Month: December 2014

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.

 

Exploration Name: Biography

Exploration Dates: August 12-September 26

Essential Questions:

(1) What is a biography? (2) What events have shaped this person’s life?

 

Number of Students: 13

Description: The first day that we started to learn our Exploration everyone was very excited. Our Exploration studied with teacher Jo, Sambath and Channa. Our Exploration learned about Biography. Biography is studying about the other person’s life. Biography group worked together and shared ideas that we had. For example: we went on a trip and searched the information in computer. When we interviewed we used the strategy to understand about the other person’s life​​ like listening strategy, asking questions and interviewing. We learned how to interview the people, by writing down the notes, how to be a good photographer and a good questionnaire. When we interviewed the people already we not just write down notes in our book. We also learned to make a documentary in the iMovie program. Some people worked on the information that they got too but they did it in Powerpoint program. The reason we wanted to do like this because in the future if we forget what we have we can look in the documentary of the other people life. The people that we interviewed were: Sophal’s uncle (the older person and now he does not do anything because his leg is hurt), Sophal’s sister-in-law (now she not do anything but she works at her house), Sophal  (works in Liger cleaning the school), Simian (works in Liger cleaning the school) and Houy (also works at cleaning Liger too). We had many different people that we interviewed but we only give example some of the people. We took the trip to go to the pagoda near our school to interview the monks in that pagoda. It was so fun for the Biography group. Our group studied only six weeks. Every day during Exploration time the students worked hard and studied new things a lot. In this Exploration all of the students are not lazy, they are active and helpful. We all were really happy to study about biography and now help us have a knowledge and a lot of the experience that we thought.