Watching Solar Eclipse 9 March 2016

I was excited about viewing the solar eclipse. Finally, I got to put the pinhole camera I made 2 years ago to use again! This time it was to view the solar eclipse. I was pretty fortunate this time that my flat faces East and hence my room gets the morning sun every morning. As the eclipse was to happen in the morning, I was pretty happy to do a simple set up using just 2 chairs and the pinhole camera. A plain paper was stuck at the back of the box to capture the image more clearly. Unfortunately, Little One was in school and could not view it personally herself. However, I took a series of photos as best as I could to capture the eclipse so that I could show to her later. The peak of the eclipse happened around 8:23am. The sky was dimmer than usual during this period of time.

A image is captured at the back of the box

Inverted images of the pinhole

At around 823am

When the sun was behind the cloud, I took a photo of it. I was taking a photo looking at the angle of my camera, not at the image it was capturing, I just snapped a couple of picture and hope that I caught some image that I want. I don't know why there was a crescent reflection near the top right hand corner. Could someone explain if you know the answer?

Caution:

Don’t:

• Don’t look directly at the sun, even with sunglasses on, or through a telescope, binoculars, camera or camera-phone. Even if you are just lining up the projection, this still puts you at risk

Do:

•  Use a pinhole projection method. 
•  Use glasses with specially designed solar filters (bearing the appropriate CE mark) if you have to view the eclipse directly.

Little One @ Playground near Jubilee Square

Near Jubelee Square, there is this playground which looked rather ordinary and unimpressive.

Guess what we found? 4 musical scores!  Lucky for us, Little One was the only child playing in the playground.

Next to the playground are one convex mirror and one concave mirror. Children could play with their reflection here.
 At the same time learning some scientific knowledge, hopefully...

In between the 2 mirrors (mentioned earlier) is the kaleidoscope, Little One ducked into it and took pictures of what she saw in there. 

If you are somewhere near Ang Mo Kio Central, do consider to pop by for a visit.

Address
61 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8
(S)569814

Update: Dec 2015
The playground was revamped, the 'piano' was no longer there. I will post a photo once I found it! My computer crashed twice during the last holiday and it took quite some time for the computer to recover. I need to sort out those photos soon!

Book of the month : JJ's Science Adventure (Heat & Light)

The JJ's Science Adventure series is written by Aurelia Tan and her team, based on Singapore's MOE Science Syllabus. It is written in as an educational comic book which is relatively easy to understand.

Little One was first introduced to JJ's Science adventure last year when we won a book "Magnet" from Mum in the making. This sparks curiosity for Little One to Science as magnets are pretty amazing items for little children like her. The story of JJ had embedded in her mind so much that when she saw the second book, "Heat & Light", she just had to get a copy.

The book "Heat & Light" continues the story from the first book" Magnets". This time the JJ embark in the journey to discover heat and light.

From the book, Little One learns more about shadows and conductors of heat. Of course, there were more but these concepts are easy to grasp as these are closely associated with her daily activities. There is even a DIY to show how to create a bigger or smaller shadow.

On this post, I would share with you what are the activity children can do with light to generate interest in the topic.

Little One loves to play with shadows. Wayang Kulit is a great activity to introduce light. One can move the puppets towards or away from the light source so as to create a bigger or smaller shadows.

Wayang Kulit is one of her favorite show. I would bring her to watch when there is one.

Or you can make your own shadow appear bigger and longer or smaller and shorter when you are near the streetlamp. If you enjoy playing with shadow like Little One, my question to you is do you know to create multiple shadows like the one below?

Playing with shadows

PS: This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are our own.

School holiday Week #7

It's the last week of holiday! Woohoo!!! With this post, I shall end my 7 weeks of blogging of what we do during the wet holiday of Singapore.

Getting ready

This week, I am busy getting Little One ready to start school.

Below is the check list:

1. Cutting her hair
2. Getting the stationery ready.
3. Getting the bag washed and dried.
4. Getting her uniform done
5. Making her sleep early. 
6. Getting a new bottle
7. Getting new shoes.

Today is the last day of 2014 and yet I have not complete item 7 and 5. Sigh... Getting Little One to sleep earlier had been a problem. My mom said that I used to sleep as early as 8pm when I was Little One's age. *uumppphhh* Couldn't believe my ears. Little One is interested to watch "The Journey: Tumultuous Times" (a drama feature Singapore's 20 years of nation building during tumultuous times) This show is on air at 9pm and ends at 10pm each weekday's night. Getting her to sleep earlier seemed impossible for now. I do not want to stop her from watching as I would like her to understand some of Singapore's history.

Gatherings

Our week started with feasting during Christmas at Brother-in-law's flat. It is nice to gather with family. Both sides of my brother-in-law's family came together for a wonderful gathering. The kids were running wild while the adults had a good time getting together. The girls loved Frozen so much that they started to sing "Let it Go" for the adults to hear while the boys were having gun fights.

We had a gathering with a long lost neighbour W and her child. It has been a year since we last met. We hope to meet up more often. 

We attended another wedding and had took lots of instant photocards. Too bad we forgot to download the actual photos from the the photographer's site but we were glad to have the photocards for safekeeping.

We went for a swim together with Little One's  cousins. They had a fun time swimming and playing together. Even hubby had a chance to swim some laps. Usually, he does not get the chance when he is teaching Little One to swim.

More Fun

We took advantage of the discount given by Underwater World and paid $7.50 each to visit. All you need is to flash this advertisement  http://www.underwaterworld.com.sg/ and your local ID. Promotion period is 08 Nov 14 - 01 Jan 15. Little One is once again fascinated by the performance of the sea lions and the dolphins. She also likes the indoor experience. She loves to watch the sea angels and the jelly fishes bobbing around in the water. She loves to watch the fishes from the tank but yet not fascinated by the tunnel. She wanted to touch the sea stars but yet afraid to do so.

We are reading...

Timmy Discovers The Truth About Cavities (Volume 10 of Healthy Smile Series)

By Dr Lim Swee Teck

This book is good for children to learn about what caused cavities. However, I find it not simple enough for pre-schoolers to understand. Hence, I have to summarise in my own words to make Little One understand the truth. It is complicated because Little One always thought that germs are bad and she is not aware that there are good germs that protect us from the bad ones. This theory, I have a hard time conveying the message to her. I would recommend this book for upper primary children . However, lower primary children could start to learn the different parts of the tooth and learn good habits to protect your teeth from cavities.

The Tree of Life - Charles Darwin (Book Review + DVDs recommendation)

The Tree of Life by Peter Sis

When I first saw this book, "The Tree of Life" by Peter Sis  in the library accidentally, it got me interested because I somehow link it to the India artefact in the Asian Civilisation Museum, "The Tree of Life".

"The tree of life is a symbol of the connections among all things, past, present, and the future."

                                                                                              -Booklet from the Asian Civilisation Museum

Indian Artefact in Asian Civilisation Museum (ACM)
. More than 200 years old. Carefully woven and dyed in India
{Credit} My Enchanted Trail booklet by ACM

So when flip through it, I realised it is a story about Charles Darwin's life, exploration on a 5 year voyage on board the Beagle, his many years of studying nature, his secret life of writing a book that change the world.

"As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men. "

                                                                                                  - Charles Darwin

What is the tree of life and who is Charles Darwin?

Charles Darwin (1809 -1882) was a naturalist, geologist and a thinker. He was born in 12 Feb 1809, in Shrewsbury, England. During that time, many people were convinced that man was a special being created by God. Charles Darwin had been interested in nature since young. This was something which his father does not really support because he had wanted to groom him as a doctor.

After 5 years on board Beagle (DEC 27,1831- OCT 2, 1836), Charles Darwin went round the world studying different organisms and collecting specimens for various experts for study and classification. During the 5 years he ate exotic food such as armadillos and land iguana. From this voyage, he trained his mind. Especially on the visit to Galapagos Islands (geographically young volcanic islands then), he heard that the species of tortoises differ from island to island. He also noted the different flinches on the different islands of Galapagos.

After the voyage, through details examinations and classifications by various experts, Charles Darwin realised that they were actually are very closely related species. He analysed and deduced life may have origin from a single source. He sketched in a notebook a tree showing old species branching into new ones. (the tree of life). The Beagle voyage alone was not enough to prove that species transmutate or evolve. Many people in those days strongly believe Man was created by God. He did many experiments for years to prove that species do transmutate. After many years of experimenting (23 years), he concluded the following theories:

1) Plants and animals have more offspring to replace the parents.
2) Offspring of the same set of parent are not exactly the same.
3) The overall number of each kind of plant or animal mostly stay the same

These pointers suggest there is a struggle for existence. Natural selection is a on-going progress and only the one who fit the environment  best would be chosen to survive. Hence, the theory survival of the fittest.

With all these findings, Charles Darwin finally had the courage to get his book, The Origin of Species, to be publish in Nov 24, 1859. Of course, Darwin's theory was being attacked by the church. Darwin had his supporters too. These sparked the Great Oxford Debate.

The book also show Charles Darwin's private life. He had 10 children with his wife, Emma and yet 3 died when they were very young.

Although this book is a simplified story and it contains many illustrations, but it also contains words such as "archipelago" and "aftershock" and many names of people and rich vocabulary of animals which may not be easily grasped by primary school children. Hence, this book is probably more suited for teens who had studied biology. Recommended age would be 15 years old.

Personally, I studied biology during my school days but little was known about this wonderful man, Charles Darwin. After reading the book, I realised he deserved to be a man of respect due to his courage to go against the belief of his people. He was not the first person to suggest evolution but he was the first one who provide evidence to support the idea that evolution is possible over a long period of time.

DVDs about Darwin

Now you know about artists, explorers and scientists/ created by Classrisa Brooke-Turner

This DVD set consist of 3 disc, 1 for each occupation. Each DVD tells the story of 5 famous people in a first-person narrative and colourful 10 minutes film. This set of  DVD is a good introduction to the various famous people such as Charles Darwin , Leonardo da Vinci and Captain Cook. Young children are attracted to the colourful illustrations but Little One does not like the part whereby people were dying (although illustrated vividly) in the DVD.

Charles Darwin and the tree of life/ Written and presented by David Attenborough

An interesting hour documentary about Charles Darwin and his revolutionary theory of evolution through natural selection. And a Extra DVD about Darwin's personal life, which include his church devoted wife and his favourite daughter, Annie.
What I like about this documentary is that you get to see the archive footage (Eg. the different tortoises and the barnacles.) that David Attenborough had done for BBC to illustrate Darwin's findings.

I strongly recommend all 3 if you are interested to find more about Charles Darwin.

"Lungs of the World" in Singapore

Do you know what is the lungs of the world? Primarily, many refer it to the Amazon Rainforest because it has the largest rainforest in the world though I prefer to call all organisms (including cyanobacteria and phytoplankton) that produce oxygen the lungs of the world.

Today we shall stick solely on the subject "Rainforest".

Do you know that we have a primary rainforest in our very own Singapore Botanical Gardens? Best of all, the guided tours are free! We went for ours during the dry spell in February. The June holidays are here! Why not plan to visit the garden during one of these days? There is a guided tour tomorrow.

Why are rainforest important?

Since we are talking about rainforest on this post, I would like to share the following information with you.

Rainforest cover 6% of the world surface and yet more than half of all known animals species live in the rainforest. Many animals are dependent on rainforest for food.

It is a valuable source of new medicines and food. There are actually plenty of plants and animals in the rainforest which are yet to be discovered. Many of known plant and animal species live in the rainforest.

Rainforest cleans air and water. Plants in the rainforest photosynthesis and hence produce oxygen for the rest of the world. Rainforest produce 40% of Earth's oxygen. It also keeps the planet cool. Without this forest cover, the ground reflects more heat into the atmosphere, warming the rest of the world. Areas where rainforest is cut down, water recycling stops, resulting in drought. Rainforest soil are actually poor in nutrients. The rainforest creates their own supply of nutrients from fallen leaves.

Rainforest prevents soil erosion. Places such as Ethiopia has serious deforestation and is now facing the problem of soil erosion and drought. Look at the advertisement below, an area of a forest is being cleared, soil erosion takes place. The top soil would be washed off to the stream and probably clogs up the gills of fishes and create a murky stream. This is akin to our lungs. When part of the lungs is not working, it affects our body and the way we live. Similarly, when an area of rainforest is cleared and left in this state, the whole ecosystem is hay wired, some valuable flora and fauna may disappear before we even discover them.

Before it 's too late: WWF Source

The Tour

Back to the rainforest tour, these are some photos I have taken during our trip. We brought Little One along. 

Cannonball tree

Banyan tree

Roots of  Banyan Tree growing from thin to thick eventually develop bark

Figs growing pollinated by wasps female lay eggs in figs

Figs growing from the same spots.

Figs are keystone species in rainforest ecosystem. At present, there are 850 species. This is because they fruits throughout the year, providing food for many rainforest animals. Figs are known as 无花果 "fruit without flowers" in Chinese. The actual flowers are in the "fruits" itself. However, only one species of fig wasp pollinate one species of fig plant. Hence, if that species of wasp is being wipe out in that ecosystem, the fig species that it pollinates will be dies off soon after. If that species of fig trees dies off, the rainforest animals will lose a major source of food supply, hence, the ecosystem will be dramatically changed. Note, not all plants fruits all year around. That is how inter-related animals and plants are in the ecosystem.

 Rattan with spikes. The spikes are removed before using for furniture and canes.

The plant that looks like pandan has thorns on the top and this plant is used to make Hawaiian skirt after thorns are removed

 Tongkat Ali

  Jelutong Tree (Chewing Gum tree) The latex from this plant is used in the making of chewing gum. Any tree that is more than 55m is consider a forest tree. This tree can grow approximately  to 60m

The walkway is not fully fenced up so that animals could cross easily to either side, minimising disruption to the rainforest.

Spider web and leaf litter

Lianas contains mostly water(Tarzan's Vines).

 Tall trees have lightning transmitter 

We spotted a couple of spiders

 Strangling Fig.

 St Andrew's Cross Spider (Male)

St Andrew spider (female)

 Rubber Tree- First batch at near Sympony lake .2nd batch near Heritage Centre... 

After reading this post, do you realised a lot of the plants mentioned here are familiar to you? Yes, rainforest actually has a great variety of plants and animals. Do you know that rainforest plants includes coffee, orchids and banana? And even till now, there are many of these plants are yet to be discovered. Scientists has ventured into them to find medicinal cures for current illnesses. I do hope that people who uses the rainforest do not destroy it, make it sustainable. The forest have so much to provide. It is a pity to destroy just like that.

You can do your part to protect the environment.

1. Watch what you buy.                                                                                                                       Try avoid buying hard wood such as mahogany, teak, rosewood for your furniture. Look out for words such as "sustainable source". Use wood from trees that can grow back quickly after being cut down. Eg Paulownia tree.
2. Recycle stuff                                                                                                                                    Recycle, reuse whatever you have.
3. Do not buy exotic animals

If you would like to have a guided tour, you may want to head down to Visitor Centre of the Singapore Botanical Gardens tomorrow and sign up. The available time slots are as follow.

Rainforest Tour
2nd Saturday of Every Month
at 9am, 10am, 11 am and 4pm

If you prefer to DIY, you may want to download this guide

If you are interested in knowing more about deforestations in Ethiopia, you may like to read these websites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Ethiopia

http://solar-cooker.de/index.php/de/situation

This post is part of the "Care for the Earth" series

• Care for the Earth (introduction)
• Our Green Library and Recommended Green Books. 
• Muse
• Making a Pinhole Camera (Craft)
• DIY card holder (Craft)
• "Lungs of the World" in Singapore
• Making a Yoyo Button Hair Accessory (Craft)
• A different birthday- a more down-to-Earth approach
• Celebrating Earth Day 

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A pinhole adventure - More than just a pinhole

Pinhole Photography

An very inspiring session was conducted in the libraries , known as the Pinhole Photography. The workshop instructor was then Mary-Ann Teo. She is lecturing part time in various tertiary institutions about photography as well as teaching in classes at Objectifs. After participating the workshop, I observed something different in the pictures. This observation I will reveal towards the bottom of the post.

What is Pinhole photography?

It is a lenless photography whereby only a tiny hole is created in an enclosed container to allow light to pass through and forming an image on the photographic paper which is to be attached at the opposite end of the container. Care and cautious is required to create the camera as a slight mistake, the photographic paper which is attach opposite the pinhole could be overexposed and no image would be captured.

Pinhole vs Lens

• Pinhole camera has indefintely depth of field, regardless whether the objects are near or far, they would be reflected with the same sharpness. 
• However, due to the small aperture of pin hole, more time is required for enough light to enter through the hole to create a image. Longer time will be needed if the light is dim. Hence, moving objects creates blur image while a stationary building will create a sharper image. 
• You have totally no control how long you need to expose the pinhole and you can't really see what you are shooting. Sometimes, you are in for a surprise!
• The overall image captured by pinhole camera is usually softer in appearance than the lens camera.

These are the very reasons why some photographers love pin hole camera. The results of these images are astounding. You may want to google for pinhole images to have a look yourself.

How to make a pinhole camera?

Interestingly, I was told any shoebox can be made into a pinhole camera. I even read online that Pringles can can be made in to a pinhole camera!

If you are interested in photography and developing your own photos, you can try making one yourself using shoe boxes. This is a way to recycle those boxes. Otherwise, just sign up at the library e-kiosks or the "Go library" website.

Materials required

• 1 shoebox with tight fitting top
• Black masking tape
• Black Construction Paper
• Aluminium Foil
• Card Stock
• Cutter
• Double sided tapes
• Scissors
• Sewing needle

Pix 1: Sample of pinhole cameras

Pix 2: Materials required

Pix 3: The Developing  Solutions

Pix 4: And trays

1) First, decide where you want the pinhole to be, we usually choose the cover of the shoe box to make the pinhole. But prior to making a pinhole, make a hole as big as a pencil using a cutter.

2) Tape black construction paper all around the inside of the box. Make sure the paper sticks to the corner of the inside of the box. The inside of the box must be entirely black so that lights will not be reflected. Reflected lights ruin pictures.

3) Since now the hole that you have cut in step 1 is covered, use a cutter to trace and cut the hole again.

4) Tape black masking tape on the 4 corners of the shoebox both the covering lid and the shoebox itself. (As per the Pix 1 featuring the sample of the pinhole cameras.) This is to ensure no light could enter from the outside. We went a bit further by taping the sides of the lid so that it will make a tighter fit.

5) Cover the circular hole (mentioned in Step 3) with aluminium foil. Tape it to the black construction paper.

6) Make a pinhole on the aluminium foil using a sewing needle. Our instructor helped us to do this.

7) Make a manual shutter by covering the pinhole with a card stock. The side of the card stock facing the pinhole is entirely black. You may tape as below. This shutter is only open when you are ready to take a photo

8) Stick a masking tape at the side of the box which is just opposite the pinhole. Stick it in such a way that it would act like a double sided tape.

Pix 5: Ta dah! My pin hole camera ready to go!

Getting ready to start
We had a challenge because there is no dark room in the library. Even after switching of the lights in our room and those in the corridors, we can still see silhouettes due to the exit light which was just outside the room. So what we could do was hiding behind tables and passing out the photographic paper. We tried to stick the paper as fast as we can and then cover the lids tight.

Then, we are ready to go out to have a shot.

We are to target objects and lift up the shutter to expose light on to the photographic paper for a certain amount of time which our instructor had told us to. The exposure is dependent on the distance from the pinhole to the photographic paper. Also, it will depend on whether we have a strong light. If the light is dim, we need longer exposure time. We could only take 1 photo at a time.

After that, we closed the shutter and went back to the "not so dark room" to our photos developed using the solutions. The instructor and her assistant helped us with this.

Below are the outcome. Noted some part of the papers are darken... it is due to light exposure since we are not doing in a dark room. Nevertheless, we are all excited to see our products.

A shot of the playground

Plants outside the library. My shutter kept closing, so I have to open it again and again, resulting in motion 

This time, I turn the box the other way round, so that even if the shutter starts to close, it will not obstruct the pinhole.

Science behind the pinhole camera

Now I shall review what I discovered through this workshop.

The images are reversed.

A shot of the playground (Pinhole vs Lens)

Plant (Pinhole vs Lens)

Why? Light travels in a straight line. The top of the image will be reflected on the bottom of the photographic paper. Likewise, images on the left side would be reflected on the right side of the paper. (This is what I see in the image) It is the inverted copy of the actual image. Do you know that our eyes work in the same way? Images are captured upside down on our retina but our brain are smart enough to put it right side up.

However, if we try to put the developed photo the right side up, we noticed it is a mirror image of the actual thing we see. 

View solar eclipse

Further exploration in the internet suggested pin hole camera can be used to view a solar eclipse, it would not damage your eyes. You can view the image by inserting the pinhole between the sun and a piece of white paper.

Future explorations?

This workshop gets me pretty interested in creating my own pinhole images. However, to do that I must have a dark room. The only room I can think of is my storeroom but it is pretty packed now. I doubt I can put the various solutions into that room without creating a mess. Also, to think that I have to use the solutions only for one piece of photo is wasteful unless I run in and out of my dark room several times unloading and loading photographic paper before I develop them. That just puts me off. However, I do think it is an interesting activity to do with children. They would be very proud of their photography skills! Moreover, this project is one of the best to teach patience, in my opinion.

Now here's the chance to do pinhole photography

• 10 May 2014, Tampines Regional Library , 1.30-4.30pm
• 25 May 2014, Bukit Merah Public Library, 2.00 -5.00pm

If you are interested, register your interest in participation with library e-kiosk or in "Go Library" Website. Search under "pinhole". It suitable for children 12 year old and above.

PS: Above mentioned library programme is conducted in  Singapore libraries.

This post is part of the "Care for the Earth" series

• Care for the Earth (introduction)
• Our Green Library and Recommended Green Books. 
• Muse
• Making a Pinhole Camera (Craft)
• DIY card holder (Craft)
• "Lungs of the World" in Singapore
• Making a Yoyo Button Hair Accessory (Craft)
• A different birthday- a more down-to-Earth approach
• Celebrating Earth Day 

linking with 

 

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