Guns, Germs and Steel

What role did geographic location and natural resources play in the the development of Malaysia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Srivijaya_Empire.svg

Malaysia is strategically sited just north of the Equator (2 30' North, 112 30' East). This beautiful country with an area of 329,750km is made up of two separate parts, East Malaysia and Peninsular Malaysia. Malaysia's climate has high humidity, hot temperatures and two seasons wet and dry. Rainfall in Malaysia is plentiful and its soil is fertile. Malaysia is protected from natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Malaysia is situated midpoint of trade routes making the Straits of Malacca possibly the leading shipping lane on the planet! The Straits of Malacca is the main shipping channel between The Indian Ocean and The Pacific Ocean, linking Europe and Asia. Over 50,000 vessels pass through The Straits per year, carrying about a quarter of the world's traded goods including oil, rubber, palm oil, tin, spices such as pepper and other commodities.



blog.tourismthailand.org

 

kew.org

sim1.se



potatopro.com

Malaysia is blessed with abundant natural resources in areas such as agriculture, minerals and forestry. Malaysia's climate and its fertile soil enable many different types of plants to be grown all year round. Plants like rubber trees and oil palm trees were originally found in other places like Brazil and Africa. The British introduced them to Malaysia and we ended up becoming the biggest growers in the world. Malaysia also has a lot of tin and oil. We were also once the biggest exporter of tin in the world. Our oil is mainly found under the sea near Sabah and Terengganu. Today we no longer produce a lot of tin or rubber or oil compared to other countries but we are still one of the biggest exporters of palm oil. You can see how huge the oil palm plantations are when you drive on the highways.


virtualtourist.com



hyatto.wordpress.com

With its great geographic location and abundant natural resources, Malaysia was very attractive to countries and peoples from all over the world. Ships and traders from Europe and Asia stopped over in Malaysia and introduced new things, cultures, food and ways of thinking and doing things. People from other countries who came to Malaysia didn't have to worry about natural disasters like what is happening in Indonesia now. They didn't have to struggle to get food or to live in a land with bad weather. We have benefited from learning the best of Western and Asian cultures. Today, most Malaysians can speak three or more languages like English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia. We have a good education system that was taken from England. The natural resources like oil, tin, rubber, palm oil and timber that Malaysia exported to other countries generated a lot of wealth for Malaysia. The wealth was used to develop Malaysia and improve our standard of living. Our roads, airports, buildings, schools and hospitals are today among the best in the world. So in conclusion, we can say that Malaysia's geographic location and natural resources played a very important role in the development of Malaysia.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KL-Skyline_Night_HDR.JPG

 

REFERENCES.

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

http://geography.about.com/library/cia/blcmalaysia.htm

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/drabble.malaysia

http://travel.110mb.com/natural_resources.html

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

A strange day for little Finn, the mudskipper.

One day, Little Finn woke up from his muddy bed with a funny feeling that he was going to see something exciting that day. He went to say morning to his parents and to eat his breakfast. After that, he asked his parents for permission to go out and play with his friends. His parents gave him permission since it wasn’t a school day.When Little Finn and his friends were playing mud ball, he told his friend: "Hey Tom, today when I woke up I had a funny feeling that we were going to have an adventure ."  " Gee, I hope you are right. It would be fun to have an adventure" said Tom. Little Finn was feeling very cheerful and was having a nice time playing with his friends in the mud when his mother called him to return home for lunch.

When he was eating his usual delicious meal of mud pie made out of insects, he heard noises from outside his house. Little Finn and his parents went out of their house and saw some VERY large creatures. He knew these creatures were humans. His parents and the older folk in his village constantly reminded him and the other young mudskippers to stay as far away from them as possible. He had been told since he first learnt to walk on his fins that the humans were dangerous. He had seen only a few humans in his life. Usually they were smaller and did not venture very far into the mudskippers’ territory.

The humans he now saw were different. They were bigger in size and there was a lot of them. The noise they were making was thunderous. They were falling about and sinking into the mud. One of the giant creatures even sank into the mud up to about his head. The other creatures pointed at him and made thunderous “Ho Ho Ho” sounds. He did not know what it meant but he was very scared.

Soon everyone from his village were out of their homes. The giant human creatures almost squashed Tom's house. Tom and his family began to panic. They just skipped round and round in circles."Tom, get into the mangroves, quick!" little Finn shouted. Tom and some other neighbours then skipped deeper into the mangroves and stared at the humans.Soon all the mudskippers were skipping away in terror. Little Finn and his parents too went deeper into the mangroves to watch what was happening.

The humans continued to stomp around the mudskippers’ village. The ground shook every time the humans’ gigantic limbs pounded the mud. Bits of mud flew into the air and towards the mudskippers like meteors or missiles. There were mini explosions when these bits of mud hit the ground.

What happened next was very surprising. The humans began to plant small mangrove trees! The mangrove trees were like guardians of the territory.  LittleFin had heard the old stories about how the trees had protected the mudskippers for hundreds of years. They blocked the giant waves from destroying everything in the territory. But over the years, the old mangrove trees had begun dying. Some parts of the mudskippers’ territory didn’t even have mangrove trees anymore.

The humans made huge holes in the ground and with their huge hands, planted the trees and then covered the holes again. Was this how the mangrove trees first appeared in the mudskippers’ world? Little Finn and his parents had always thought that the humans were bad because they had seen humans cut down the forest and the trees. But here they were doing the opposite! He thought that maybe the humans were not as bad or dangerous as the older mudskippers said.

Soon, all of the humans departed, creating earth-shaking vibrations. But some of them left behind strange artifacts – big black structures shaped like an “L” but with an entrance at one end. Were they spaceships or vehicles? After all, the humans moved around in them.  Some of Little Finn’s neighbors explored them and when nothing bad happened, used them as their homes.

It had been a really exciting but also a frightening experience for Little Finn. He had woken up that morning expecting an adventure. But he hadn’t expected to see something as strange as the humans started stomping and falling around causing much chaos just because they wanted to plant the mangrove trees.Even though the humans were nice enough to plant the mangrove trees, their clumsiness created havoc in little Finn's village. Little Finn hoped that there wouldn't be any more humans tomorrow to cause more chaos........



                                         The End



Here are some pictures of a mudskipper:

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish/mudskipper.html

http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2009/12/mudskippers-leaping-at-chek-jawa.html

Courage Connection

www.cbc.ca/news/pointofview/2010...egy.html

 



My earliest memory of bullying was in Grade 1 at my old school. It was the first day in a new school for all of us in Grade 1. There was a boy - I call him Billy - who made fun of the kids that cried. He laughed at them and teased them. You wouldn't expect Billy to be a bully. He was a little plump and wore spectacles, and his mother walked with him to our classroom every morning! I mean, he looked like a geek and a mummy's boy!Billy terrorised almost everyone in our class. He would push other kids' books off their desks, or throw their schoolbags out of the classroom. Sometimes he would trip someone who walked past him. He didn't care whether you were a boy or a girl. He didn't care whether you were bigger than him. He just bullied everyone.But Billy had a favourite victim, Julian, who sat beside me. He bullied Julian more than anyone else.


 One day some classmates and I were playing hide and seek after school. I was looking for a hiding place when I heard someone scream. I went to check what happened. I saw Julian lying on the ground with Billy standing over him. Billy was stamping on him and I could see blood on Julian's face. I quickly hid behind a wall because I was afraid that I would get beaten up too. I wanted to help Julian but my body didn't move at all. The only thing I could do was stand there like a statue.Eventually Billy walked away. I went to Julian and helped him up and asked him what had happened. He told me he had tripped and injured his face. Julian didn't come to school for the next few days. When he came back to school, I went up to him and told him I had seen what happened. I apologized for not doing anything. I thought he would get angry and wouldn't want to be my friend but I was totally wrong. He just said "don't worry about it". I felt so guilty.I think if that incident happened today, I would have stopped Billy from beating up Julian. But maybe the incident happened because Julian or other people didn't speak up against Billy before the bullying got that bad. Maybe not speaking up or fighting back gives the bully the confidence to do worse things. I think that today I would join forces with Julian and the other kids to tell Billy to stop being so mean. If a bully sees that other people are ready to stand up to him, he will stop bullying them.

My two goals are to help whenever I see someone getting bullied and to always defend my friends. I would never want to see someone in that situation ever again, I will always save anyone who needs help. But bullying can happen in many different ways, not just fighting, and can happen to anyone, not just the smaller kids. We must recognize when someone is being bullied and then do something to help the victim.

The time to face my fears!!!!!

Since I have to write about my fears, I guess I have no choice but to confess how terrified I used to be of spiders. Yes I know what you are probably thinking right now - how can a big boy like me be scared of little spiders? But it's true, and this is how it all started.

Fear of Spiders

asktheexterminator.com

One day, when I was about five years old, I was playing as usual in my toy room alone. I was sitting in one corner playing with my action figures when I suddenly felt an itch behind my left shoulder. Automatically, I reached back to scratch it. Then I felt an itch on the back of my right hand. But before I could scratch it, I saw something that looked like a little black spot at the itchy area. When I looked at it closely, I saw a bug with many eyes and 8 legs. It was the ugliest and scariest thing I had ever seen. (At the time I didn't know it was a spider.) As quick as lightning, I brushed it off my hand and ran off screaming like a little baby to my mummy.

For days after that, I could still feel the creepy-crawly feeling on my hand. I had nightmares about bugs crawling all over me. I was paranoid and jumped whenever I saw spiders. I hated all spiders. I know most people are afraid of the big hairy striped spiders like Tarantulas, but to me they weren't as scary as the tiny little black spiders. They were the worst.

It turns out that I wasn't the only one scared of spiders. Lots of people everywhere are afraid of them. There is even a word which means the fear of spiders: Arachnophobia.


One day a few years later, when I was playing video games at my neighbor's house, I saw a little bug crawling on the floor near us. Guess what, it was a spider. I started to panic and shouted to him to squash it. He started to laugh and said "How can you be scared of a spider? I mean, it's such a little thing after all and it can hardly do anything to you."

Of course, I didn't listen to him. He kept laughing and refused to kill the spider. I couldn't concentrate on the game because I kept watching out for the spider. Predictably, he beat me in the game.

Later on I thought about what my neighbor had said. It was really embarrassing. I thought about my hero Spider-man who became a superhero because of a spider. I thought it was weird that I was scared of spiders yet I wanted to be bitten by a radioactive spider so I could become like Spider-man.

From that day, I decided that I should try to control my fear of spiders. Now when I see a spider, I say to myself that it really is not harmful and I'm much bigger than it and I could squash it with my pinky. It's not always easy to do and sometimes I still feel like dying when I see a tiny spider crawling near me.

I know it seems silly that a big boy like me can have this fear but I think that everyone has weaknesses. Even Superman can be weakened by Kryptonite. The important thing, which I have learned, is not to fear it.

What do the artifacts tell us about the lives of early humans?

In the past week, my group looked at some artifacts from early civilizations. After examining these artifacts, we concluded that they were primitive tools used by early humans to make paintings and sculptures.

For example, we saw large rocks which were used to crush and grind minerals, which were then mixed with animal fat and vegetable oil to make paint. Different types of minerals would produce different colors. Early humans probably painted with brushes made of moss, fur or human hair. Apart from using brushes, early humans may have also blown paint through hollow bird bones to create special effects like shaggy-looking fur on horses and other animals. Another interesting artifact we saw was a black rock that was probably used to make fire, maybe to light up the dark caves. There were also long pointy rocks that were probably used to carve sculptures. They look really similar to modern sculptor's picks.

Examples of cave art tools

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/france/niaux_cave3.php

Some early humans were good artists and sculptors! I especially like this painting of a bison in the Altamira cave in Spain:

Painting of a bison in the Altamira cave in Spain

http://whc.unesco.org/include/tool_image.cfm?src=/uploads/sites/gallery/full/site_0310_0001.jpg

In Le Tuc d'Audoubert cave in France, there is an altar made of clay sculptures of a bull and cow bison. The sculptures were probably carved with tools similar to the long sharp artifacts that we saw.

Altar of bull and cow Bison sculptures in Le Tuc d'Audoubert cave in France

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/bison-tuc-d-audoubert2.php

The artifacts we saw and the cave paintings and sculptures tell us a lot of important things about early humans and how they lived. They were intelligent and resourceful. They were able to make tools to survive and to express themselves. The paintings show us that early humans hunted and killed animals for food, even big and fierce animals like mammoths and bison. They were superstitious and worshiped spirits and powerful animals like bison. Early humans were able to control fire because they could paint in the darkness of the caves. We can also tell that early humans lived in groups and communicated with each other. Even if they did not have a written language, they were able to express themselves through images.

In conclusion, I think that early humans actually have a lot in common with us even though thousands of years separate us. While the tools and technology may change, the human need to live together, to eat and to communicate has not changed at all.

Ancient Rock Art & Cave Paintings of the World by BoilerPlateFilms




Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Age
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/france/niaux_cave4.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ancient_History/Human_Evolution/Paleolithic_Age

My dream job !!!

I first heard about archaeology through watching old movies like "The Mummy" and the Indiana Jones series, and playing video games like "Tomb Raider". I thought that the life of an archaeologist seemed so cool and exciting.

When Mrs Narsiman asked us which of the three social scientist jobs we would choose, the answer was obvious. I would be an archaeologist.

To me, archaeology is about solving puzzles. It is the scientific study of past societies based on things left behind. Archaeologists take these clues, and try to understand how people used to live, even how and when humans first appeared on earth. Archaeologists study not only books and documents, but also things like fossils, carvings, building ruins, pottery and other artifacts.

An archaeologist's job in real life is not as action packed as in the movies but it can be very exciting and full of adventure. You might have to climb mountains, dive underwater, crawl through tunnels, go into jungles and risk getting killed from accidents, stings from poisonous insects, attacks by wild beasts, booby traps and even curses! For example, the treasure and terracotta warriors buried in the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang were protected by booby trap crossbows. And it is said that the team that discovered King Tut's tomb were put under a curse and died mysteriously!

The terracotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China (246-221 B.C.)

http://www.shanghai.cultural-china.com/

"6,000 warriors" by exploreTeam


The second reason is that I love to solve mysteries. An archaeologist is like a detective who must uncover the truth from bits and pieces of artifacts that are thousands of years old. Just like Heinrich Schliemann who found the City of Troy using Homer's poem "The Iliad" to find clues of where Troy could be. I would like to find out whether there really was a Noah's Ark or a Trojan Horse.

Howard Carter & King Tut's coffin

http://www.blog.talesofkingtut.com/

Since I like to travel, being an archaeologist will take me to archaeological sites all over the world like the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, the Colosseum in Rome, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Many can travel to these countries but some parts of these protected sites can only be visited by archaeologists. Now where shall I travel to, to find my own lost city to tell the world........?

So now you know why I want to be an archaeologist. I get to travel, go on adventures and solve mysteries. I like the idea about discovering the world's secrets and being able to share it with everyone. How did people in olden times live? What did they wear? What did they eat? What weapons did they use to hunt for food and to defend themselves? Did children in olden days behave like we do? That is for me to answer when I grow up and become an archaeologist!

"Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark fan trailer" by Quid1Pro1Quo

Fun facts about Nick!

Hi my name is Nicholas. I am from Malaysia. Before I came to ISKL, I was studying at a Chinese-medium school in Kuala Lumpur. It is called S.J.K(C) Jalan Davidson. I do miss my friends from my previous school but I look forward to making new friends at ISKL.

In my free time, I like to read manga, play football, tennis and my Xbox. My parents say I spend too much time playing video games but hey, isn't that normal for a kid??!! :)

The last three books I read were "A Day With Homo Erectus" by Fiorenzo Facchini, "The Mystery Of The Strange Bundle" and "The Mystery Of Tally-Ho Cottage", both by Enid Blyton. I've been re-reading all the mystery books written by her as I love detective stories.

Recently I watched the cartoon movie "Despicable Me" in 3D. I actually wanted to watch "Avatar: The Last Airbender" but was out-voted by the rest of my family. However, I have to admit that I enjoyed "Despicable Me". It was really funny and touching at the same time. One of the characters in the movie reminds me of my little sister.

My academic goal is getting good grades and my social goal is getting to know everyone in my grade and being friends with all of them.

My favourite vacation memory is going to Bali with family friends. One of my friends who went along happens to be a Grade 8 student here at ISKL. It was so much fun because we went out to sea on a yacht and we did some snorkeling and fishing. I caught a colourful fish but I do not know what kind of fish it was.

I am a friendly person, who is lazy, crazy, kind and polite but the most important thing is I love food!