Excursion to Macritchie reservoir

We had an excursion to Macritchie reservoir. It was very fun and enjoyable, because of the wind and the cool calm motion of the waves of the water. We went there to do our project about water conservation. We learnt about the four taps: distillation, New water, imported water like Malaysia and reservoirs. We were lead around by our secondary four seniors, and we were to embark on an IDS project on water conservation. After the excursion, we decided to do as a group with Huai Ze, Kenneth and Yu Kheng. we were to do a brochure as well as a poster to promote water conservation. It was a very enjoyable experience as we met up at Kenneth's house and we discussed about the project. Even though we may have had certain misunderstandings as well as disagreements, the project was still purposeful and useful to us. We came up with the idea of giving a lot of information in our poster, but it did not turn out correctly, because there were few or little pictures and the poster was not enticing at all, ending up looking more like and information booklet cover. in the end we decided to include some photos of water conservation, such as new water and reservoirs, so that people would like to see our poster. We included information, but we spread it out such that the information was not overloaded, but yet there was still plenty of information to supply the people with what they want to know and what they need to know in order to play their part in conserving water in Singapore. Overall, i think that the excursion and the project served its purpose. I learnt that we need to conserve water, because we are running out of it and Malaysia might not be supplying us with water in the future. We need to prepare for ourselves and be independent.

Term three and term three test

In term three, we were presented with a variety of new topics, some of which we had done before when we were in primary school, like cells, moving waters, bouncy raw egg, extracting chlorophyll and artificial small intestines.

----Cells----

In our practical on cells, we were to try to see our cheek cells under a microscope.I felt that this experiment was fun because we had to make use of toothpicks and we had to scrape our skin cells off our cheeks. We managed to see our cheek cells, even though it was not clear. The iodine was useful because it helped us to see the cells more clearly. Also, the glass slips that we were provided was not very good because it broke easily and I cut myself when my glass slip broke, and so I was unable to see the cells.

In part B, I felt that the cell that we were using was much more interesting than the cheek cell. Using an onion skin cell was fun because of the process required to acquire the onion skin. We had to get a scale leaf and then peel out the skin using forceps and it was fun because we squeezed juice out of the onion itself. The practical was enjoyable and exciting.

Besides that we also did practicals on bouncy raw egg. During this practical, I was sick so I was unable to make my very own bouncy raw egg. However, I still managed to find out how the bouncy raw egg was made. The egg had to react with the dilute hydrochloric acid and become soft and smelly. The egg looked peculiar, but it managed to bounce, and the liquid in the egg did not leak out of the egg.

We also did a practical on artificial intestines. The experiment was to find out why food needs to be digested. After the practical, we were also presented with homework. We were to create our own power point on the digestive system, and we had to share it with the class. In the power point, i did the part on the small intestines, including the duodenum, the jejunum, and the ilium. I made use of google as well as power point to do it. it was fun and exciting, even though we did not manage to meet up properly, nor discuss properly.

here is my powerpoint presentation. click on it and go to the link to see my power point.

Digestive system 2

 
It was a lot of fun doing the presentation and I learnt a lot. I learnt a lot about the small intestines, because I was the one who did the part. I learnt about the duodenum, the jejunum and the ilium. I learnt about where they were found and also their functions.

----Transfer of thermal energy----

Soon after, we started to learn about the transfer of thermal energy. We also did a practical, transfer of thermal energy. It was interesting because it involved the use of a multilog, which I had never used before. We learnt a lot from the experiment, about the difference between the cans that are black and silver. Because of the black covering, one of the tins was hotter than the other one.





In the term three test, we were presented with the topics I mentioned at the start of the post. Even though it was an easy test, and many people got thirty plus marks, and yet i did not do well for the test. I fell so low that I actually got the lowest in class, yet again. i got 20 over 40. I had not read the questions properly, so when they asked for which one was a mixture and which one was a compound, I wrote the ones for compound in the mixture column and I wrote the ones for mixture in the compounds column. Other than that, every one of my questions were not phrased properly, so either one or half mark was deducted from each questions, with some of the questions even getting 0. I did not read the notes that Mr low presented to us properly. I had studied only 5 days before the test. Thus the information could not all go into my head. Those that I didn't not study properly for came out, and those that I studied for did not, or came out only occasionally. I learnt that we should never study only days before the test, but should revise every time we go home after a science lesson so that we will not forget everything that Mr Low had said in class. If we do not do that, we will forget everything we learn and will end up failing, or getting very low marks for our tests.