Thank you and Farewell.

TLT Batch 2011-2012

For every quarter, students from different grade levels in our school are made to do a C.E.O. (Creative Expansion Output) in every subject on whatever topic they are discussing. For this last quarter our batch was made to do a blogging project for our science class, and written on our blog posts are answers to the questions that our science teacher will be asking us, which he will post on Facebook or at the sciencebloggingproject.blogspot.com. After making a blog post we are required to comment on an assigned group with the following criteria: content, coherence, creativity, voice, mechanics, text layout, graphics and multimedia, and intellectual honesty. It doesn't end there, for every post that we make, a group will comment on ours and we will comment on theirs or another's then, our teacher will comment and grade everyone's posts and comments.

Before our teacher let us begin, he showed us a short video on how to make a blog to help us get started. Surprisingly, the very next day Jose had already started creating our blog so that we could begin making our first post. We didn't start on our post not until we were able to decide on the design of our blog. This is where we had a trouble on, picking a template. It took time deciding on which template to choose since there were around 4 good ones. A long thinking process took place and we ended up with the template your seeing right now. Another problem was, we were too focused on doing posts that we forgot to comment on one group and it was due 8 days ago so we had eight points deduction.


Despite the low grades that we acquired on some of the posts, it was still fun making the blog posts because while making them we were able to express our opinions that we kept to ourselves. So, if we were asked if we would do this again, we'd gladly say yes. I mean it wouldn't kill us if we were to do it all again but if were to do it again it will be great if there aren't any deadlines. This idea of our teacher making a blog as a C.E.O. was actually very creative, him asking us questions about our field trip is like writing a reaction paper. And to improve this C.E.O. we think that the next batch should have more field trips because what happened in our batch was we only talked about the field trip to PCC and BNPP which is why the questions only revolved around those 2 places.

Do not procrastinate!

We are asked if there's anything we want to change about how our C.E.O. was handled, and our answer is none we wouldn't really want to change anything because it's already well thought of. We don't really think that there's anything to change, we actually liked the people's choice award because even though we didn't get much votes we were able to talk to friends who we haven't talked to for months. And we learned something really important while doing this project, it was to not procrastinate because everything becomes harder when you let it off for tomorrow.

Thank you everyone!

Well, we hope that you enjoyed our posts and we are also very thankful for the readers who took time to read this. Thank to our teacher too because through this C.E.O. it got us worked up to exceed our best so that we could win a best blog post. Also we would like to thank you for this wonderful experience, thinking that this would be a really hard project it came out to be something really helpful. This was a first time for us and we really enjoyed it, we hope that the next batch will also have a great time doing this blogging project.

J.A.E.Y.L. here,

signing out

Le open or Le close

BNPP has been quite a talk in our batch lately and others have taken their sides already, using a scenario we'll tell you which side were on.

Power shortage

Pretend that I’ve been elected president of the Philippines, the country is suffering from a power crisis and the only solution is opening the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). So, it’s up to me whether or not to open it and I say we should. I know that there’s a huge risk upon this decision, especially having the nesting place of the endangered marine turtles only an 8 minute ride away. There is a risk of a meltdown, the power plant is also located near dormant volcanoes, there are problems towards the disposal of nuclear energy, no power plant is 100% safe, and 3 major effects of radiation are cancer, genetic mutation, and radiation sieness. However, there are no other solutions to choose from, therefore the BNPP should be opened. 


It’s quite a decision looking at all the disadvantages but, not opening it will become our economies down fall. Looking at other countries, many are already in use of power plants and as we are using the power plant, I will make sure that we do not depend on the power plant alone since there are other alternative sources. There are also advantages towards the opening of the BNPP, electricity will cost less and there is only a few emission of carbon dioxide. It may be only a few advantages but it can change a lot towards our country. Many will be able to afford electricity and as said earlier only little pollution comes from it.  So, this is only our opinion you may have taken another side however we just wanted to share what we think.

Thank you for taking your time in reading this, until next time.

Go Nuclear or No Nuclear?

Hello everyone! J.A.E.Y.L is back and we are here to talk about nuclear energy.

What is nuclear energy? Nuclear Energy originates from the splitting of uranium atoms in a process called fission. At the power plant, the fission process is used to generate heat for producing steam, which is used by a turbine to generate electricity. 

Nuclear Energy symbol

                                             
 How is nuclear energy produced? There are two methods on producing nuclear energy. One method is Nuclear Fission. In nuclear fission, the nuclei of atoms are split, causing energy to be released. Uranium is the element being used as the main fuel for fission take place. Uranium nuclei can be easily split by shooting neutrons at them. Also, once a uranium nucleus is split, multiple neutrons are released which are used to split other uranium nuclei. 

Nuclear Fission

The other method being used is Nuclear Fusion. Nuclear fusion is the process by  which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus.  This happens only under very hot conditions. Fusion is the process that powers active stars, the hydrogen bomb and some experimental devices examining fusion power for     electrical generation .

Nuclear Fussion

But let us put all things aside and see what are the advantages and disadvantages of Nuclear Energy. In this entry we will be showing both sides of the coin. First is the advantages. The Earth has limited supplies of coal and oil. Nuclear power plants could still produce electricity after coal and oil become scarce. This is because uranium has a long lifespan. Second, Nuclear power plants need less fuel than ones which burn fossil fuels. One ton of uranium produces more energy than is produced by several million tons of coal or several million barrels of oil. This means, less money being wasted. Third, coal and oil burning plants pollute the   air. Well-operated nuclear power plants do not release contaminants  into the environment. This would mean a less polluted Earth which would slow delay global warming.    

Power Plant 

Now time for the disadvantages. First, nuclear explosions produce radiation. The nuclear radiation harms the cells of the body which can make people sick or even kill them. Illness can strike people years after their exposure to nuclear radiation. Second,   One possible type of reactor disaster is known as a meltdown. In such an accident, the fission reaction goes out of control, leading to a nuclear explosion and the emission of great amounts of radiation. Two examples of this are The Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Lastly,  nuclear reactors only last for about forty to fifty years.    

                                                      
We are very much in favour in harnessing nuclear energy because electricity will cost less which is a huge advantage to us because we are now living in the present generation filled with technology. However considering that a lot of lives will be at stake it will be best to not harness energy since citizens are an important factor in a country.

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

After coming to the Pawikan Conservation Center we went to the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). Before our trip even started, we've been expecting to learn so many things about nuclear energy and on how it's formed. We didn't take up this lesson last year so there are so many things that we have yet to learn. During our stay in BNPP there was a lady who first gave us an introduction about the BNPP. While she was lecturing us these were the notes that we took down. The construction of the BNPP started 1976 under the rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. It has a twin power plant in South Korea named Kori II. By 1979 an accident occurred in United States the Three Mile Island and so construction of the BNPP was stopped. After the lady gave out the introduction we were toured inside the BNPP. We found the control room the most interesting because it had so many switches, it would need around 10 to operate it. In the control room there was an old laptop which caught most of our interest. It was really rusty but it was amazing seeing one up close for the very first time. There was also a one way mirror, the ones in the outside aren't able to see the ones inside however the ones inside can see the others outside.




The trip was really fun and you'd really learn a lot through this experience. Thank you for reading our post till next time.

Save ALL Pawikan!

Dear readers,

 J.A.E.Y.L. is back! And this time we are going to talk about the importance of marine turtles, how global warming affects them, and how we can help in conserving them.

Old sea turtle

Sea turtles have existed for over a hundred million years, and if you were to look at the number of sea turtles left at this very moment, you will see that they are really struggling to keep their kind on the line. So, this is where we come in, we were and are the cause of their loss and so it is our responsibility to restore what we have destroyed. A lot of you may be thinking, "Why save them? What's so important about sea turtles that we have to spend time to help them?" We'll tell you why.

Sea turtles are one of the few animals who eat sea grass, and sea grass needs to be constantly cut short to keep them healthy and able to grow across the sea floor. Sea grass beds provide breeding and developmental grounds for abundant species of fish, shellfish, and crustaceans. Without sea grass beds, we become at loss since we depend on marine species for food. But because of global warming, the number of sea turtles are decreasing and sea grass beds are highly affected.

Global Warming

Before we discuss on how global warming affects sea turtles let us define it first. Global warming refers to the rising of the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. As the temperature increases it causes sea levels to rise and changes the amount and pattern of precipitation. However, how does it affect sea turtles? Even though sea turtles tend to live in warmer waters, they are still affected by the increase of temperature. Sea turtles are timid creatures; they don't do well with stress. Not having enough food in their habitat can stress them out resulting to avoidance of the mating process. If they still do mate, the number of eggs laid is lower than average and only 10% of the eggs that hatches survive the first year. So what's it to us if sea turtles gets stressed out easily? How is that connected to global warming affecting them? 


Due to global warming there is lack of food; as waters get warmer, plants and animals are not able to adjust quickly and become less abundant. This stresses out the turtles. The hot temperature also makes it difficult for the hatchlings to reach the water; the temperature becoming too hot leads to the death of the hatchlings, and so making it harder to restore the number of sea turtles. It is also believed that temperature determines the sex of a turtle and because of global warming more females will hatch and males won't be able to keep up with the number of females when it comes to reproduction.

Kids Cleaning Up at the Beach

We've talked about why marine turtles are important and how global warming affects them so let's move on to the different ways that we as students can do in conserving them. Even as students, there are many ways by which we can help conserve marine turtles. First of all, we must reduce the amount of garbage that we produce. Because of the plastic bags, cartons and other kinds of materials thrown along the seashore, sea turtles are prone into mistaking them for food leading to casualties or death. Secondly, whenever we are at the beach, we must be cautious of sea turtle nesting areas because sea turtles are easily disturbed when around people. We must make sure to give nesting areas plenty of space and do not disturb females looking for a place to nest. Third, we can volunteer in clean-up events at beaches. This may look too little in helping conserve sea turtles but at least we are helping even with the little that we can do as students.

Well, that's it for this entry. Thank you for reading this post and we hope you enjoyed it.

   

Truly yours,

J.A.E.Y.L.                           

Trip to the Pawikan!

   

PCC

Dear Readers,

 It may be late to talk about something which happened weeks ago however the feelings are still imprinted on us. The joy we felt seeing newly hatched sea turtles and the depression which came over when we had to let go off them. This happened last February 3, we went in a trip to Pawikan Conservation Center (PCC) which is in Bataan. For the older trips that we've been to, we have been traveling along with lower grade levels but this time it was only meant for us.

Hawksbill sea turtle

 We had this trip because this was made to widen our knowledge towards sea turtles found in our country. We joined because we wanted to, and we knew this was an opportunity which may not come again and so we took it. We expected the trip to be really tiring but the same time fun.Before the actual field trip we were really really excited to go on this trip, I mean who wouldn't be when it's a day dedicated to only the 6th graders!

 Since our site was PCC, we expected to learn a lot more about sea turtles. About how they grow up, what they eat or where they decide to go to once they've hatched. PCC is an organization conserving sea turtles. They were made because the number of our sea turtles have greatly diminished because of  humans eating turtle eggs. They themselves said that it would be nearly impossible to regain the sea turtle's original number, however they are working earnestly in trying to get back at least as  close enough to the original number. We learned a lot from the PCC, that baby turtles grow up not having their mothers beside them so it's a survival game out there for them. Out of 7 we have 5 kinds of sea turtles in the Philippines (hawksbill, olive ridley, leatherback, loggerhead, and green sea turtle), each having their own eating habits.After sea turtles hatches they swim towards other countries but when they've reached maturity they come back to their birthplace to lay eggs.

Olive Ridley

 The Olive Ridley is commonly known as the Pacific Ridley. Its scientific name is Lepidochelys olivacea.

                                                           Taxonomic classifications:
                                                             

                                                               Kingdom: Animalia

                                                               Phylum: Chordata

                                                               Class: Reptalia
                                                               Order: Testudines
                                                               Family: Cheloniidae
                                                               Genus: Lepidochelys

Baby Olive Ridley

 What's interesting with Olive Ridley turtles is that unlike other sea turtles they prefer black sand, also they are the smallest kind of sea turtles. We chose Olive Ridley out of the other sea turtles because we found them to be really adorable and that is because seeing newly hatched ones, they looked so helpless that we couldn't take our eyes off of them.

Olive Ridley turtles are predominantly carnivorous especially during their early stages of life. They are favourable towards Mangroves, the breeding grounds of fishes,prawns and crabs which they feed on after having to migrate over large distances in the sea. During our stay in the PCC we released a couple of Olive Ridleys which was quite depressing knowing that we couldn't keep them but it was for their own good.

Thank you for reading our 2nd entry and I hope to your reading our suceeding posts.

Sincerly yours
J.A.E.Y.L.                      

Message from the Editors

Dear Readers,

Pencil v.s. Camera

Who are we?Just simple students you might say but we plan to expand your knowledge through the experiences we've been through.We are the future or of this generation and so we would like to help in any way we could, for the Mother Nature by sharing our studies to you.Before that we would like to introduce ourselves.

 J- Jose is a really energetic person.His face resembles Dory from "Finding Nemo" there are times when we call him Dory, but he doesn't really mind, all he does is laugh it off.

 A- Allan is really outgoing in whatever he does.He loves playing sports like basketball,soccer and table tennis.He could be really naughty at times but once you get to know him he's actually helpful towards projects.

E- Edsa is a tall girl,she really likes Math since it's her ace subject and as for a non academic subject she likes art.She's picky with the food she eats, however when it comes to sweets she'll never say no.

Y- Ysabel is treated as an older sister.She's very caring towards her classmates and she's the perfect person to get advices from when it comes to liking someone.Added to that she has a wonderful singing voice.

 L- Luis is a friendly guy.He's known to be a great swimmer in our batch, however he stopped in his training to explore other sports.Which is why at the moment he is training to be better at playing badminton.

 From now on we would be addressing ourselves J.A.E.Y.L. and we look forward to your reading our next entries.