As for this sample of my personal ACE project, I researched and learned about the weird molecular structure of water molecules and how it allowed ice to expand and thereby be able to float in water.
Through this ACE project, I felt that I had really learned something very useful on my own, and I feel very glad that I found out being an independent learner is even more effective than having a teacher to spoon-feed you all the information. I realise this is because your mindset is that you worked hard to gain this piece of new knowledge and would put in more effort to learn it properly and memorise it more thoroughly.
As for the specific things that I had learned through doing thing ACE project, they are: molecular structure of water molecules, movements and energy that molecules contain and how they change.
Finallly, I think that after doing this project, it has also helped me in some of the topics that we've covered this year, example Chemistry. This is because this project also required me to reserach about the bonding of certain atoms and molecules and therefore it gave me some background information about chemistry before we started on the topic, and in the end, I had fewer problems understanding and learning the topic.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
General Reflection: Independent Research - Creation and Capturing of Antimatter
I would like to share with everyone my reflection on the independent research that I have done regarding the recent breakthrough of Science whereby scientists managed to capture antimatter. Firstly, I started having a very keen interest on antimatter around the start of the year when I attended a sabbatical that taught us about it. I realised that antimatter was a very powerful yet extremely dangerous substance. It is a substance that when come in contact with normal matter, they would both destroy each other completely in powerful explosions. This is also one of the reason why it was a fantastic scientific breakthrough when scientists managed to capture this particular substance, because Earth itself and almost everything on it is considered normal matter.
After researching further on antimatter, I found out that one droplet of antimatter could power the entire New York city for a month, however I also researched that the power to create that amount of antimatter with current scientific knowledge and limitations, would keep New York City itself going for a billion years. Therefore I reflected that if research were to continue and we reach a whereby it is much easier to produce antimatter, it could be interesting as it might be an alternate source for energy, and I eagerly wonder what it would be like when our Earth would be supported by the energy from antimatter.
Finally, my only is that I would live to see that day and time when it happens, and for now I shall just let my imagination run wild think of the amazing stuff that would take place at that point of time.
Reference - http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/17/breakthrough-mysterious-antimatter-created-captured/
After researching further on antimatter, I found out that one droplet of antimatter could power the entire New York city for a month, however I also researched that the power to create that amount of antimatter with current scientific knowledge and limitations, would keep New York City itself going for a billion years. Therefore I reflected that if research were to continue and we reach a whereby it is much easier to produce antimatter, it could be interesting as it might be an alternate source for energy, and I eagerly wonder what it would be like when our Earth would be supported by the energy from antimatter.
Finally, my only is that I would live to see that day and time when it happens, and for now I shall just let my imagination run wild think of the amazing stuff that would take place at that point of time.
Reference - http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/17/breakthrough-mysterious-antimatter-created-captured/
General Reflction: Field Trip to MacRitchie and Science Lab experiences
As for this piece of reflective writing, I would mainly talk about our field trip to MacRitchie and also general Science Lab experiences of the year.
The MacRitchie trip that we had embarked on this year was a rather meaningful and extremely educational one. Firstly, we were briefed on some of the things that we would expect to experience on the trip the very moment we got there, and after this short briefing I also realised how interesting yet organised(which is a good thing also) it would be. We were given various experiment kits and a useful worksheet booklet that pretty much summarises the learning points that we were expected to understand when we complete the activity. After the whole activity in MacRitchie, I found out how different yet fun it was from my previous science field trips. An example would be during my years in primary school when they mention science field trips we would automatically expect it to be the Science Centre again and when we reach there we would observe and experience the same old attractions that it provides. What makes this MacRitchie field trip different from all those other field trips is that this time, we are actually supposed to get up on our feet and conduct various activities independently and get a rather personal and memorable experience at the end of the day, in other words, almost everyone has their own interpretion of the learning points that they had gained from this particular trip, which is the reason it is so special and interesting.
Moving on, now I would reflect on the various experiences we had gained from this year's Science Lab classes. At the beginning of the year, the very first science lab class, we learned something very important from our teacher, Ms Nada. We immediately realised that she was rather different than usual and unlike herself when she was teaching in normal class lesson. After some explanation, we finally understood that she was suddenly a lot more strict that usual because she feels that behaviour in the science lab is very crucial as it is an accident-prone place and can be dangerous at times if we do not practise self-control and discipline. From then on, we always try to be cautious when handling different lab equipments, and personally I feel that it is a good thing that Ms Nada had taught us these pointers on discipline in the lab right at the start of the year. After that for the following science lab classes, although I could not remember all of them precisely, nevertheless I learnt very valuable lessons and had gotten memorable experiences. Generally for the first two terms we got to experience mixing chemicals and observing how they change when mixed together. It was very interesting and educational as we got to learn the topic on chemicals more effectively when we experiment as see the results for ourselves rather then read it off from textbooks. In term 3, lab classes were even more interesting than ever because we got to experience manipulating ligh reflections by using various shapes and types of glasses and placing them in front of beams of light. It had inevitably helped us remember some of the concepts of light effects on concave/convex mirrors/glasses and such, despite having immense fun at the same time.
Altogether, I hope that we would have more opportunities to learn science through field trips and lab experiments instead of simply reading and memorizing facts with textbooks because it would be more meaningful and filled with much more fun and surprises.
The MacRitchie trip that we had embarked on this year was a rather meaningful and extremely educational one. Firstly, we were briefed on some of the things that we would expect to experience on the trip the very moment we got there, and after this short briefing I also realised how interesting yet organised(which is a good thing also) it would be. We were given various experiment kits and a useful worksheet booklet that pretty much summarises the learning points that we were expected to understand when we complete the activity. After the whole activity in MacRitchie, I found out how different yet fun it was from my previous science field trips. An example would be during my years in primary school when they mention science field trips we would automatically expect it to be the Science Centre again and when we reach there we would observe and experience the same old attractions that it provides. What makes this MacRitchie field trip different from all those other field trips is that this time, we are actually supposed to get up on our feet and conduct various activities independently and get a rather personal and memorable experience at the end of the day, in other words, almost everyone has their own interpretion of the learning points that they had gained from this particular trip, which is the reason it is so special and interesting.
Moving on, now I would reflect on the various experiences we had gained from this year's Science Lab classes. At the beginning of the year, the very first science lab class, we learned something very important from our teacher, Ms Nada. We immediately realised that she was rather different than usual and unlike herself when she was teaching in normal class lesson. After some explanation, we finally understood that she was suddenly a lot more strict that usual because she feels that behaviour in the science lab is very crucial as it is an accident-prone place and can be dangerous at times if we do not practise self-control and discipline. From then on, we always try to be cautious when handling different lab equipments, and personally I feel that it is a good thing that Ms Nada had taught us these pointers on discipline in the lab right at the start of the year. After that for the following science lab classes, although I could not remember all of them precisely, nevertheless I learnt very valuable lessons and had gotten memorable experiences. Generally for the first two terms we got to experience mixing chemicals and observing how they change when mixed together. It was very interesting and educational as we got to learn the topic on chemicals more effectively when we experiment as see the results for ourselves rather then read it off from textbooks. In term 3, lab classes were even more interesting than ever because we got to experience manipulating ligh reflections by using various shapes and types of glasses and placing them in front of beams of light. It had inevitably helped us remember some of the concepts of light effects on concave/convex mirrors/glasses and such, despite having immense fun at the same time.
Altogether, I hope that we would have more opportunities to learn science through field trips and lab experiments instead of simply reading and memorizing facts with textbooks because it would be more meaningful and filled with much more fun and surprises.
General Reflection: Term 3
In term 3, it was an extremely straight-forward term but also stressful at the same time. I shall explain why. Firstly, the topic for the term was on physics and on light reflection. Personally, this particular topic that we are learning would be the cause of this term being pretty easy and straightforward, as the topic only had very simple and few concepts that we had to learn and practice in order to tackle the worksheets and test fairly easily. However, the term was rather stressful at the same time because it had too many holidays, and although it should have been a good thing and we should be happy about it, the problem is that it only means we get to see our teacher less and therefore we would build up stress since we might be unsure of certain facts on the topic at times. However, once again I would like to compliment the teachers for their creativity and innovation of producing a set of worksheets on the topic itself that ultimately can help us to revise and answer all our questions on the topic with minimal help from teachers themselves. I found these sets of worksheets very useful as it is the thing that we can readily rely and depend on when we revise for the test and they are also pretty straightforward and easy to understand.
All these factors played a part and made this term very smooth-saling for me as I reflect back. Therefore, because of all these and with my adequate time-planning skills and positive learning attitude that I had learnt as a result of the wake-up calls of the disappointing results of previous terms, I finally obtained an extremely satisfactory result from this term's test by getting top in class with a score of 38/40. But even though I felt extremely happy and accomplished, I told myself not to get complacent and begin focusing on the end-of-year tests which would be the most important and work even harder than ever for it, if not my efforts for this entire year would be for nothing. Finally, I would simply like to thank the teachers and my friends who have helped me to finally improve from the disappointing B's to a high A1 by guiding me and answering my questions whenever I am unsure of certain facts of the topic.
All these factors played a part and made this term very smooth-saling for me as I reflect back. Therefore, because of all these and with my adequate time-planning skills and positive learning attitude that I had learnt as a result of the wake-up calls of the disappointing results of previous terms, I finally obtained an extremely satisfactory result from this term's test by getting top in class with a score of 38/40. But even though I felt extremely happy and accomplished, I told myself not to get complacent and begin focusing on the end-of-year tests which would be the most important and work even harder than ever for it, if not my efforts for this entire year would be for nothing. Finally, I would simply like to thank the teachers and my friends who have helped me to finally improve from the disappointing B's to a high A1 by guiding me and answering my questions whenever I am unsure of certain facts of the topic.
General Reflection: Term 2
As for Term 2, the second term of the year, by far it is the most demanding and tough term for me as an individual, as I had to constantly remind myself to study harder this term since the last term was a disappointment for me and yet train harder for my CCA as the National Inter-School Competition takes place this term. Fortunately, the topic for this term was easier to understand and learn compared to term 1's. We learnt Biology on Sexual Reproduction generally, and it was pretty straightforward both for the teacher and the students ourselves, as for this topic it's mainly facts and information that we have to memorize and we are not required to learn any concept-wise topics. However, the most challenging part for the term test would rather be the one on Acids and Alkalis. As for this topic which was taught last term, we were required to re-learn some of the concepts and memorize more element/chemical-related stuff that we had inevitably forgotten from last term. This was espcially tedious since the topic itself was already hard to learn in the first place, but in the end, we still managed to pull through due to the care and guidance from both friends and teachers. Online lessons for the term was interesting and fun. We were required to make a video about Sexual Transmitted Diseases. Although it was a bit awkward when we were researching for information on various differerent diseases as we came along quite a number of disgusting images, it was very fruitful since we got to understand them and I thought that these information on the causes of these diseases could effectively serve as a warning to us in future on how to avoid all these from happening.
As for the results of the term test, I felt a certain amount of happiness but not much as althought I improved from a B4 to B3 from last term, my goal was actually an A2 or higher. However after reflecting again, I think that the cause of this would not mostly be the additional stress and CCA trainings I had due to the National Competition coming up, but rather I would mainly be because I had poor time-planning as I often could not find time to study and revise but strangely I could still see myself playing video-games at time. But in the end, I still decided to remain optimistic and figured that I would make full use of the June holidays to study harder for the following terms such that I would see a much better improvement in terms of results and my learning attitude.
As for the results of the term test, I felt a certain amount of happiness but not much as althought I improved from a B4 to B3 from last term, my goal was actually an A2 or higher. However after reflecting again, I think that the cause of this would not mostly be the additional stress and CCA trainings I had due to the National Competition coming up, but rather I would mainly be because I had poor time-planning as I often could not find time to study and revise but strangely I could still see myself playing video-games at time. But in the end, I still decided to remain optimistic and figured that I would make full use of the June holidays to study harder for the following terms such that I would see a much better improvement in terms of results and my learning attitude.
General Reflection: Term 1
Term 1 was a very fruitful yet demanding term as we learnt on the topic of chemistry. Chemistry was extremely confusing to everyone at first since there were so many new names and terms to get familiar with. The concept itself (an example would be chemical bonding), is very hard to teach and therefore students like ourselves have to spent much time and effort understanding and learning various different concept from scratch. However I have to compliment the teachers for their creativity of transforming online lessons to become sort of an enrichment activity to further allow us to understand and learn chemistry. A good example would be that we made use of online lessons to create a periodic table with generally complete information for the first 20 elements on a vanguard sheet of paper. Not only did this helped us to understand the concepts of protons and electrons and neutrons and reserach how they are related to each other, we also killed two birds with one stone as we got to briefly memorize the first 20 elements of the periodic table.
However, I have to admit that I was extremely disappointed with my results for the test of the term because I only got a B4. I reflected deeply on what was the cause of the disappointing results and I realised that I have been taking the term test and subject too easy, and also have not been studying enough. Afterall, it was the term when we just got back from the long and overly-relaxing end of year holidays and I guess I have turned lazy. I told myself at the end of the term to take this positively and treat it as a wake-up call, such that I MUST work many times harder for the following terms to improve, since this subject has been my best all along till now.
However, I have to admit that I was extremely disappointed with my results for the test of the term because I only got a B4. I reflected deeply on what was the cause of the disappointing results and I realised that I have been taking the term test and subject too easy, and also have not been studying enough. Afterall, it was the term when we just got back from the long and overly-relaxing end of year holidays and I guess I have turned lazy. I told myself at the end of the term to take this positively and treat it as a wake-up call, such that I MUST work many times harder for the following terms to improve, since this subject has been my best all along till now.
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