Moscow Zoo

On 28th of June, Year 12 and Year 7 went to the Moscow Zoo in the center of the Moscow. The aim of this trip was to see lots of animals. Lots of them were endangered animals and we didn't know that. We saw elephants, dolphins, giraffe, eagles, lots of different kinds of fox, cat, bat, mouse, etc. I increased awareness of endangered animals and how to protect them. Also engaged with issues of global importance and considered the ethical implications of saving the animals by using producing less wastes and picking up trashes on the road.

Book reviews

One of my three plans for this term was to read three French books and write a book review. I chose 3 books named “Dans la maison bleue”, ”Le Comte de Monte-Cristo”, and ”Lili a peur des controles”. Three of them are stories for children and also for foreigners who’s learning French. So it wasn’t very difficult for me to read and understand the contents.

“Dans la maison bleue” is a story of two best friends sharing their secrets. One of them tell a story about a house which appears in certain time only. So they decide to go in there. When they got in there, everything was blue and found an alien who lives there. They share their own stories and become friends but keeping the house as secret. “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo” is the story of the count of Monte Cristo which origin from France. And the story of Lili, who’s afraid of having tests. However she manages to get over with it with some help from other people like parents, teachers and friends.

As I read through these books, I increased my awareness of my area for growth: the vocabulary. I looked up almost every word from a sentence even though it was easy books, especially the nouns and the verbs with the conjugation. I realized that I also lack of the idioms and the daily used expressions. And to improve that, I think reading a lot will make improvement and to memories lots of words. News articles will be hard for me to begin with so probably short passages from the internet on the topic which I’m interested in will do for me to start with. And once I become comfortable with translating, I will work on the grammar structure to strength my understanding of the context. Also I showed perseverance and commitment of reading these books. It took me lots of time to read them to understand and find the words which I don’t know. However it helped me a lot and also I had fun reading the story books.

Istra Fieldtrip

From 23^rd May to 27^th May, year 12 IB students went to the science field trip to Istra Region. The location was “Moscow Region, Istra District, buzharovo, Vysotka Hotel” and I did three experiments while I was there.

On the first day, when we arrived to the hotel, we did little activity to get to know the place. By using the latitude measurement, mark the place where the flags are. By doing this activity, I learned new skills, how to use the latitude measurement and also worked collaboratively with people. We get to measure at least 30points with the latitude measurement and draw a map of the surroundings.

The second day, we as a group of three, did an investigation called line transect. We place a line by using the pole above the ground, near pond hill and in each meter; we had to measure the biodiversity of the area. Also in the afternoon we had little bit fun of using soil kits and any other important testing elements.

The third day, we investigated mainly with the quadrats; calculating the total population of the shaded area and non-shaded area. And on Thursday, we did our own investigation and organize a barbecue. During the trip, I developed new skills of using equipment, worked collaboratively and planned and initiated experiments well.

Weather Club

As IB students, we managed to go through the weather club. We measure the maximum, minimum and the present temperature of the day, the precipitation, air pressure and the cloud cover. There are almost 15 groups of two and each group get to do the weather club once in 3 weeks.  We still got four more month to measure, but now we can see what graph looks like. This year, the coldest moment was similar to last year but with much lower temperature. And the general temperature was higher than last year. By promoting the awareness of climate change in my school, I engaged with an issue of global importance. Now, I’m more aware of climate changes and interested in what to do and how to prevent them from happening. The graph of what we measured in our school also increased my awareness more, by showing the overall climate change in one place; the increase in average temperature, winter came much quicker, compared to last year.

This month, due to the exams, year 11 and 13 were away, so basically only year 12 was doing the weather club and sometimes students forgot to record which also affects the next day’s reading. I haven’t missed any of my recording date, and make sure that I am using the tools in right way so I’ve shown perseverance and commitment. Now the graph is almost ready: I planned and initiated activity by never miss my turn to measure, drawing, colouring, and updating the graphs. And I worked collaboratively with my partner while I was measuring the weather club.

School 4 Fair

 

On 16^th June, the whole year 12 students went to BIS school 4 to organize some activities for young students. Yoon Joo, Soomin and I ran an activity called “eating cookies without using their hands”. Basically, students have to spin 5 rounds and have to eat without using their hands. It seems easy but once they finish spinning, they cannot run fast and straight due to the dizziness. Quiet many students came to play our activity; more than what we’ve expect and had lot of fun. We as IB students provided some service to the school four students, shown perseverance and commitment in our activity, worked collaboratively and we planned and initiated our activity.

Environment Day

It was the environment day in BIS Moscow on 3^rd June 2011 (the actual environment day is the 5^th of June). In the morning, from 9 o’clock to 11 o’clock, my group (Soomin, Yoon Joo and I) did the face painting to year 8, 9 and 10. We engaged with the issues of global importance by drawing some endangered animals like panda, dolphin, frogs, etc, to let students know what kinds of animals are endangered. As the process of searching the endangered animals, I realized that there are way much more species which are endangered than what I thought. Also there are some animals in almost endangered position but people don’t pay attention to them because they don’t look nice like pandas and dolphins. So I learnt that to save them, we should be more responsible for preserving the nature and paying attention to the endangered species no matter how to they look like or what harms do they give to other animals. We can arrange to change the size of population but not make them extinct because they have their rights to live and exist.

And after the break, we started to prepare for the barbecue, cutting tomato, paprika, cucumber, etc, while other people are grilling the sausages outside. I improved my skills of cutting vegetables, and work cooperatively with others. Year 12 and some teachers gave out the foods till the last student gets food, and then we started to eat. And after the eating, we also cleaned up for the after and we washed the kitchen utensils.

Trip to ‘Friends of Bitsevsky Park’

We’ve planned to go somewhere outside of school to make sure that year 12 actually do something for the environment. On 19th May 2011, whole year 12 went to the Bitsevsky Park to learn about the nature. In front of the park gate, we met a lady who only speaks Russian, and start touring the park. It was new challenge for me, because I don’t understand any Russian at all. However, one of our classmates who speak Russian really well translated everything for us and I was able to enjoy the tour. We expressed the tree layers in the forest by using our bodies; we draw little pictures of what we hear in the park (more like forest), the status of protected park in Moscow, etc. So we could engage with issues of global importance. It was really important to know what kinds of spices are there, how many are there because the Bitsevsky Park is selected as the national protected park. And everything in there was protected as well. The biodiversity of the forest gives us not only the status of the plants and animals but also the current situation of the plants and animals and what we should do to protect them. For example, we should plant more trees and cut fewer trees, so plants and animals could expand their territory and saved from vulnerable state.

Cross stitch

One of my CAS plan for this term was to do the cross stitch. As you might have notice, that I love creating things with my own hand. I’m still working on house making and I wanted to try something new for this term; cross stitch which was new challenging for me. I chose the fairly easy one to do, so it took me about a month to finish it.

As part of the creativity, I developed my skills of doing cross stitch, and to decorate them in nicer way. I also taught my sister how to do and we did one each, so I developed new skills of teaching someone how to do cross stitch. .

Sport Activities: the Inter-house competition

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 On 4^th May 2011, BIS Moscow had a badminton competition between KeyStage4 and IB students. The competition meant to be individual competition; however, there were too many students, so we got ourselves into groups of two and then started the competition. I was with one of the Korean boy in year 10. There were about 10 groups of two but we didn't make it through to the semifinals.

During this competition, I was developed physically and socially, as part of the Action. I trained and exercised my body and also worked as a team and tried to communicate with my partner and other players; social development. I also undertook new challenge which was to do something for my year group and for my house team. I never participated in any of those inter-house competitions because I was afraid of losing and felt it was hard for me to represent my team, which is about 40 to 50 students. However, I did represent my team and I tried my best not to lose and as a result, me and the boy got up to before semi-final but failed. Also it was new challenge for me to be in a group of two people, whom I met 5minutes ago because I’m quite a shy person. I had difficulty to talk to him but luckily, he was Korean and we become friend qickly. It was nice challenge that I’ve take. I also enjoyed the play itself very much and had a great time with some new friends.

Volunteering

On 23^rd April 2011, my family and some colleagues from my father’s workplace went to an infant ward to clean the windows for them. There were lots of children who suffer from diseases and accidents, more than I expected. It was pity that a child put a bandage around his head and smiling at us. So as an action, we worked really hard to make windows look shine and children can see the outside through the windows clearly. It took about 4 hours to clean every single window in the hospital, inside and outside. After the cleanup I felt much more responsible for taking care of sickness children and felt much closer with children even though I couldn’t speak or listen to any Russian(Social and emotional development).

Here are some photos of volunteers’

http://kiablog.livejournal.com/90702.html#cutid1