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

Today, President-elect Barack Obama selected John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco as science advisers. Obama said “It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.” Also joining Obama’s science team is Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus and professor Eric Lander, a specialist in human genome research.

We are learning about air pressure and I thought a good idea would be to have the students experience what the pressure feels like. The students enjoy going in the “great garbage bag vacuum model of science” Here I am in the bag. Use a very large construction bag and insert a vacuum. The air will be sucked out and you will feel the pressure. Give it a try whent studying atmospheric pressure. You’ll have their attention for the whole unit.

The class did a density lab where they change the density of water by adding different amounts of salt. The hard part is to decant the solution so the different densities don’t mix. We used food coloring to show each different density layer. The bottom layer has 2.5 teaspoons of salt. The middle layer has 1 teaspoon of salt, and the top layer has no salt, just yellow food coloring. We used 100ml of water for each layer. Put a piece of cardboard on top of the red layer to decant. The class did a great job.

I have started taking my Bisaya lessons again with my teacher, Bebe, who lives in the Philippines. We are using Wiziq, an online teaching platform. I have scanned in the first ten lessons as we will need to review these so I can get back up to speed. Our first lesson online was difficult as I was at my sister’s house in New Jersey and the wireless network was a little slow as I was upstairs and the base was downstairs. My next lessn will be here at home and things should be better.

When I was in Mindanao, Philippines this past summer, I took ten lessons with Bebe. We usually met at the coffee shop or at Bob Martin’s house. That’s the best way to learn: one on one. Since we are very far away now, I think the best way to learn is to use the online classroom at Wiziq. My goal is still to become fluent in the Bisaya language. I’ll scan in the next few lessons so we’re ready to go. Time now to review my vocabulary.

Here is a good lab to check the observational skills of your students. I do this early in the year so I can check my class procedures for lab clean up. The students will also see something that is not expected, which adds to the excitement. The students will also have some practice measuring with a graduated cylinder.

To do this, measure 25 ml of half and half and pour into a perti dish. Put one or two drops of four different colors of food coloring into the half and half. Then put a match into a drop of Joy Ultra dish detergent and then put into the middle of the colors. The colors will move to the outside and then start to blend together. You can adapt this to almost any grade level.

A neat way to help students internalize a cubic centimeter is to make paper cubic centimeters, aka Groovy Cubes. All my classes made them this week and we strung them together on thread. I’ll hang them up tomorrow in the classroom. We also discussed how one cubic centimeter will hold one milliliter of pure water and the water’s mass will be one gram.

First, cut out the pattern and fold. The hard part is taping them into a cube. Get some thread and a needle and start stringing.

Today I did the burn the dollar bill demonstration with my science classes. I use this as a discrepant event in that what happens is not what one would think happens, and this gets their attention. I also use this as an introduction to a discussion on class safety. Each class tried to name as many safety procedures that I demonstrated while doing this demo.

While I was preparing for this demo, I took my time and made sure I did all the little things like to move the alcohol away from the flame, keep the water running, washed my hands after I soaked the dollar bill, wore safety glasses, used safety matched, gave the class procedure for what to do during a fire drill, gave the procedure if a beaker is dropped and broken in class, put a lid on the solution so no vapors excape, and put salt in the solution to see the flame. I also discussed with the class that accidents usually happen when one is rushing to complete a task.

To complete the lesson, I challenged each class to list as many safety aspects as possible on the Smartboard and to think of more than the preceding class. Every class did very well. It was a great first day and I think I’m more excited than the students about doing some science this year.

We are visiting family here in Mindanao, Philippines and I’m amazed by all the colorful flowers that grow almost everywhere. Right outside our fence, along the side of the road, are many different kinds of flowers. One flower in particular caught my interest as it’s very large and brightly colored. This flower has a deep saturated red hue with a hint of orange. The height is about 1.5 meters and the flower’s diameter measures about 20 centimeters. The seeds are very small black round dots. I’ve never seen anything like this back home so I was curious about knowing more.

I tried asking around but nobody seems to know the flower’s name. I googled it but couldn’t find anything. I also searched many images on Google but nothing close came up. I finally asked my sister in law and she asked around at work and thinks she has it identified. It’s common name is Palong Manok. The scientific name is Celasia coccinea Linn. According to the Philippine Medicinal Plant website it has a variety of common names such as:

Daling-manok (Sul.)
Pandong-pandongan (Bis.)
Palong-manok (Tag.)
Palong-palungan (Bik., Tag.)
Papaknongon-manok (Bik.)
Taptapiñgar (Ilk.)
Cockscomb (Engl.)

The Palong Manok gets it’s name because it looks like a rooster. The Bisaya word manok means chicken, or rooster. It is not used medicinally in the Philippines, but some other countries use it for medicine. With more time this winter, when the snow and cold are with us, I’ll remember walking around Mindanao smelling all the flowers.

Here are some random thoughts of what I’ve been up to here in Mindanao, Philippines.

I continue to take Bisaya lessons from my teacher Bebe. I am now up to lesson nine. Their are a total of sixty lessons and I plan to continue my lessons online after I get home from the Philippines. My vocabulary words number about 160. The last lesson was on changing the time of the given verb, such as past, present and future. Miadto or Niadto is I went or I am going. Moadto means I will go. More details coming.

This week, I’ll be going to an island called Samal where there is a large bat cave. The cave has over 1.8 million bats. I’ll report on this next week. I also had a chance to have tasted a very different kind of coffee. This coffee has passed through the digestive system of the Asian Palm Civet. Details later. I’m still trying to identify some of the local flowers but not having much luck. Not many books at the local library. I’ll just post some pictures another time. Have read some interesting articles on how the universe may be electrified, and how this helps explain the observable universe.

I’ve got the internet here, but it’s at an internet cafe and other people around. Too many distractions, so I’ll just make small posts. Till next time…

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.