Posts

Posted on

Conservation Report of the Asian Elephant in Cambodia

Conservation Report of the Asian Elephant in Cambodia

There are two main distinct types of elephant, the African elephant (Loxodonta) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). There are currently estimated 400 and 600 wild elephants in Cambodia. This keystone species can be mainly found in the Cardamom Mountains in south-western Cambodia, and the eastern plains of Mondulkiri Province. The population of this species had dramatically decreased over the past few decades due to a significant increase in hunting, captivity for human use, habitat loss and fragmentation for agriculture and roads.  

We should not let this negative impacts continue to occur and affect the Asian elephant. The Asian elephant plays an ecological significance role as a keystone species to provide sustainability to their community and ecosystem. For instance, the elephants digging the soil for water, they use their huge mass and their tusks to dig the waterholes which create another available water sources, especially, in the dry season. In addition, when there are more available water sources in an ecosystem it allows other species to realize and have more potential access to this water source. This community service helps other species to no longer needed to travel for long distance to fulfill their thirst.

Another major role of this keystone species is to sustain the food web and maintain the population growth of the primary producer.  The Asian elephants weigh between 3500kg to 5000kg, therefore, they require to consume about 140 kg and drink up to 190 liters of water in a single day. The elephant is one of the herbivorous apex predator and the largest land mammals on earth. The elephants usually travel in an average distance of 25 km on a daily basis while foraging for the large quantities of food such as grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. This keystone species have the commensalism interactions with the fruits, other plants, and animals. When the elephant consumes the fruits they poop back the seeds and help to disperse the seeds in the long distance across the ecosystem. In addition, their dunk is a great fertilizer that can help to maintain the nutrient rich-soils in an ecosystem. Moreover, their dunk also important for other species such as hornbills, banded mongooses, and vervet monkeys because the dunk isn’t fully digested so it can provide nutrients for other animals. Furthermore, while they travel and forage in the vegetation, the elephants create a pathway for other smaller animals to travel but as well allow more sunlight and space that is available for the tiny plants to grow. Not only that, with their huge body and roam over long distances the elephants help to disturb the insects which allow the predators to forage for the insects easily.    

Elephants use their tusks to dig for roots and water or even fight each other. Unfortunately, their ivory has gotten them into trouble because it is really valuable to some people. There is a lot of demand and trading for the elephant’s tusks in Cambodia as well around the world which lead hunting to one of a major issue that causes the population of the elephants decreases so rapidly. Other purposes of hunting elephant are also for meat and leather.  

There is also a huge problem with captivity, the villagers use the elephant for their own needs as a transportation to carry heavy goods. In addition, other tourist companies use the elephant as a tourists attraction and let them ride on the elephant to view the forest at Mondulkiri and view the temple at Siem Reap. However, it is fun for tourists but this is stressful and not enjoyable for an elephant. In addition, in return the elephants usually get punishments with less food, hitting, and capture them in small tiny space.

The Asian Elephant is an important part of the Bunong people’s culture and belief system at Mondulkiri province. Elephants are an important connection to the spirits that the Bunong believe live in the forests, mountains, and houses in the villages.

As the population in Cambodia is growing and developing there is needed to be more available space and expand on the agriculture sector to support the family and country’s economic. At Mondulkiri, the elephant is facing a major threat of habitat loss due to a lot of deforestations from different companies and individuals. The soil there is nutrient rich and has a good condition for agriculture. So there are millions and million dollars of investment that are invested in this particular area to mainly grow cassava and rubber trees. Deforestation isn’t just for agriculture but the people cutting down value and expensive trees for their own business, trading, and personal use.

Habitat fragmentation is another major issue, people starting to build more residents and more roads for tourism but as well to transport those goods from the agriculture to the main city. This lead to habitat fragmentation that suffers the elephant because they will lose their habitat, get less food, cause huge chances to community structure, and ecosystem health. affect their interaction, and lead to a decline in elephant population density. The invasive by human population cause a negative impact to an elephant’s ecological niche and lead to decline their population growth in Cambodia.  

Even though there are currently a few local and international organizations that are trying their potential to preserve this keystone species. However, the population of the Asian elephant is currently endangered. The population will still continue to decrease because we need more conservation actions and more effective ways to approach the above issues if we want to sustain this keystone species. In addition, Cambodia needs to improve our environmental policy and enforcement from the government toward this problems. And due to our current economic circumstances, we need more international support and financing.   

In Cambodia, there are current conservation actions from different organizations and government such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Fauna and Flora International (FFI), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Elephant Valley Project (EVP) and Ministry of Environment. Most conservation actions take place in the Eastern Plains of Mondulkiri Province and the Northern Plains of Preah Vihear Province which is the hot-spot of the elephant population. In 2005, FFI had established the Cambodian Elephant Conservation Group to help sustain and protect the population of this species. FFI had gathered different institutes and work with the Ministry of Environment to provide fundraising and technical support to help to protect the Asian elephant in Cambodia. They had worked closely with the forest communities to reduce human-elephant conflict and raise awareness about the effects on the elephants.

FFI and WWF had also set up camera trapping different places of the forest to understand the threat and gather more information about the elephant condition and their current population. Moreover, WWF had tested the DNA from the elephant’s dunk to estimate the population of this species in the Eastern Plains. WCS has established a Seima Protection Forest at Mondulkiri that had one of the largest protecting areas in southeast Asia. The protecting area helps to conserve the habitat of the elephant population from hunting, deforestation, and other human disturbances. When the team knows any cite of deforestation and hunting WCS will send their team into the forest to stop the human actions.

Elephant Valley Project (EVP) is a non-profit organization in Senmonorom, Mondulkiri province. Their mission is to improve captivity elephant’s health and try to bring those elephants back into their wild habitat by creating a sanctuary protected area for the elephant. EVP work closely with Bunong people to provide the support and education to stop using the elephant for their own needs. Instead, EVP uses the sanctuary protected area to create a tourism place that gives the elephant back their independence, natural behavior, and with hurting them but still provide a unique cool experience back to the tourists. The tourists can observe how the elephants live visually, study about their characteristics but as well providing care and support to help maintain the sustainability of the Asian elephant. The sanctuary help to support the local community by bringing more tourists, create more jobs but at the same time help to protect their forest, natural resources, and the elephants.

The forest, the elephants, and other species had suffered enough from human actions from the past few decades. For future conservation actions, the government needs to implement and improve the enforcement of the law to anyone who contributed to illegal actions that cause an impact on the forest and animals. Local community and citizens play an important role to help preserve our nature. Most of the villagers still have a lack of understanding and education toward their own actions that could cause an enormous negative toward the forest and animals. The villagers have no other option besides getting the advantages from nature, they need to make money, support their family, and get their child to go to school. That is why we need more projects like the EVP that help to support community services and create more will educational activities and actions to make the citizens feel like they should help to preserve and care about our nature. Lastly, the conservation teams that we currently have isn’t enough, we need more teams to fight back the illegal activities that are happening every single day. If we do not put more effort and actions to sustain our nature, in the next few decades we will experience a larger negative impact on our forest that could result in more animal extinction. 

References:

“Elephant Conservation in Cambodia.” Fauna & Flora International, www.fauna-flora.org/projects/elephant-conservation-cambodia.

“Asian Elephant.” WWF, cambodia.panda.org/projects_and_reports/endangered_species/mammals/asian_elephant/.

“Direct Protection to Forests and Wildlife.” Wildlife Alliance, 27 July 2018, www.wildlifealliance.org/.

“Saving Wildlife Elephants.” WCS Cambodia, cambodia.wcs.org/Saving-Wildlife/Elephants.aspx.

The Altruistic Traveller. “Discussing the Importance of Cambodia’s Elephants– An Interview with the Lead Guide of the Mondulkiri Project.” The Altruistic Traveller, 9 Dec. 2016, thealtruistictraveller.com/blog/discussing-the-importance-of-cambodias-elephants-an-interview-with-the-lead-guide-of-the-mondulkiri-project.

“The Role of Elephants in Maintaining an Ecosystem.” Greentumble, 15 Mar. 2018, greentumble.com/the-role-of-elephants-in-maintaining-a-healthy-ecosystem/.

“Corridors Project off to a Great Start.” Save the Elephants, savetheelephants.org/about-elephants/importance-of-elephants.

“Asian Elephants In Peril | Earth Focus.” KCET, 1 Oct. 2018, www.kcet.org/shows/earth-focus/episodes/asian-elephants-in-peril.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4SETSsXkx0

“Asian Elephant | National Geographic.” A Guide to Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park, 21 Sept. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/a/asian-elephant/.

Posted on

First Chemistry Lab

Lab Report:

Title: What is the Metal type of the Malaysia 50 Sen Coin

by Mengthong Long

Introductory Chemistry

September 4, 2018

Abstract

The coins were introduced as a method of payment around the 6th or 5th century and from that time different countries tried to invent a different style of the coins for their currency. In the contemporary world, we still use the coin as our payment methods and those coins are made out of different metals types such as copper, aluminum, gold, silver, iron, nickel and many more. In this lab, it was set up for figuring out the Malaysia 50 Sen coin metal type. To do this, knowing the density of the coin was essential. So there were two main steps, first was to calculate the volume of the coin and then calculate the mass of the coin. Our results showed that the average density of the Malaysia 50 Sen coin was 7.9 g/ml and the coin was made out of a Gadolinium but compared to the actual data the coin was actually made out of a Brass Nickel.  

Introduction

Coins are very important and necessary for many countries for their payment system, they use the coins as money in everyday transactions and exchange. There are many styles of coins that are made out of different metals depending on their value and each country preference. The basic of the coins are usually disc-shaped with different sizes and designs.

The main purpose of this experiment was to figure out the Malaysia 50 Sen coin metal type. Before the experiment, the hypothesis was that the Malaysia 50 Sen coin was made out of an Aluminum since the mass of the coin was light so its density wouldn’t be that much either, therefore, Aluminum was the choice based on the mass and observation.

Materials and Methods

 

In the experiment, there were two main steps, first was to calculate the volume and the second was to calculate the mass of the coin. At first, grabbed the 100 ml graduated cylinder and fill it with 30 ml of water. For this step, make sure that the lower curved surface of the water was in the same level of 30 ml, not surface due to the design of the graduated cylinder at the bottom surface. After the water was on the mark, slowly placed the coin into the graduated cylinder then note down the total volume into the table data. Finally, repeat the same steps for three replications for precise data. Then clean up space, especially, tried to clean and dried the coin properly so that it wouldn’t affect the mass result. Next, get the coin and tried to place it on the center of the scale. Lastly, note down the mass into the table data and repeat this process for three replications.

Results

Table: Calculate the average density of the Malaysia 50 Sen coin

As a result, the density of the first, second, and third replications was 6.7 g/ml, 8.0 g/ml, and 8.9 g/ml respectively. The average density of the Malaysia 50 Sen coin was 7.9 g/ml and based on Engineers Edge Densities of Metals and Elements Table, the coin was made out of a Gadolinium metal type.  

Discussion

The result didn’t support the hypothesis, the hypothesis was that the Malaysia 50 Sen coin was made out a Gadolinium metal type but the result wasn’t correct either. According to Invest Silver Malaysia, the study showed that the Malaysia 50 Sen coin was actually made out of a Brass Nickel metal. There were a few errors during the process of the experiment. The biggest error was properly the step to observe and note down the accurate volume of the coin since the mark on the graduated cylinder was tiny and wasn’t clear. In addition, when the coin was placed into the cylinder the volume didn’t increase that much so it was a struggle to mark the accurate volume.

Reference

LLC. “Densities of Metals and Elements Table.” Engineers Edge, 30 Mar. 2017, www.engineersedge.com/materials/densities_of_metals_and_elements_table_13976.htm.

“10 Facts About Malaysia’s New 3rd Series Coins.” Invest Silver Malaysia, 23 Aug. 2011, investsilvermalaysia.com/10-facts-about-malaysias-new-3rd-series-coins/.

 

Posted on

SAT Preparation

The senior will have an official SAT test soon on either October or March, it is really necessary to practice as much as we could to get prepared and be ready to the test. Coach Larry Gelwix once said, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.” This quote is really fundamental in a test like SAT. We need to practice a lot and as well finding an efficient way to solve different problems in SAT. This is what SAT all about, practice, speed, and efficient with the strategy to apply. We had two weeks of SAT boot camp with the students from America who had been trained and experienced this test. It was really helpful because we had many tips and practices from our two mentors. In the essential math class, we continue to practice and build our test-taking strategy on the subjects such as Circle Theorem, Trigonometry, Unit Circle, Imaginary Number, Function, and Quadratic. In my math class, I spend a huge chunk of my time on quadratic using both Khan Academy and Desmos to do self-learning on this important skill in SAT.   

Posted on

Literacy Leadership Team

This year my English literacy class was really different and unique from other groups. The other groups they had a unit about America. But for my literacy class, we called The Liger Leadership Team, we took a different approach to learn the advanced literacy skills and as well learn to be independent and be the leader for other students. For the first few weeks, we have been reading some kid books such as Mr. Nosey, Arrow to the Sun, and Rosie Revere, Engineer. I realized that literature and literacy skills can be learned from any kind level of books. Even though the above books were written for kids but I found out that it included some of the advance literacy skills such as repetition, idiom, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and a tremendous amount of new vocabulary.

Beside from that, we were the first literacy group to read the book called The Rent Collector. The Rent Collector was written by a foreign author, Cameron Wright. So The Rent Collector was a 50% story based on a real life of Sang Ly’s family, who live at the landfill at Steung Meanchey that struggle to fight through to survive and find a better life for herself and her son who is always sick. Sang Ly had a dream to learn how to write and read. But at one day, she asked Sopeah who was the “the rent collector”, and who was normally care about herself. But she ended up accept to teach Sang Ly and at last literature play a role in Sang Ly’s life and help her right through the difficulties she had faced.   

As a final product, we had created our own literature event about our book, launch our Lit Studio which is our library, and share our poem about The Rent Collector. The event went so well, everyone enjoys listening to our inspiring speech about The Rent Collector, book summary, students’ testimonials, and spoken word. I had written a few poems and I had an opportunity to share one of them the crowd that was expressing Sang Ly’s feeling when she lived at the dump.

 

Posted on

Khmer Poem Book

Last year, the senior started to write their own poem about any topics that they feel interested to write about. I had written three different poems that were mostly related to education and the issues in my society. This school year we have been working on our poem book and in the first few weeks, we tried to edit to our poem. After we finished our editing, we started to put all of those poems into a format of the book. My first role with the poem book was to write the instruction and show a proper way to write the poem. In addition, my role changed to work as a person who manages and organize the book format. This role was really important because if the book didn’t have the same format it will look so awkward. So when the format was finished the students started to follow and use it as a sample. Even though this job was mainly run by me but I needed to communicate with other students and show them the update of the format since we had a different period of Khmer class. On September 24, 2018, we had our first book draft and it looked astonishing, everyone was really happy to see the book and what we had accomplished from the past few months.  

Posted on

Young Youth in Toyota Impact Challenge

It was a great start to my new year at the Liger Academy Leadership. On Thursday, August 2019, I was attempted in the event called Toyota Impact Challenge. There were many young innovators who try to create solutions to challenges surrounding: transport, smart cities, road safety, and environment. It was a semi-final, where each team tried to pitch their ideas and business model toward the four main topics listed above. I would say their idea their business model was really impressive. My favorite idea was a SmartBin project, this idea helps to encourage the citizen to throw the bottles into a proper bin that is listed on the SmartBin. What unique about this project is that every time people throw a bottle into the bin they’ll receive some points that could use to buy other items. Beside from the pitching, during a break time, I also did a networking with a young Cambodian guy who is running a project called “Tosrean”, which mean let’s learn. This system helps a student to find a private teacher to teach them one on one. From this extraordinary experience, I learned a lot from different ideas to solve the issue in Cambodia but as well from the presentation from each team, it gave me a broader understanding of a business.

 

Posted on

Changing Cambodia 2017/2018 (Light the Fire)

The change goes along with passion, action lead to change, the more changes I make, the closer I will reach to my true passion.

I will not be able to find my true passion if I never “force myself” to explore and engage with new projects.

I admit that  I knew nothing about filming or any of the cameras stuff, however, I still want to give it a try. I believed in myself that I’m going to be useful in some way to create this incredible music video in Battambang province. I met Ryan, who was the filming director and he explained the overall schedule of the filming project and I was surprised when I heard that some days we needed to work up to 14 hours. On the morning I wasn’t sure what to help at the start but later on, I started to play an important role as a bridge between the designing team and the filming director. The colors slowly started to appear from the body of the performers as the designers tried their best to be creative within the painting. Each performers’ body was full of solid colors: green, blue, purple and orange. Everyone who involved in the filming project was amazed by my incredible work and the ability to solve the problem and communicate with elders throughout the whole project.   

Normally, the staff would plan and guide us throughout the whole project but for this particular experience, I was so independence. Most of the time, I traveled alone, manage my own schedule, find my own food, and solving my own problems.  

This filming was a collaboration between Human Agency and Phare Ponleu Selpak, and the film was under the theme, “Light the fire.” Fire can easily permeate from one location to another and as a change agent, we should also be the fire. I want to spread my knowledge, and my skills just like the fire, so that I could help to improve my own communities and the country. In addition, with a lot of experiences, I will spread my knowledge through my independence and confidence. I’m old enough to do it alone and to spread my word to the communities just like how the fire ignite and cause the effect.

I continued spreading out the fire through a project called Khmer Sight Foundation’s, a community service that helps to cure the villagers’ eyes for free. I was apart of the team to check the patient’s’ ability to view the E eyes chart. Another big responsibility for me was to communicate with the patients to explain to them the foundation. But also, to provide them support and instructions of what to do with each step when checking their eyes. All of these works were done independently by myself, I was really satisfying to help the patients to get their sight back.        

I could not stop pushing forward to help my community so in the fifth exploration I am currently involved in the exploration called Mosquito-Borne Diseases in Cambodia. Exploration is a project-based learning, where we not just focus on theories and discuss the problems, but also taking action to create impact. In this exploration, our final project is to do on data analysis report about dengue fever around the school community. The risk analysis was focused on two main villages, Champous Kaek and Koh Krobey and we interested to find the associations of the main three variables: knowledge, behavior, and perceived risk. For the future plan, we would like to distribute out the report to the village chief, local clinic, and the government. In addition, we decided to do an awareness campaign that could help to remind villagers to clean their surrounding environment in order to decrease the risk of getting dengue fever.

Change agent permeates the changes for the community just like the fire with a powerful movement, confidence, and independence. My other three friends and I been thinking about spending our summer break doing cycling around Cambodia two years ago. As we are now independent, we have the knowledge, and we are ready to roll the plan to create impact in this country. I want to inspire those young students, show them how STEM and project-based learning could better their lives and their community.

Aside from that, I also believed this is also another great opportunity to expand the survey and the data analysis, seen we will cycling around Cambodia we could interview the villagers along the way.

As a change agent, I believe in change, I believe in my own words, I believe in my community, I believe that what I share today will be a potential to create impact tomorrow or future. Tina Seelig said, “Passion follows engagement,” the more we are involved, the more passionate we become, I get my passion from engagements and from the journey to create change for Cambodia.

Posted on

First Time Doing Yoga and Meditation

Life requires balance, the balance between school and my own relaxing time. On 24th of May, I went to Vagabond Temple Yoga & Meditation Retreat. My first impression when I arrived the place was unbelievable, I didn’t expect this area to be like this; the whole environment was formed by nature, it was really peaceful and relaxing. My first yoga class was around 4:30 Pm, I was a bit nervous but at the same time, I was excited to do the yoga. After the first class, I learned how to prepare myself comfortable before the class start, I need to prepare the yoga mat, pillows, blocks and more. After many classes: medications, yoga, and inspirational talk, it allowed me to understand my strengths and my weakness both physically and mentally. After I heard a powerful talk about focusing on your strengths not your weakness from Pazit, a founder of Vagabond Temple, I immediately reflected myself on her story and her talk. This was one of my favorite classes of all from this trip.   

 

Posted on

First Time Working with Professional Film

It took me a while to make this decision, give up the Vagabond meditation and the whole school week to involve in the filming project in Battambang. The main purpose of the filming was to create a creative music video about the shining light. The idea of shining light was inspired by an organization called Phare Ponleu Selpak. Phare is providing a free education to the community students: designing, music, Khmer dance, circus, and animation. Throughout the whole experience working with the cruel team and all the Phare’s students I had made many connections with them through communication and working in general. Filming, in general, is very hard, particularly for this project sometimes we worked like 14 hours a day and it was exhausted. But this hard work pays it off by giving me an opportunity to understand the whole process of filming. My favorite parts of the project was to work as an assistant of the filming director and to give instructions to the performers. Because of all of this incredible experiences, it had have changed my mind to involve more with filmings.   

Posted on

How do scientists study the geography of the ocean?

Sonar is a type of technology that had been used by many scientists to navigate the geography and atmosphere in the water, but mainly in the ocean. There are two types of sonar: active sonar and passive sonar. Active sonar is able to send the signal of sound in the water, however, when the object is in the path of the sound pulse it will bounce the echo signal back to the sonar transducer. The sonar transducer signal has the ability to tell the strength of the signal, determine the distance and the orientation of the object. On another hand, passive sonar able to detect the noise in the ocean, it does not emits its own signal but instead, it uses to detect the noise that comes toward the vessels. Passive sonar doesn’t have the ability to measure the range of the object.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses sonar technology to study and understand the geography and the atmosphere in the ocean. Scientists primarily use sonar to map objects on the seafloor like shipwrecks and as well use to map the geography of the seafloor itself.
As can be seen, sonar technology can be so useful to the scientists that are doing geography research. Because of this technology that’s why humans are able to have a better scene of the environment underwater, as well as using that information to prevent danger or risk when traveling in the ocean.