Category: 2013-2014

Name: Tropical Forest Ecology

Date: May 5 2014 – June 17 2014

Number of People: 12

Essential Questions:

1. How are organisms and the nonliving environment interconnected in the world around us?
2.  What is the value of tropical forest ecosystems for Cambodia?
3. How do humans impact tropical forest ecosystems in Cambodia? Is it possible to use tropical forests sustainably?

Description: In Tropical Forest Ecology we learned about Ecosystems. Ecosystems are a community of organisms that are interconnected and connected with non-living things. We went on two trips because we wanted to experience and see forest directly.We went to Preah Vihear and Koh Kong provinces. When we came back we compared the dry deciduous dipterocarp forest ecosystem (Preah Vihear province) with the evergreen forest ecosystem (Koh Kong province). In Preah Vihear we went to Tmatboey community and in Koh Kong we went to Chi Phat community. We learned about conservation. Conservation means taking care or protecting something. While we learned about conservation, we also learned about sustainable and unsustainable. Sustainable is the action that does not destroy the ecosystem. Unsustainable is the action that destroys the ecosystem. We learned about ecotourism. Ecotourism is tourism that uses and benefits the ecosystem. That is one way that we use ecosystems sustainably.Also we learned about ecological services. Ecological services are the benefits that people get from ecosystems. There are three ecological services such as provisioning services, regulating services and cultural services. Provisioning services are how the ecosystem provides us directly. Ex: Trees give us resin. Regulating services are how the ecosystem regulates the climate. Ex: Trees stop the floods by absorbing the water. Cultural services are how the ecosystems give us something culturally. Ex: Bambuti people use forest plants to smoke for their ceremonies.  We answered our essential questions by using the knowledge that we got from our trips.

Exploration Name: Life on Border

Exploration Dates: March 10 – May 2

Number of Students: 15

Essential Questions/Areas:

(1) What do students know about planning and running Exploration projects?

(2) What are the steps of running Exploration project?

(3) How to keep track of working process?

(4) How to use resources efficiently and transparently?

(5) How is the situation of people living along the border such as: education, health, economic and immigration?

(7) Why do people move there?

(8) What are the advantages and disadvantages of living there?

Description:

In our Life On Border group we learned a lot of  things about border. Students know how to run the Exploration very well. Students know the goal to run their project. The first step that we can run our project is we learn about our goal. Our goal is Project Summary, Project Outcome, Project Mentors, Field Experiences, 21st Century Learning Skills and Core Curriculum Areas. After we learned about our goal we planned and thought. The situation of the people that live along the border is normal. Some people don’t have money so they don’t have work. Some people go to find work at Thailand so when the people go already some of the people can’t come back. People’s health is not so good at the border because they don’t have money to buy their food. They move to the border because if the people have the money they come to border to sell something because the border have a lot of people came from Russia to the Cambodia. So that why people want to make their business there. The advantage to live there is there are not a lot of bad people at there so it safe for people. The disadvantage to live there is if people don’t have money and they don’t have work they will not be safe for their life. We went to the border to learn and we saw some people have a work and some people don’t have work. Some people have a work but it like cart worker it is not easy to get the money. We interview the cart worker and the sellers. We went to casino to visit, but we didn’t get a chance to go in.

Exploration Name: Social Business

Exploration Dates: Nov 20 – Dec 17

Number of Students: 12

Essential Questions: How does social business alleviate poverty? What is the role of women in microcredit systems?

In Social Business class we learned about microfinance, Tong Tin and saving money. Microfinance is the bank that is for the poor people to loan the money. We learned about microfinance in Cambodia. We went on a trip to interview community people about microfinance. They microfinance is good for them because they can loan the money to make the business. We learned about Tong Tin. Tong Tin is very common at Cambodia. At Cambodia people like to play Tong Tin because they can win money on it but it might take a long time like maybe one year or more. Tong Tin can be bad and can be good. The bad thing about that game is we need to pay a lot of interest. The good thing is we can win the money. One day we learned how to play Tong Tin. We also learned about saving money. We went to Phnom Penh to visit the Kok Tha. Kok Tha is the manager of a savings group. We had a lot of trips and it was very helpful for our team.