Category: 2013 – 2014

Exploration Name: Forest Ecology
Exploration Dates: Oct 7, 2013 – Nov 19, 2013
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.

This is our blogs: http://forestecology.ligercambodiablog.org/

Prizes: [prezi id=”<http://prezi.com/mq6wmzhbr8wt/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy>”]

Exploration Name: Khmer Architecture
Exploration Date: November 20-January 17
Number of students: 12

Essential Questions/areas:

(1) What is the meaning of architecture?

(2) What information should I know about architecture?

(3) What does Khmer architecture look like?

(4) What are the differences between ancient and modern architecture?

(5) How do we create architecture?

Description: Architecture is the process of planning, designing and constructing. When we work on architecture with these three things we have to think about durability, utility and beauty. So in our Exploration we learned about architecture in Cambodia. For example: in Cambodia there are many houses, buildings and also the temples. The Khmer architecture was different than the other countries because like the Angkor Wat is made from the big rocks and the foundation that they built is layers of rocks and sand. But in the other countries, like in the U.S.A, there are not really the buildings that have the foundation like that. Before, the buildings in Cambodia were not that big. The houses were also not that big and were not made from cement like right now. Now when they make the houses, they put many colors and many styles that they want. But at the past, the Khmer buildings were not too big and did not have many styles like now. Just the temples had many styles that Khmer ancestors made by hand with the big rocks. On the big rocks they made the big sculptures that showed about Khmer history. To do the architecture we have to follow the theory of architecture and do it step by step. In this group we went on the trip to Siem Reap to learn how did the Khmer ancestors build the temples. Other than that we also went to some places in Phnom Penh. We went to Central Market, Olympic Stadium and PPIT. That is the school that teaches about the architecture.

This is our blogs:  http://angkorarchitecture.ligercambodiablog.org/

Exploration Name: Bag Business

Exploration  Dates: October 7th-November 19th

Number of students: 13

Essential Questions:

1. Why do we use bags – the purpose of bags?

2. What is the purpose of creating a prototype?

3. What processes are needed to create a small profitable business?

Description: When we started this project we thought about Ready-Set-Go, which is a website that helped us get ideas about starting our business. In Ready we thought about our logo, what business and our goals. Then we divided all the students in our group into three different departments. There were Research + Development, Account + Finance and Sales and Marketing. In R+D they worked on how to make our design unique. In A+C they worked on Project balance sheet. Project balance sheet is the sheet that we just think of but it is not happen yet. But S + M is very important because they need to prepare the attitude and be friendly to the buyers who come. After that we took trips to RUFA, Art Gallery, A.N.D, Royal Boutique, Smateria and Wattan. Wattan is a place which made bags for us to paint. At first we decided to make 52 tote bags but then we wanted another 13 ipad bags. In our last day we all painted the bags already and we opened the shop for the students, staff and visitors to buy bags from our business. On that day we also used a mannequin to make up and put the bags on it’s hand. At that day we sold nearly all the bags. We also had 2 bags to raffle. This was very fun. We had the promotion about the tickets and one ticket for the adult costs 1$ and for the kids costs 2000៛. From that day each of us got $5 from when we sold.

This is our blogs:  http://bagbiz.ligercambodiablog.org/sales/

Exploration Name: Simple Machines (Toys)

Exploration Dates: August 12 – September 26

Number of students: 13

Essential Questions:

1.What are simple machines?

2.What is mechanical advantage?

3.How can simple machines be used to create engaging interactive toys and why is toy                          creation a powerful form of learning?

Description: In our Exploration class we learned about simple machines and how to make toys using cams (it is like a circle, like wheel and axle) + simple machines. Simple machines can make some jobs easier to do. We learned about wedges, levers, pulleys, inclined planes, gears, screws, wheels and axles. Each of these things have different advantages and disadvantages. Levers are the most used in real life. Levers can be anything you hold. Ex. sword handle, computer lid, all of those things are levers. When we started we learned about how to use simple machines in our toys. We watched a lot of videos to understand and to get new ideas. We first built toys for testing our project. It worked but it was too small and not good enough. We researched more and then we got more ideas from books, computers and videos. When we had enough knowledge and enough information, we got an idea and we worked in teams. We thought that to make our toy more interactive, we have to get some paint to make it colorful. When we finished the toy we planned a trip with our teacher to Takeo province. Our trip was not long just half a day travel and half a day at NFO to teach the students there about simple machines and how to make toys. We came back to set up for our presentation in the big area. All of Liger students came to see us and learn from each other.

If you click it will go to the Liger instructables:  http://www.instructables.com/howto/liger/