Ensiklopedia

Ensiklopedia
Ensiklopdia Multimdia Sinsia no Matemtika Iha ita nia Moris Loroloron Mai aprende sinsia no matemtika liu husi Ita nia experinsia iha Rai Timor

Ensiklopedia

2009
"This publication was made possible through support provided by the United States Agency for International Development. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do no necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government."

Sample English translation of the

Ensiklopedia Multimedia: Siensia no Matematika Iha ita nia Moris Loroloron

(Multimedia Encyclopedia: Science and Mathematics In our Everyday Lives).
Contents (topics in blue are translated in the following pages): Introduction How to utilize the Encyclopedia Toys and Games 1. Toy fan 2. Pop gun 3. Candle running with rubber band 4. Spinning cassava leaf 5. Spinning bottle cap 6. Chasing the wheel 7. Soap bubbles 8. Marbles and akar seeds 9. Top 10. Tops from fruit and seeds 11. Toy car 12. Juggling and jacks 13. Kite 14. Hacky sack with leaves 15. Traditional stick game 16. Toy helicopter Sound and Music 1. Banana leaf spine noise gun 2. Papaya branch buzzer 3. Papaya branch kazoo 4. Traditional recorder 5. Violin 6. Guitar, mandolin, bass 7. Kerosene noise cannon 8. Lakado, a traditional large bamboo instrument 9. Spark plug and screw noise maker 10. Drum Home and Kitchen 1. Water boiling and evaporating 2. Candle 3. Wok aflame 4. Fire 5. Acid and base indicators 6. Carrying water 7. Yeast and Baking soda 8. Preservation of food Everyday Electricity and Magnetism 1. Radio and Television 2. Mobile phone 3. Satellite (parabolic) television Agriculture 1. Soil 2. Structure of food plants 3. Falling coconuts 4. Seeds and germination 5. Life cycle of plants 6. Energy necessary to obtain food

Ocean and Beach 1. Tides 2. Ocean waves 3. Ocean salt 4. Refining salt from soil soaked with sea water Mountain and Forest 1. Dew (condensation) 2. Water cycle: rain, river, well 3. Atmospheric pressure 4. Rock salt of Laga (Gasiliu) 5. Fungus and mushrooms 6. Leaf comparison 7. Clay 8. Sand 9. Rock 10. Earthquake 11. Layers of earth and sedimentation Sky 1. Image of the sun 2. Thunder and lightning 3. Clouds 4. Rainbow 5. Sun clock 6. Colors in the sky Health and Human Body 1. Hand and arm: muscle and bone structure 2. Air and oxygen 3. Lungs 4. Mosquito life cycle 5. Cigarette smoking 6. Alcohol and palm wine 7. Energy from food 8. Five primary sicknesses in Timor 9. Eye Mathematics 1. Weaving with diamonds or rhombuses (three common baskets) 2. Making diamonds from playing cards 3. Measuring area of a basket using only hexagons 4. Distances between conjoined hexagons and stars 5. Weaving the Raga basket 6. Factoring with the side walls of the Mamafatin basket 7. Rice dumpling weaving 8. Woven decorations 9. Weaving of the square forms (three examples, including mats) 10. Mathematics of the childrens stick game 11. Bobak card game 12. Konke card game

Introduction
Curt Gabrielson Science and mathematics are not things that occur only in the school room, not things that reside only within the text book, not merely lists of information that a person can memorize and store in their head. In order to learn science and mathematics, one must leave the school and go work the fields, or enter the kitchen, or swim in the ocean, or climb mountains, or play cards, or drive motorcycles, or raise livestock, or weave a basket. Only in this way can science and mathematics be learned well. If one only waits in the classrooms, perhaps one will never be able to learn science and mathematics. Domingus is a boy from Ermera. He made a beautiful top. Domingus knows a lot about his top. He learned it all himself from his friends. That top also has a lot of science within it. It is possible to use that top to learn about rotational motion, inertia, angular acceleration, momentum, frequency, gyroscopic forces, gravity, and more. The problem is that when Domingus goes to school, he doesnt hear anything about his top, because even though the science curriculum includes all the aforementioned topics, it doesnt include tops of Timor. The lafatik (winnowing basket) also does not appear in the mathematics curriculum. Kids can use the lafatik to learn about arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, three dimensional space, area, volume, sequences, paterns, and more. Many grandmothers in Timor know how to make the lafatik, even though some have never stepped inside a school. But a person who doesnt know mathematics wouldnt be able to create a lafatik. Thus, grandmothers in Timor, and their grandmothers before them, already know a lot of mathematics, because they know how to weave the lafatik. Timorese knew mathematics before the colonizers came. If not, they wouldnt have been able to weave lafatiks or other baskets, nor build houses, nor weave cloth, nor make good plans for planting fields, nor understand climate or seasons. Timorese knew science before the colonizers came. If not, they wouldnt have been able to farm fields, nor catch fish, nor prepare and preserve food, nor maintain good health, nor extract oil from the ground or coconuts, nor make and play musical instruments. Therefore, Timorese ancestors already knew and used much science and mathematics in order to live better. This question about how to live better is the root of science and mathematics. How to farm better? How to make a traditional gun to shoot birds more effectively? How to weave a beautiful rice dumpling katupa for the feast? How to make a house using the materials that we already have? Beginning with these questions, people studied new things and found new knowledge. How wonderful if we could also use this method in teaching children in school. The contents of this Encyclopedia are based on simple questions such as these. This is our basic philosophy: only when one starts with something simple, something that is already known, already experienced, is it possible to comprehend something abstract and higher level. My meaning is not that Timorese should only learn science and mathematics of Timor. My meaning is this: when people from any locale start learning science and mathematics through their own experience, education will function more effectively, and students will be able to continue learning up to international standards. I teach physics at UNTL. My students have many questions. For this Im extremely happy. I try to answer these questions in the classroom, but many times this uncovers even more questions and there is not time to discuss it all. So, in May of this year I began to meet with students from the physics department who had questions and interest in doing simple research in order to gain more knowledge. We met each week and soon I found that students in the Biology Department and the Mathematics Department also wanted to form a group like this. In these six months, we carried out much research, unearthed fascinating information, and developed simple hands-on experiments that all teachers in Timor can use in their schools. Altogether we developed 83 topics. We decided to compile all this information into an encyclopedia. In that we had taken some videos, we decided to make a multimedia encyclopedia and produce it as a CD.

I wrote up the results of the research, and took many photos in order to document these topics. I found seven teachers who were very interested in editing what I had written. I found support from the Vice Minister of Education, Mr. Paulo Assis Belo, who gave funds for stipends to the teachers who edited the encyclopedia. The General Director, Mr. Apolinario Magno and the Director of the Department of Curriculum, Mr. Raimundo Neto, also gave guidance and many valuable suggestions. UNTLs Vice Rector II, Mr. Miguel Maia and Education Faculty Dean Mr. Marcos Antonio Amaral also gave moral support, guidance and also the space of the UNTL laboratories in order to carry out this research and experimentation. We hope that we can continue to work together with UNTL and the Ministry, especially the department of curriculum. UNESCO Timor gave support for duplicating and distributing the Encyclopedia to schools and teachers in all the districts, and we also received much moral support from members of UNESCOs National Commision. We hope to continue walking together with UNESCO and the National Commision of UNESCO, because our work is like their work: to develop education, science and culture. Finally, in the month of October, my own country, the United States of America, through USAID, gave excellent support to myself in order to finish this project, and also gave funding for this launch and exposition. To all the donors we are much obliged. My Tetum is not so good, but I really love the Tetum word for learn: buka hatene (search-know). This word is not listen-know, nor read-know, nor sit and wait-know. If you want to know, you have to search! In the course of these six months, our science and math groups truly searched, and found a great deal of knowledge, which we put into this encyclopedia so that others can search and learn without difficulty. Students and teachers: sometimes you may think that you are missing a lot: missing resources, missing books, missing good conditions within the schools, missing preparation, missing money, missing knowledge. That is the reality now in Timor. But if we all search, and not search alone but together, teachers together, students together, teachers together with students, with sincerity, honesty, and enthusiasm, we will find much knowledge, and escort Timor to a brighter future. Thank you.

Toy Car
The toy car is driven by a force that it receives by way of a stick and string. DESCRIPTION: Children in Timor often make many types of toy cars. Its body can be made of wood, a bottle, or something else. Its wheels can be made from the small disks from a battery, bottle caps, or rubber from old flip-flops. The wheels must turn easily; they cant be tight. Usually, the toy car is pulled by a string that is connected to a stick. Try to make one yourself! Once you have it made, you can also make a small road for it and pull it down that road.

BASIC THEORY: The scientist Isaac Newton said an object at rest will begin moving when it receives a force. The toy car receives a force by way of the string. The string receives a force by way of the stick, and the stick receives a force from the childs hand. The stick goes down to give a force to the string that is only directed forward. This is good, because only the forward force makes the car go forward. Analyze the forces received by the toy car, as follows:

If the string goes straight forward, the entire force is in the forward direction and none is lost.

If the string goes up a bit, the force received by the toy car can be

divided into two: one upward and one forward. The upward force gives no help to move the toy car forward.

If the string goes straight up, the toy car only lifts a bit but it doesnt move forward at all.

 If the toy car receives a force to the side a little bit, this force can be

divided by two: the force to the side, and the force ahead.

Furthermore, if the toy car receives a force backward, it will go backward. In order to make the toy car drive down the road, one must give a force that follows the road. This sort of analysis is called vector analysis. It is often necessary to use vector analysis in physics. TRY IT OUT *Make the string longer or shorter to see which is better for pulling the toy car. Think about why this is true. *Make a little race between toy cars. Make a ramp and let two cars go from the top of the ramp. Watch to see which one goes farther. In order to go farther, the toy car cannot have much friction. A lot of friction comes from where the wheels connect to the body of the car. If this is made very well, it will reduce the friction.

Candle
A candles flame burns paraffin to create light. DESCRIPTION: A candles flame is small but it gives a lot of light. In addition, a candle doesnt give off much smoke like a wood fire. We can make many observations about candles, for example When you disturb a candles flame, it gives off black smoke. A candles flame always rises upward. If you hold a candle on its side, the flame continues to rise upward. It does not feel too hot on either side of a candle flame. It feels extremely hot above the flame. A candle needs a string or something else (a stick, piece of paper, etc) in order to light. You cant light the paraffin alone. The string alone is also no good. It will light, but only for a short time. You can then ask: why does the candle need the string, and the string needs the candle? The color of a candles flame varies from place to place within the flame. BASIC THEORY: A candle is composed of just two things: paraffin, which is white, and string (wick). The function of the candles wick is to carry paraffin to the candles flame. The candles flame burns paraffin very slowly. Therefore, it only needs a tiny bit of paraffin. When the paraffin gets hot, it changes to liquid. This liquid can rise inside the string. When the liquid gets very hot, it turns into gas. Only this gas can burn. A candles flam is like other fires: it occurs because oxygen reacts with paraffin. Paraffin is a hydro-carbon. A candle gives of H2O (water) in gas form. When it is burning well, it also gives off carbon-dioxide, which we cant see. But when someone disturbs the candle flame or wind blows it a bit, it gives off straight carbon that we see as black smoke. The reaction that occurs in a candles flame is quite complicated. Oxygen comes from the air, which enters from the lower side of the candle flame and from the sides. Paraffin goes up the string in the middle. The reaction makes the whole area hot, but not every point has the same temperature. Points that the give off the most light are colored white. Points with other colors have lower temperatures than the points that are white. Even though we use candles only to give light, they also create heat. Just like all fire, the flame heats the air around it. Hot air always rises, and when it rises it lifts the candles flame up with it. Because of this, a candles flame always rises. Thus, when you put your finger to the side of a candles flame, it is not too hot but when you put your finger on top it feels very hot. TRY IT OUT *Try to burn paraffin from a candle without a wick: Scrape some paraffin from a candle and put it in a spoon. Heat the spoon on top of a candle. Try to ignite the smoke that rises.

This small experiment can prove that the smoke (that carries gas with it) is what burns, not the liquid nor the solid. When paraffin is hot enough to send off smoke and gas, it can be burned.

*You can use a spoon with water in it to check which part of the candles flame is the hottest: Put a bit of water in a spoon. Heat it above a candle until it is boiling Move the spoon up and down in the flame from the very tip to the center to the base. Observe where the water boils the most vigorously. *It is possible to make a candle with the candle-nut (kamii). Get candle-nut meat, a mortar and pestle, cotton from the ai-lele tree (or other tree), and a stick. Sun-dry the candle-nut and take off the shell. Clean the seeds out of the ai-lele cotton. Put the candle-nut meat and the cotton into the mortar and grind it until its nice and soft. Press and wind it around the stick. Burn it. Candles from the candle-nut give off black smoke because the candle-nuts hydrocarbon is not like paraffin. Its reaction is not the same, and gives off a lot of elemental carbon. This kind of candle can also be made from the fruid of the ai-munikala (Makasae language), and possibly others as well. *It is possible to make a candle from coconut oil. Get dry coconut meat, coconut oil and a can. Cut the can as in the photo here. Pour in some coconut oil into the can. Put in a rock and some cotton, one end sticking out of the oil, and the other end in the oil. Light the end of the cotton that is sticking up.

When normal candles burn, the paraffin gets hot and melts to liquid, then turns to gas. Coconut oil is already liquid. When it gets hot, it also turns to gas. To burn liquid like this is a bit dangerous. If someone makes a mistake and dumps the oil, it could burn the house down or hurt someone.

Wine and alcohol

In wine there is a chemical called alcohol that has an effect on peoples bodies and nervous systems. DESCRIPTION: Alcohol comes from a process called fermentation. Wine comes from trees such as the akideru palm, sego palm, black-wine palm, and others, because in these trees the process of fermentation occurs within the branches. It is possible to assist this process by adding certain leavessuch as from the acacia or ai-dak treeinto the wine that comes from the branch. In addition, people can create the fermentation process and get alcohol from many things such as rice, corn, wheat, fruit, etc. People can drink wine and also use it for other things. For example, alcohol can kill some bacteria and also small insects. Thus, one can pour alcohol onto the injury in order to clean it. If the alcohol is very strong, it can be used to burn and create light or heat. People drink alcohol for various reasons, such as: To rest well after hard work To sleep well To stay awake To reduce stress To reduce pain To feel comfortable and happy To increase courage To increase energy To make blood stop flowing when seriously injured. After delivering a baby For certain traditional ceremonies Sometimes people also rub alcohol on their skin to stop itching when an injury is nearly healed. Among the reasons above, some make sense and others dont. When you drink a lot of alcohol you become drunk and many times this can cause other problems. If a person drinks often, they may become dependent or addicted to alcohol That means that even though someone may want to stop drinking, they cant. A certain tender leaf or white flower has something like alcohol in it. If you smash it, the pulp smells just like alcohol. You can use this liquid to clean a wound as well. BASIC THEORY: Alcohol in wine is a chemical that is a hydrocarbon just like oil and petroleum. Its molecule has two atoms of carbon, six of hydrogen, and one of oxygen. Its chemical name is ethanol. Like other hydrocarbons, its gas will ignite and burn well when it reacts with oxygen in air. Alcohol usually looks just like water and can mix with water in a solution. Thus, it is hard to know how much alcohol there is in wine. If the percentage of alcohol in wine gets high, it will be possible to burn the wine. This is because when the percentage of alcohol is high, a lot of it evaporates and creates alcohol gas, which is easy to burn. People drink wine and feel calm because alcohol has the effect of slowing the functions of the nervous system. Peoples reaction time slows. Thus, it is quite dangerous to drive a car when drinking wine. It is not necessary to become intoxicated; if one drinks a bit, one will still be able to think straight but the reaction time will become slower. If something happens, such as a buffalo walking onto the road or another car blocking the way, a person who has drunk wine will not have a sufficiently fast reaction to prevent disaster. People get drunk depending on the percentage of alcohol in their blood. If a large person drinks one cup, the percentage of alcohol is not great. But if a person with a small body drinks one cup, the percentage of alcohol in the blood will be larger. Also, if a person drinks regularly, his or her body can become tolerant of alcohol and this person will have to drink more in order to become intoxicated. Many times, if a person drinks a lot, his or her body will develop a need for alcohol. This person may become mentally unstable if they do not get alcohol.

TRY IT OUT: *White palm wine can be used to make hard palm liquor through the process of distillation. Distillation separates water from alcohol and also cleans the alcohol. The process is simple, but it is necessary to understand science well. Our group at UNTL did an activity about distillation using a pot and its lid with a hole. We used an electric stove, but it is also possible to use fire. We used bamboo to create the simple system shown in these photos. We learned a lot, including the following: The vertical bamboo piece cant be too long. If it is, alcohol will condense on its walls and the drops will fall back down into the pot. The bamboo going to the side needs to be long. If not, alcohol gas will come out the end of the tube and float away to another place. This alcohol gas needs to condense inside the bamboo tube in order to turn into a liquid and flow into the cup. This is a long process. We saw the drops of hard palm liquor drop very slowly into the cup, about 5 seconds per drop. We also tried distilling hard palm liquor again. We achieved an even higher alcohol content through this process. The strongest liquorthe highest alcohol contentthat we achieved was the first few drops that came from the end of the tube. After ten minutes, the drops were not so strong and didnt contain as much alcohol. The first drops contained the highest percent of alcohol because there is the greatest amount of alcohol in just at the moment it begins to heat up. This alcohol will ignite immediately with a match. Not long after most of alcohol has come out of the wine and most of the liquid left is just water. If the alcohol content of the wine in the pot is low, the hard palm liquor created will also have a low content. It is said that the heat must not be too high when boiling the palm wine. If it is too hot, a lot of water gas also gets mixed into the hard palm liquor, and sometimes even the froth from the wine will mix in. But, it also cant be too cool. If so, alcohol gas from the wine will not come out. * When you go back to the mountains, take a look at the distillation systems in use there. Our group visited a system in Baukau and took these photos. There they used wine from the coconut palm, and cooked around 360 liters every day to get around 60 liters of hard palm liquor. They used a piece of bamboo around 30 meters long. They put the coconut palm wine into large bamboo sections while it was waiting for distillation.

* When alcohol is heated, evaporation becomes more vigorous and a lot of alcohol gas is gen off. When you light and burn gas, only its gas is burning. You can do the following experiment to show this. Get some white palm wine, or another type of wine. Put a match or stick that is lit close to it. Try to get it to light. Normally you cant. Put a bit of the wine onto the top of the stove and heat it until it boils. Again put a match or burning stick close by. Sometimes you can light the alcohol gas thats coming off.

FACTORING WITH THE SIDE WALLS OF THE MAMAFATIN BASKET

On the wall of the mamafatin basket is a hand-woven design. To make this pattern, an understanding of mathematics is necessary. Any design that repeats itself can be called a pattern or sequence, using terms from Portuguese. In the photo here the design is 13 strips high and 24 strips wide. This design repeats 5 times around the wall of the mamafatin. This means that total vertical strips that make up the wall of the mamafatin number 120.

But if you count the number of strips on the base of the mamafatin, you get only 60. If you look very closely, you will find that each strip on the base of the mamafatin splits into two when it bends to Factor120 the vertical wall. Patternuses Patternoccurs howmany howmany So, if one wants to make a pattern or sestrips times quence that repeats on the wall of the mamafatin, one must find a factor of 120. 2 60 Thus, the possibilities are as listed in the 4 30 table here: 5 24 6 20 The pattern of the mamafatin in 8 15 the photos at left uses 4 strips 10 12 and occurs 30 times. 12 15 20 24 30 60 120 10 8 6 5 4 2 1

The pattern of the mamafatin in the photo at left here is different; it uses 6 strips and repeats 20 times.

The mamafatin in the photo at left here has a pattern using 12 strips and occurs 10 times.

TRY IT OUT: *Gather all kinds of mamafatin and observe them carefully. Count the strips carefully. Count the strips on the base and the walls. Count how many strips the pattern uses before it repeats. *You can make a pattern or sequence with beans. Get two or three kinds of beans and make patterns like the examples shown here: >Red-White, Red-White, Red-White. (The pattern uses only two beans and repeats three times.)

>Red-White-White, Red-White-White, Red-White-White (The pattern uses three beans and repeats three times)

>Red-White-Spotted-White-Red, Red-White-Spotted-White-Red, Red -White-Spotted-White-Red (This pattern uses five beans and repeats three times.) You can try to make patterns from other things, for example rocks, leaves, flowers, etc. *Number 24 also has many factors: 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 12. Try to make patterns or sequences that repeat a certain number of times within the number 12. For example, the following pattern uses four places (XYZX) and repeats six times: XYZXXYZXXYZXXYZXXYZXXYZX 1 2 3 4 5 6 The following pattern uses six places (XYZZYX) and repeats four times: XYZZYXXYZZYXXYZZYXXYZZYX 1 2 3 4 Try making a pattern with factors 2 and 12, and 3 and 8. *Sometimes a mamafatin is not round, such as the one shown in the photo below. Four of its sides have 14 strips and the two sides on the points have 6 strips. Thus: (14x4)+(6x2)=68. Its strips are also divided into two when they turn the corner from the base to the sides, so its walls contain 136 strips. The pattern uses 4 strips, and repeats 34 times: 34x4=136