Arriba! Science & Maths

“Technology is best when it brings people together” – Matt Mullenweg

Last September 15, 2021, the CKSC-IB department held a successful Science-Maths Celebration, with the SOI: Global interactions form relationships that lead to ingenuity and progress, hosted by Alyssa Kassandra Go and Jimmy Stephen Asuero of Grade 11-IA, DP and an IB-Student Council officers respectively.

Ms. Li-Ling Ma, IB Continuum Development Head, gave her opening remarks, highlighting the significance of science and mathematics in the curriculum and in everyday life followed by the talk of the invited resource speakers, Ms. Serena Martha Jane Hay, a mathematics professor from Glasgow, Scotland, and Ms. Krishna Vyas, an MYP Science Team Leader from Surat, India, who contributed their knowledge and perspectives on the program's statement of inquiry with focus on the significance of the two subjects, Maths and Science. The program involved activities organized by the IB department's Science and Math teachers.

Among the highlights of the program was the culminating activity, which required the IB students to visit three (3) different breakout rooms every 15 minutes to participate in simultaneous activities. 

The first activity was an educational film titled "This Helicopter Just Flew on Mars," that explained the first drone, the Mars Helicopter, which would fly and land on Mars, while the second activity included a variety of interactive online math games appropriate for different grade levels, such as number patterns and solving multi-step equations. Students in grades 7 and 8 had to drag tiles to answer and navigate arrow keys to solve equations, math tank algebra, and angle invaders, while students in Grades 9 and 10 must use algebra probing to solve equations. Tangram, a puzzle-making activity played by students in Grades 11 and 12 involved forming basic, animal, and geometric problems. The last activity was a science-related interactive online activity; grades 7 and 8 enjoy the fidget power and feed the fidgets, which has something to do with electricity and pipe design with plants and animals, while grades 9 and 10 were assigned to make a science design, and grades 11 and 12 were assigned to build activities.

Student takeaways that contribute towards the development of the trait of being a reflective student are always a part of every IB department event. Here are some of the student’s reflections from the activities:

“Global interactions play a key role in progress from how one person improves the idea of one another to create even greater inventions. Global interaction promotes collaboration, intercultural, communication, and progress. When we humans share our ideas from different places, times, situations and life, we create a greater idea with inspiration from different lives different from our own.” – Carlyn Luzentales of 7JS

“Two minds are better than one. No one knows everything, and through global interaction, we can work together, share, and combine our knowledge and skills. By doing this we not only gain more variety in perspective, but we as a group also gather more information to work on.” –Kaye Monique Cua of 7JS

“Global interactions allow us to collaborate with other people and share ideas and facts with each other. Global interactions can also help speed up the development of certain things like Mathematics.” – Zachary Tan of 9NL

“I think global interactions play a key role in the topic discussed by the speaker is that because of math we need to vocalize or relate our findings in math to the world so that we would all be together and in sync with all math discoveries so that when someone has a breakthrough they might be able to help the world just like with vaccines where you need to share it with the world.” – Nathan Laborada of 10JG

“Global interaction plays a key role in progress and development since they allow people from different cultures and origins to collaborate and share their ideas together, synthesizing new knowledge. For example, if it weren’t for the contribution of Scottish scientists like Bell or Maxwell, we might have a completely different system in our technology or knowledge of physics.” – Carlos Benedict Ong of 11-IA

‘Global interactions help us to have a better understanding of what we are learning. After listening to what the speaker said, I felt that math is almost the same in many countries. However, the education may differ among countries.” –Zachary Bill Zhang

The event was subsequently brought to a close by Mr. Glierio Manalo's poignant closing remarks, which was followed by an IB community photo op.

Arriba! Science and Maths!