The first Exploration I was participated in year 6 of Liger was a “Dinosaurs in Cambodia” Exploration. In this class, we were trying to discover whether there are dinosaurs footprints in Battambang. It was such an exciting topic because we are the first Cambodian students to do research about the tracks. I wasn’t available when the team went to Battambang but there were a few activities that they did to examine the tracks. They did casting with clay and plaster of paris. They walked around the site to see more footprints and they also did a small interview around the village to know whether Cambodian believe in dinosaurs. In class, we tried to identify the footprints by measuring the size, looking for traits that match with the real dinosaur footprints, making hypothesis, and sketching a rough draft of the footprints. At the end we sent that report with those possible information to paleontologists from different countries. After many research and analysis, we think it’s possible that those footprints are real. The Exploration is ended but we are continuing it during the expertise time which is one hour per week. We hope to go back to site in order to deeply examine the tracks.
Please visit this site to know more about our project.
On October 14th, every senior in Liger had a PSAT practice in Khan Academy. We were focusing on Math and Reading/Writing/Language Usage. It was very complicated for me to answer the questions, but I was happy that I get to do this practice because not a lot of us in Cambodia has the opportunity to practice before hand. From doing the test, it gave me a better idea what SAT looks like. My overall score was 960, and both scores for Math and R&W were the same. I wish to improve my Math and R&W when the next PSAT coming up because 960 points is too low.
This is one of the classes that I was participated in the first round of Expertise. I got to learn how to use the recording material and different types of sound effect. In this class, we did some filming, and then using the recording material afterward to create an audio and then add it to the video. Please look at this to see one of our samples.
I went to the National Institute of Education in Phnom Penh to join an art exhibition. It was called “Witness the future of Cambodia Art & Design”, hosted by Phare Ponleu Selpak. At the event, I get to see animations, and a lot of art works showing the process of an animated movie. I love art, so it was such a great experience for me to get the inspiration from the exhibition. Here is a video I made for the event.
In August 25th – 28th of 2017, I attended the Phnom Penh Remix, a 3-day film workshop hosted by the School of Slow Media. Before going to the event, I had to submit a form saying why I wanted to attend and then after that I had to go through an interview. The purpose of this workshop was to make a documentary about a person’s life in Phnom Penh. I was put into a team of three with a woman who’s from the Phnom Penh Post, and another man who is from Sabay. We decided to interview a photographer from the Royal Palace. We worked together really well, even though there were a lot of challenges, and some of them we couldn’t control. In this workshop, I got to learn more about different types of films, tinique to use when taking videos/photographs. I got to interact with people from different backgrounds. They were all adults, so it was such a cool experience for me to communicate with them and learn from them.
Another year has nearly ended and I am trying to catch up every steps the world moves. I’m not sure if I understand how the world works. I keep asking myself why we as the humans keep making problems, making violence, making wars. I remember telling myself that I’m going to be an inspiration for people, telling myself that everyone has the agency to change the world. Cambodia has many problems that needed to be solve but it seems like this country didn’t have a real solution toward it.
Health is one of the main issues in Cambodia because there’s a lack of professional hospital, medicine, and healthcare education. My team and I went to do workshop in Siem Reap about iron deficiency. Since Cambodians are having lack of nutrition (iron) in their body, we proposed a solution that is called Lucky Iron Fish with the collaboration from Lucky Iron Fish organization. We introduced the product to the community and told them the importance of using it. We then distributed about 400 iron fish to the communities. At last we created a documentary, mainly focus on this topic.
One hundred and ninety four countries are in the Paris Climate Agreement, while other countries such as United States of America, Syria and Nicaragua are not in the agreement at all. In school this year, I was in a team who learn about climate change, and marine life in Cambodia. I remembered a research showed that Southeast Asia could easily affected by climate change related to lightning. So my team and I went to Koh Rong which is an island located at the southwest of the country to do workshop about lightning prevention. We also helped to distribute over 100 water filters to the community with the collaboration from Song Saa foundation and Plan International. We did this because people at the rural area has less access to clean water. Moreover we helped the community to build fences and a garden which contain different types of plants such as cucumber, pumpkin, chili, and spinach. Those activities that we did help the community to have a better understanding on global warming, and let them prepare for the future climate change.
Another project that I was involved in was called Khmer Rouge Exploration. In this project, my team and I went to S-21 to learn more about Cambodian genocide. After coming back from the trip, I made a film documented about the voices of young Cambodians who have been left with a deep sense of sorrow from the horrific “Khmer Rouge” war. We are the next generation in Cambodia and we have a strong sense that our country and our people will be united for a better future.
I wasn’t really prepare the film well due to time constraints. But the film had been showed at Liger Sharation, through YouTube, other websites and at Phnom Penh Youth Film Festival 2017. The film even won the Best Picture category. This couldn’t happen without my teammates and learning facilitators. I’m glad that it got shared to a lot of people and hope that it will send positive message to them.
Filming at Government school was one of the Explorations I’m in. In this project, my team and I teaches the students at the public schools about how to make movie. We got to share our knowledge to the students, and inspire them to be creative. At the end, we got to show their movies to some of the audiences at the Phnom Penh Youth Film Festival 2017. As a Liger student, we all should share our knowledge to other people so that they could learn something that we learned and everyone will benefit it.
I was one of the speakers at the TEDxISPP. I spoke about why teen suicide is a problem, and propose many solutions to stop and raise the awareness of mental illness. It was one of my biggest experience to stand in front of a lot of people and speak for more than 10 minutes. All I wanted Cambodia to understand is that even though Cambodia is such a small country, and mental illness or suicide aren’t really a big problem as the United States, the government should consider about implementing different learning curriculum about mental and physical issues so it would help to slow down the rate of suicide or people who are living in depression or other mental problems.
This year I learned and participated in a lot of projects that helped to change Cambodia. Some of them had a big impact, and some aren’t really impacting toward the country at all. Even though I’m just one out of those sixteen million people in Cambodia, I think I play a role to change this country, and also the world. Being born in this country, I will do everything to help my nation and hope I can keep doing what I do every day. It feels good.
This is year, I got to entre my S-21 documentary for the competition called the Phnom Penh Youth Film Festival. This is the second year of the event. I was inspired to see other students’ short films. It was incredible to see the amount of creativity the young filmmakers put into their work. At the end, my documentary got nominated for the Best Picture. I was proud but also I was thankful to my teammates because without them, I couldn’t made that short film.
Above is a short video I made for the event. It wasn’t specifically focusing on the event though, it’s just a bunch of footage of the view in Phnom Penh. I hope that’s okay.
On March 17th – 18th, I was a part of the Saigon Model United Nations (Saimun) in Vietnam. It was the first time I ever been traveled abroad. In this Model United Nations, I represented Sweden. The four main topics that we were focusing on were:
It was scary to be in a room full of people trying to debate on a certain resolution. I helped my team prepared the resolution and it was complicated because I don’t really understand those complicated vocabularies. It was such a great experience for me to be there learning new things about the current world.
The video above is about the conference, and these two videos below are just the videos I made for the extra days in Vietnam.
Digital Painting was an expertise I did during year 5 of Liger. I got to use the tablet to paint something on the computer. I enjoyed doing it because I love art and I got to experience making art without using pencil or paper. I’m not only doing it in class, but during my spare time, I did some art too. Above are some of my art works. For the portraits of my friends, I used a different method, that’s why it looks real (trust me, I’m not that talented).
There is a block of a science project where we did an experiment with cereal, and some other food in order to find the iron that exist in that food. We then answer some of these questions to check our understanding.
For question number 5, I’m not really sure about my research and it might be wrong.
Name: Samady
Eating Nails for Breakfast Questions
19/20 points
Use clear sentences to answer the questions. Think about what you learned from Ben Thorne of Song Saa, the cereal experiment, and additional research. DO NOT CUT AND PASTE ANY ANSWERS. You must use your own words.
1. Why do humans need iron in their diet (in the food they eat)? Great explanation 5/5
Humans need iron in their diet because it can help them to avoid Anemia which caused by Iron Deficiency. In addition, iron help to create more red blood cells. In each red blood cell, there are about 250 million hemoglobin. In each hemoglobin, there are 4 oxygen (O2). Which mean that there are billion of oxygen (O2) in a blood cell that helps us to breathe easily.
2. What are the symptoms of a person who does not have enough iron (iron deficiency)?
YES 5/5
Some of the symptoms of a person who got iron deficiency are: They feel weak, dizzy, their body is pale, really hard to breathe and they got exhausted really fast after doing the work.
3. How could you remove the iron from the cereal?
EXACTLY 5/5
If we want to remove the iron from the cereal, we have to break the cereal into small pieces in the warm water because it helps to remove the other substances around the iron. We then use the magnet to pull the iron from the cereal.
4. Why is the iron attracted to the magnet? (Earth Science – This will require some research)
Actually the electrons line up when the rock is cooling, when it is magma. If iron atoms are in an electrical field it will magnetize the atoms. 4/5
Before the magnet come to attach the iron, the iron atoms are random, but when we use the magnet to attract the iron, the electrons of the iron started to line up with the flow of the magnetic, which means the iron is magnetized as well.
