Patana News Volume 22 Issue 31

Our mission is to ensure that students of different nationalities grow to their full potential as independent learners in a caring British international community.

Patana

NEWS

Friday 22nd May 2020

Volume 22 Issue 31

www.patana.ac.th

STAYING FIT AND HAPPY DURING A PANDEMIC Cindy Adair, Cross Campus Assistant Principal Extra-curricular Activities and Sports

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Also in this issue...

The Disappeared; A Short Maths Story/Secondary Arts Awards/Take Home Menu 22/05/2020

Bangkok Patana School News

Bangkok Patana is a not-for-profit IB World School accredited by CIS

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Staying Fit and Happy During a Pandemic Cindy Adair, Cross Campus Assistant Principal Extra-Curricular Activities and Sports

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he COVID-19 pandemic has turned our lives upside down. Never has regular physical activity, time away from screens and proper sleep and nutrition come into clearer focus. However, spending more time inside, without formal sports and activities available and ready access to the fridge, gaming and Netflix can play havoc with your motivation.

Although its sounds counter-intuitive, when you are feeling low and listless and like exercising the least, that’s when it helps the most.

Establishing a routine helps a lot, as does mixing up the types of exercise you do each day so you don’t get stale.

YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok, apps many of us are accessing daily, are awash with workout ideas, live workouts, tutorials and challenges to try. Now that parks and golf courses are open I know lots of you will be enjoying getting out into the fresh air and getting some exercise whilst still social distancing. Bangkok Patana is going to help facilitate that process by launching a Patana Geocache Hunt at four local parks – you can read about this here on Firefly.

One aspect of my fitness I have been monitoring with interest is my daily step count. Before the pandemic, due to the nature of my role at Bangkok Patana, I would clock up a good number of steps daily, simply moving around our beautiful campus, now it’s tougher to get those steps in! Think of ways to maximise your step count wherever possible. Take the stairs, walk to the shops instead of driving, walk your dog a bit further than usual… as when all our classes, meetings and interactions happen in one place it is the incidental exercise we are missing the most.

Let’s hear from some of our community members about how they have managed to stay active during this challenging time and juggle fitness with family, work, study and the stress of the situation. I think you will enjoy some of their creative ideas!

I like to wake up and immediately drag myself through a painful 10 minute plank workout by Chloe Ting (famous fitness YouTuber) then after the online school day I’ll either do some ab or HIIT workouts I find on YouTube (I usually rotate between Chloe Ting and Pamela Reif’s videos) or do a HIIT running session. At night I always go on a half an hour walk with my mum as well :) Angelina (Niti) Depretis – Y11 Student

I started walking the stairs in my condo and now it is a daily exercise routine. I do it first thing in the morning and run up and down twice (50 floors) I then do a 10 minute ab routine from YouTube. In the evening I do a 15-20 minute HIIT session from YouTube before dinner, or will order food panda and “race” the delivery by going on the stationary bike until it arrives.

Zoe Edmunds – Primary PE Teacher

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I usually like to work out in the evening between 4.00-6.00pm as the heat isn't so intense at these times. I usually practice my football juggling and shooting in my garden for an hour and then to finish off, I run 30 laps of the garden. I prefer this over any other home workouts because it is motivating in the sense I am maintaining and improving my football skills and it's also very fun!

Praewa Taylor – Year 10 Student

I like to work-out in the morning so I've set my alarm for 6.00am before anyone gets up in my house and go on my stationery bike and watch an episode of Homeland on Netflix. I try to cycle 20km in one episode.

I’ve joined an online challenge to cycle the distance of the Great Ocean Road in Australia.

Cindy Adair – Cross Campus Assistant Principal ECAs and Sports

Although it's been a big change from playing with my teammates at school, I've done my best to stay fit at home because there are so many things you can do! I've been going for long walks with my family and my dog every day to spend some time outside whilst getting in some good activity. After online classes, to relieve some stress and unwind, I've been doing a variety of workouts inspired from social media posts.

Following HIIT workouts on YouTube has been my go to for my daily exercise, there are so many out there to build your strength and your endurance! My personal favourite is Heather Robertson who posts loads of videos that range from 10 to 45 minutes that focus on different muscle groups and are really easy to follow. I am lucky to have some basic equipment but there are so many workouts that just require you and a yoga mat! Even if it is just 20 minutes, it keeps me active and healthy during this time.

Clara Boucher – Year 12 Student I've jumped on the Joe Wicks bandwagon and like to start the day with a 20 minute HIIT session. I then do an hour's yoga after "school" each day to transition from work mode to relax mode.

Alexa Nicholson – Key Stage 2 Class Teacher

During the lock-down I’ve not been able to swim so I’ve been working on my running.

Over the last weekend my Dad and I completed the gruelling David Goggins Challenge 4 x 4 x 48, that’s 4 miles, every 4 hours for 48 hours! It was really challenging but a really good achievement once we’d finished.

Matthew Chandler Year 10 Student

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Bangkok Patana School News

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Secondary Arts Awards 2020 Online

CAS Project Drive Raises Funds for Families in Need Renee Kwok, 12C

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he Baan Dek donation drive is a CAS service-related project and involves the collaboration of many other members at Concord College, ISB and NIST. It was originally initiated by students at NIST who have kindly created a site dedicated to explaining the aims of the project and the schools involved, parents can reach it by clicking on the affiliate link here. All of the donations will be going to the Baan Dek Foundation which has started this campaign in order to provide resources for those are affected at the moment.

Here at Bangkok Patana school it is me, Renee Kwok and Benyapa (Uefa) Benjasiriwan involved, and we are responsible for spreading awareness at school. We are creating daily updates and posters to promote the campaign.

Similarly, members of collaborating schools will do this the same in their communities.

The #buildhope campaign is working to raise funds to support rural areas in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. These slums are being devastated by a lack of savings and employment due to the country’s lockdown. As a school let’s unite together and provide for those that are being so heavily impacted at the moment. Through your donations, these families can gain access to food and hygienic equipment and allow their children the opportunity to go back to school again.

Let’s spread local love in a global crisis!

Currently, BDF has already purchased 500 food sets and 100 hygiene kits for affected areas of Chiang Mai and will deliver them to 47 different communities. Unfortunately, there is still a growing need for funds as increasingly more people are struggling to provide for their families. If we can all pitch in and help donate to the project, it would make an immense difference to those most in need. Let’s do our best to make sure no one is forgotten.

Please click here to start the donation process and remember to affiliate your donations with Bangkok Patana School.

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The Disappeared

A SHORT MATHS STORY BY VARISSA ASAVATHIRATHAM, 4K

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n a gleaming spring morning, a group of Ivory gulls woke and bathed in the sunlight. Starved, they glided down through the view of hard ice beneath them. Soaring like a plane, their elegant wings bristled against the cold

wind.

Their beady eyes darted down for a sign of unaware fish, lazily covering the freezing, deep - blue ocean surface.

The Ivory gulls would each capture a fish by easily swooping down, one by one, diving for a scrumptious snack to devour.

Their glistening, white backs shone brightly in the sky, reflecting the sun's beaming smile; you could see them from a mile away.

One day, the Ivory gulls formed their line, soaring above the ocean surface but, when they arrived back to the safety of their home, only 7/8ths of them came back. Only 7/8ths of the gulls had food for their little hatchlings.

The next day, only 6/8ths of the Ivory Gulls came back and only 6/8ths of them found food. The number of Ivory gulls soon came down, every time they came back from hunting the numbers went down along with the amount of food they got for their babies. The hatchlings were getting older and they needed food and care for survival. Seven days later, only 6/8ths of the flock returned, none of the gulls found food. The once common Ivory gulls were now rare and endangered. Ice was melting into doom.

One joyful, spring day a fluffy, fat, snow-white polar bear went looking for Ivory gulls for breakfast.

here

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Bangkok Patana School News

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STUDENTS SPEAK Amnesia and The Odyssey Nabhiraks (Jade) Bhakdibhumi, 12T

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he Odyssey, a twelve thousand line poem spanning years of Ancient Greek history, religion, and mythology has long been regarded as merely fictitious. However, the mention of certain herbs in the prodigious story has suggested the possibility that there may be a hidden scientific reality.

In a chapter of the Odyssey, Odysseus (the protagonist of the story) and his crew found themselves on the mysterious island of Aeaea. In the story, Aeaea is a Greek island located near the Greek coast and surrounded by the Mediterranean sea. Whilst desperately searching for food and resources on the island, Odysseus’s crew stumbled upon a palatial home. Little did they know that the home belonged to the sorceress Circe, fabled daughter of the goddess of magic. As the crew entered Circe’s home, Circe welcomed them with a feast. She made them a potion of cheese, barley meal, and yellow honey, but she had also mixed the food with baneful drugs that would cause the crew to suffer a sort of amnesia that led them to forget their native land. After consuming the drug, the crew also suffered a degree of hallucination where they perceived one another as pigs. Coincidently, scientific findings have discovered that a similar herb was present on a Mediterranean island. The herb was scientifically known as Datura stramonium and is commonly known as Jimson Weed, whose effects include pronounced amnesia as well as hallucinations, resulting from the difficulty to

distinguish imagination from reality. This suggests that Circe was no sorcerer and in fact a resourceful chemist who knew how to utilize local plants. Now let's delve into the scientific details of the herb and how its fascinating components are capable of causing amnesia.

The Jimson weed is a herb that possesses high concentrations of anticholinergic alkaloids such as scopolamine, hyoscyamine and atropine. These chemical compounds have the capacity to block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from interacting with its receptors in the brain. Out of the three chemicals, scopolamine is the most powerful in creating hallucinating effects due to its ability to cross the blood brain barrier most efficiently.

By interacting with the acetylcholine neurotransmitter, scopolamine actively disrupts the neurotransmitter’s ability to provide a cholinergic neural pathway from the basal forebrain to the cortex and thalamus. These specific regions in the brain are highly important in controlling an individual's state of consciousness. As consciousness gives a sense of reality to stimuli, the destruction of some of its principle mechanisms would cause the individual to be likened to the state that occurs during dreaming and the infected individual would no longer be able to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

Read the entire article here

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UNI COUNSELORS’ CORNER UNI OFFERS...

Anthony Rawstron, Year 13 Congratulations on offers from

• London School of Economics • University College London • University of Exeter • University of Bath • Lancaster University To study Politics and International Relations

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have settled on London School of Economics as my first choice as it offers an unrivalled opportunity to study today’s constantly changing political climate in the heart of London; the Houses of Parliament are just a couple tube stations away. With its ideal location and immense repository of resources, LSE will not only allow me to develop my passion for political science but also my ability to think critically on current happenings and give me skills to take on into the real-world.

By studying Politics and International Relations, I will be able to study a blend of domestic and international politics; seeing how decisions made by different governments affect both their own citizens and their global standings as a sovereign nation. Furthermore, it presents me with the opportunity to review historical diplomacy throughout the 20th century and how it affects the world today. Through studying this, I can take my love for history and apply it to the present day to explore how we can settle issues diplomatically in the future.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT...

University of Western Australia

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anked in the top 10 Australian universities, the University of Western Australia is particularly well-known for its teaching in Life and Agricultural Sciences, Psychology, Education and Earth and Marine Sciences.

Students entering the university at an undergraduate level must choose a three-year bachelor's degree. The university offers a Bachelor of Science (BSc), Bachelor of Commerce (BCom), Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Biomedical Science (BBiomedSc).

The university also offers the Bachelor of Philosophy (BPhil) course for high-achieving new students. This is a research intensive degree which takes four years because the honours year is an integral part of the degree (most other degrees last three years with the honours year as a separate degree). Students studying the course choose disciplines from any of the four bachelor's degrees. Places are very limited with on average only about 30 places offered to students each year. Thus there is a lot of competition for places and the cut-off admission rank is very high.

The Matilda Bay Nature Reserve and Swan River border the campus, and the beach is a short distance away. Perth has a hot Mediterranean climate with mild winters – the average low reaches eight degrees – while in summer the average high is 31 degrees. Parks within the city’s suburbs boast large walking trails, bike paths and sports facilities.

Notable alumni include many Australian politicians, including former Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Barry Marshall who won the Nobel in Medicine.

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Bangkok Patana School News

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Aidan McDonagh he Puzzle of the Week features a new mathematics puzzle released every Monday and students have a week to answer. Do you know the answer to this week’s puzzle? Email it to Mr McDonagh at aimc@patana.ac.th and your solution might be featured in next week’s Patana News!

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Submit your solution here

Both the first and second numbers have to be >21, so I got the possible answers and ranked the possible methods to get that answer. The smallest possible answer is 56 since the next number after the triangle number “21” is 28 and the next is 36, so 28 + 36 = 64. 64 cannot have any numbers lesser than this that fit this category because then the number will be either equal to 21 or will not be different from each other. Also, triangle numbers have a quite relevant pattern: in a group of consecutive triangle numbers, the first one is increased by x to reach the second triangle number, and the second is increased by x+1 to reach the third, and the third is increased by x+2 to reach the 4th.

28 + 78 = 106 36 + 66 = 102 45 + 55 = 100 36 + 55 = 91 1st triangle number = 36 2nd triangle number = 55 Final triangle number = 91 Solution by..Vachiravich (Turbo) Phantratanamongkol, 7Y 8

Bangkok Patana School News

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#153: Can you fix it? Yes we can…

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or the past several weeks we’ve had a faulty pressure sensor on our water pump. As you would expect, it chooses its time to cut-off the water supply to the whole house strategically; in the middle of a shower, shave or washing machine cycle are its favourite times to misbehave . With nobody available to come and repair it due to COVID-19, it only takes a few frustrated episodes of running downstairs dripping wet to shout at it before you develop sufficient intrisic motivation to learn how it works - to try and fix it yourself. That’s where this weeks tech tip comes in.

I discovered https://www.ifixit.com/ a while ago and re-visited it recently in hope of finding a manual and/or help repairing it. I was in luck. After a hour of striping down, cleaning and re-assembly, we now have a working pressure sensor. Perhaps it’s just me, but I supsect there are others out there that will also appreciate the deep satisfaction gained in the going from ‘not having a clue how it works’ to ‘amateur repairer’, not to mention the few hundred baht saved in the process. If you’ve got an appliance or piece of tech lying around that doesn’t work then take a look at the site to see if you, or better still you and your child(ren), can dismantle it, tinker with it, learn how it works, you never know… you may even fix it!

Have a repairing weekend.

Brian Taylor Assistant Principal, Campus Curriculum Technology Integration Image source: https://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto

2019/20 CALENDAR HERE WE CONTINUE TO FOLLOW THIS YEAR’S SCHOOL CALENDAR

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Bangkok Patana School News

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Desert Island Discs With Matt Jones Head of Year 13

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his column follows in the style of the famed BBC podcast which features a celebrity every week – here we feature our own Bangkok Patana celebrities! What eight songs, one luxury item and one book would you take with you if you were stuck on a desert island?

Today Matt Jones, Head of Year 13 is stuck on a desert island.

MR JONES, IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WHAT EIGHT PIECES OF MUSIC WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU? Fight the Power – Public Enemy Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead Millionaire – Kelis & André 3000 How Soon Is Now? – The Smiths Family Affair – Sly & The Family Stone Spoilt Victorian Child – The Fall

Listen to Mr Jones’ playlist here

The Message – Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five You Can’t Always Get What You Want – The Rolling Stones PICK ONE LUXURY ITEM YOU WOULD WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU. THIS ITEM MUST BE INANIMATE AND OF NO USE IN ESCAPING THE ISLAND OR ALLOWING COMMUNICATION FROM OUTSIDE. A comfy pillow WHICH ONE BOOK WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU? Catch 22 - Joseph Heller Catch the real Desert Island Discs on BBC. Now that you are stuck at home, what are you listening to? Have a list of your own? Let us know! Contact SHKN with your favourites.

Click Here For Updates and Information on the School’s COVID-19 Procedures 10

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the m o r f t es The lat

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For daily updates, snapshots and news on life at school you can find us here...

643 Lasalle Road (Sukhumvit 105) Bangna Tai, Bangna, Bangkok 10260 THAILAND Tel: +66 (0) 2785 2200 Fax: +66 (0) 2785 2399 www.patana.ac.th Email: reception@patana.ac.th 14

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