This past Sunday I went for a ride up to Makilala in Northern Cotabato to visit the family of my brother in law, Fernando. It was about an hour to get there riding on his motorcycle. The ride was nice, but it started to get hot when the sun came out. We left early from Digos, around 7:30am.

By the time we got there, the temperature was a little cooler because of the altitude and the cloud cover. We brought some pancit caton and pan, which is a noodle salad that you can eat with bread. We met his mom and dad coming from church and then headed for their house up in the mountain. We walked for about 20 minutes up the mountain to their house where we all ate the pancit. I was amazed how quiet it was up at that house as I couldn’t hear any cars, trucks or that faint noise that comes from distant trucks on a highway. Just peace and quiet.

While we were there, some of the relatives showed me how they harvest the rubber tree and gave me a chance to try. They are able to sell the liquid coming from the tree locally. On the way down from the mountain, Fernando dropped me off so I could walk over a small suspension bridge that spans a river. He met me on the other side, where his sister lives.

On the ride back we stopped to see the new stadium Davao del Sur is building. It was much bigger that I thought it would be and is due fro completion in another year or so.

We are in Somerville, New Jersey and across the street is the fireman museum. Today they were demonstrating the old pumper used in the 1800′s. It took many dedicated hours to restore the pumper to it’s original condition and today they were showing how it worked. Here is some video of the pumper working. Next weekend is the town’s 175th birthday for the fire department and there will be a big parade.

We’re getting ready for our trip to the Philippines on Sunday. Our plane is leaving Sunday night via China Airlines. It’s our first time using China Airlines and leaving from JFK in New York. My last day of school was Monday and I’m looking forward to our trip to see the family.

My classes finished the Mars Habitats last week. Everything turned out super. Here is a small video of the final day. Click here to visit my school web site and see a more detailed video.

I’ll show the students tomorrow how to fold the habitats using paper and tape. It’s not that hard to do, but practicing with paper helps when they are working with the plastic.

It’s a fun project that all students can do. First, we begin by blowing up a balloon to about the size of 10 or 15 cm in diameter. Then, rip thin strips of  newspaper maybe one or 2 cm wide and 10 or 15 cm long. Dip the newspaper strips into the solution and wrap them around the balloon. The paper mache is made of water and glue. I have found in the past using this simple mixture makes great paper mache. It’s also easier to clean than using cornstarch or other powders.

By the second day, the students should have two or three coats of paper mache around their balloon. It’s best to have five or six coats of paper mache as this will give the eyeball strength. After the paper mache dries we paint the whole eyeball white, this represents the sclera. Next, they paint the iris color blue, green, brown, or turquoise in the classroom and the pupil is painted black. When this is done I test the students orally and by pointing out the different parts of the eye. I also asked them what are the part of the retina and what is their function. The two parts of the retina are the rods and cones. The rods detect lightness and darkness and the cones detect the color. Also, I ask why do we have a blind spot? The answer is that this is where the optic nerve is located.

This is a nice project for seventh grade science as it takes about three or four days to complete. The whole time they are making the eye, I am circulating around asking about the different parts and discussing how the eye works. The students enjoyed making it and they can take it home when they are done. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Last month, I read an article on Pro-blogger by Jon about how speech recognition software is much better now and about how well it is working for him. I decided to give it a try and I ordered MacSpeech Dictate from Amazon.

I have many ideas for Siyensya using pictures, video and the traditional written post. But my problem is that I never learned to type and I just can’t seem to improve my typing skills. The ideas and creative flashes come very fast and I can’t take advantage of them because by the time I start typing, I’ve lost the ideas and focus. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to type very fast and actually, I don’t want to because of the possibility of getting a repetitive wrist injury.

This is my first post using the program. After going through a short process of voice training, the program seems to be working very well. I am impressed. MacSpeech types out everything I say, ever if I speak fast. I can see that this will be a new skill for me to learn – speaking out loud while trying to think ahead.

My goal, is to have three posts per week and to build up my website with lots of good content. MacSpeech will help me with this goal.

Some of the students also took turns going into the bag to experience the air pressure. It was quite an interesting day in science class.

The rockets are made with two, 2-liter bottles. The top bottle is where the astronaut egg is located. The goal is to keep the astronaut safe and secure by designing an enclosure around the egg so it doesn’t crack.  All types of materials are used and must be accounted for in the final cost.

The bottom bottle is the engine. We fill the bottle about half full with water and I pump it up with about 60-70 pounds of pressure. I have a specially designed rocket launcher that keeps the rocket set until I pull the pin. The students work in groups of two and this project takes about a week to complete.

When we arrived in Kaputian, it was getting late and we didn’t have dinner yet. We first looked for a place to stay and the locals said that there was a town park that had overnight rentals. So we headed there and found that the the town park had small overnight rentals and one of the rentals was a tree house. As you can see from the video, the tree house is right on the beach and cost 300 pesos. My butt was getting sore from riding on the motor all day and I was looking forward to some quiet time, snorkeling and a good night’s sleep.

During the night, however, I was awakened from the green curtains blowing across the room from the wind. I was in a deep sleep and did not want to wake up. Next came the rain, lightning and a huge bang of thunder and I was wide awake. I took out my mini pen light to look around as it was pitch black. It was a heck of a storm and the tree house was swaying back and forth and the rain was pouring down. I was concerned the tree house might blow over. The normally quiet sea outside my door had turned into a raging sea and I thought the water might flood the beach. The waves were 1-2 feet and I could hear them crashing. The beach and entire area was completely dark except when the lightning struck and I could see the blowing rain and waves through the eerie blue light. I think the storm passed directly over our tree house. Within an hour, the storm had passed and I eventually fell back to sleep.

I got up early in the morning as I could hear what sounded like thousands of birds in the trees. I took my camera and walked down to the water to take a little video and walk along the beach.

Kaputian Samal from Kevin Smith on Vimeo.