Philippines this week.

I’m taking my laptop and I hope to continue to post here at Siyensya. I am planning to teach a few science lessons in an elementary school in Mindanao. I’ll repeat the lab on how to change the density of water and keep them separated. I also have a few other science lessons ready. I bought QuickTime Pro which will allow me to post using video from our cell phone. I think school activities will be easier to record with small camera phones than with my digital cam. I’ll experiment and see which is best under the circumstances.

We will be gong to Moalboal, Cebu to take some time off and get our feet wet and go swimming. I want to do some scuba diving and introduce my daughter to fun and excitement of learning about the ocean. While in Digos, I hope to find a small apartment to rent for our shelter and see who may be interested in helping us there. I’m also looking forward to some tasty mangoes and other Philippine foods. Have a great summer and check back again. Till next time…

Thursday was he last day of the Mars Habitat. We finally finished this project but it took an extra week. This week was the first week that we had sunshine for more than three days in a row. I invited all the teachers to bring their classes out and explore the Habitat. We probably had over 300 students go through. Of course Murphy’s Law showed up, right on time. Just as we were at full pressure and about to let all the students in, we lost power and all the fans went off. And it was also when the newspaper reporter was interviewing me and the class lead engineers. Fortunately, within a few minutes, the fans went back on and the Mars Habitat went to full pressure. It was a great learning experience for all the students.

Every year, I conclude my science classes with the Mars Habitat activity. I started this project about fifteen years ago and have progressively made it larger and with more features. This is a great cooperative activity as it requires the full class to fold and tape the habitats and tunnels. I do this with three 8th grade classes and I have my other 7th grade classes help make repairs. This year they built six habitats and connected them with four tunnels.

We use lots of 3mm plastic tarps and about 20 rolls of duct tape. This year I started buying the 3mm tarps in bulk. I make it another class exercise to cut the plastic to sizes needed. Each habitat requires two 10′x25′ tarps. There is a certain way to fold the plastic and tape them together. I will explain in another video how this is done.

The Commander routine and outfit is from when I taught in Florida. We took the students to Space Camp for a week and I got into it as much as they did. It’s a great activity and I enjoy teaching this level. If you are a science teacher and would like to try this activity, let me know and leave a comment. If there is sufficient interest, I’m give more information on how to do all this.

One of the most important concepts in science is density. To teach this, the student must first understand the difference between the mass and weight of an object. So be sure to teach mass and weight first. I found an easy way to help the students remember this formula using a heart. I have found that they remember the formula and gain confidence using it to calculate the density of various objects. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

My first video dealt with dividing numbers ending with zero, such as 30, 40, 50 etc. See part A below. I will now show you how to divide numbers that do not end in zero. This is the math trick that we use in class to try and beat the calculator. It really gets kids interested in some math and it’s great to do when there is only a few minutes left in class. I believe in not wasting a minute of instructional time. My MathCounts team uses this mathematics trick to sharpen their wits and warm up before we tackle the harder problems in practice. I’m also happy to say that my MathCounts team took first place in our region and also finished in the top half at the state competition. Great job. I’m very proud of them for all their hard word.

Here is some video of when I taught the three color density lab while in the Philippines. I did this with over 100 students. To change the density of the water, we added different amounts of salt to create different densities and gave each layer a different color using food coloring. We then decanted each layer into a plastic cup. We did this outside the school under an overhang on a very hot day. As you can see, many of the students did very well.

Today I will give the list of the top sixteen scientists and mathematicians that we are studying in class. I try to pick a variety of different scientists that I think are relevant to the content. A new scientist is introduced every Monday. We still have sixteen to go for the rest of the year so your favorite may be missing.

Here is my list in the order presented to class this year:

1. Albert Einstein
2. Marie Curie
3. Bernhard Riemann
4. Emmy Noether
5. Thomas Edison
6. Rosalind Franklin
7. Carl Friedrich Gauss
8. Gregor Mendel
9. Galileo Galilei
10. Rachael Carson
11. G.H. Hardy
12. Srinivasa Ramanujan
13. Leonhard Euler
14. Archimedes
15. Robert Hooke
16. Sylvia Earl

On the worksheet given to the student, I usually give the name of the scientist, month and day born, year born and one or two short accomplishments. We then put the year born into the Peg system and link the date to the Peg word.

Background Information

During the school year, I introduce an important scientist or mathematician almost every week. I believe it’s important to study the history of science and math as it puts the science content in perspective. I also try to give an equal amount of male and female scientists so all of my students may find a role model. Usually, I give the name of the scientist, a few items of what they did and the date and year of their birth. We memorize the year using the Peg system. I always give the birthday because it’s interesting to see the reaction of the students when they discover they share the same birthday as Einstein–pi day 3-14 , or Sylvia Earle, August 30th.

The Lesson Plan

Since we now have studied sixteen scientists, I came up with a new lesson plan that includes writing about the scientists and using the sweet sixteen NCAA college basketball format. First, we list all sixteen scientists on the Scientist16 sheet. The student then flips a coin to decide who moves to the next bracket. I’m sure you could find other ways to move the scientists to the next bracket. Students continue to do this until there is only one scientist left. The final scientist may or may not be the person that the student feels is truly the most outstanding, but their assignment is to write a report defending this scientist as the most influential in our society over the other fifteen scientists.

Discussion

This assignment may be a challenge as some of the scientists and mathematicians may not be as influential as Einstein, Curie or Edison. The goal is to get students to think about what is important and to develop their writing. The student should research the winning scientist to discover if any other important information is useful to help write the paper. For an 8th grade class, I specify that the paper should be a minimum of 250 words. For the 7th grade I specify one well developed paragraph of five to eight sentences. You can modify this based on the grade level and time needed to grade. Next time, I’ll give you the list of scientists and mathematicians that I use in my class. Are any of your favorites on the list? Till next time…