School Trip Tragedy

2 bodies have been recovered after a flash flood. The British international School were attending an outdoor pursuits program when the flood happened.
(Antara Photo/Jafkhairi)Cameron Bates

The British International School on Wednesday confirmed that two bodies, including that of a Year 8 student, had been recovered after a flash flood during a field trip in the Puncak mountains a day earlier.

BIS admissions director Lee Bretherick said the bodies were still being formally identified.

Antara news agency reported the body of Outward Bound instructor Arpan Palindungan Ade, 30, had been recovered in the Cisadane River. It also identified the missing student as a South Korean national.

West Bogor Police Chief Hadi Tjahyono said 10 police and military personnel had assisted in the search along the riverbanks.

“The search focused on two spots in Bogor and West Bogor districts,” Hadi said, adding that the weather had been unpredictable and the rain had caused a sudden rise in the river.

Ade’s body was taken to the Indonesian Red Cross Hospital in Bogor.

West Bogor Police chief detective Budi Santoso said the victim had been found naked and with extensive bruising.

“It’s possible he sustained his head wound and other bruises after being dashed against the rocks when he was swept up by the current,” Budi said.

A statement on the school Web site from its CEO and principal, Peter Derby-Crook, said: “A group of students under the supervision of teachers and an experienced guide were caught by rising water levels while hiking through the Gunung Gede area.

All the students and teachers were able to avoid the situation except one student who ran into difficulties. The guide immediately assisted the student but both were separated from the group by the force of the water and swept downstream.”

The other students have returned home and are being offered counseling.

The BIS statement added: “The British International School regularly conducts residential trips as part of the course work for its students to different locations in Indonesia, and over many years these trips have been free from any serious incidents.

“This month’s residential trip to Pancawati, West Java, for year 8 students, was organized in conjunction with Lembur Pancawati Outbound, who the school have been using since 2002 with an excellent safety record.”

Teachers VS Students Touch Rugby Official Match Report

Teachers VS Students Touch Rugby Official Match Report

Conditions were perfect for this long anticipated showdown between youth and experience. A cool wind and zero humidity ensured that perspiration never impacted on ball handling and player skills could really shine through (Even butter fingers Liam managed to hold on to a few balls).So yeah thanks to the weather. The match was marred only by the late showing of the Barbarians captain. Yes, the Anzacs had to start the fight without the full Pomie contingent, bloody typical..Lest We Forget. There was much talk going into this truly international affair and it didn't fail to deliver. I even heard the sweet sound of sheep late in the second half which was a highlight for me especially. Beautiful animals that they are. It didn't take the Indonesian teachers long to pick up the intricacies of the game and to stamp their mark on the match. Final Score: 20-10 to the Teachers..

Cheers for fronting up, especially those who hadn't played before ..the students really enjoyed it.

Reviews The Best New Science Books

Reviews The Best New Science Books

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Area 51, modern life vs human nature, and more
From the February 2009 issue, published online February 20, 2009

The Pluto Files by Neil deGrasse Tyson (Norton)
What did Pluto ever do to Tyson? In his latest book the energetic astronomer and television host taps pop culture and breaking research to explain why he led the charge to banish Pluto from planetary status.

The Well-Dressed Ape by Hannah Holmes (Random House)
Holmes ignores our self-congratulatory tendencies and gives a witty, detailed look at Homo sapiens through the eyes of an evolutionary biologist, exposing us as a thin-skinned, dull-toothed, small-clawed, and pitiable species.

The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets by Alan Boss (Basic)
The space race is on. No, not back to the moon. The next great achievement for humanity will be to find alien life on another planet. Astronomer Boss gives an inside view of how new space telescopes like Kepler and Corot are on the verge of finding Earth-like worlds around other stars.
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It Takes a Genome: How a Clash Between Our Genes and Modern Life Is Making Us Sick by Greg Gibson (FT Press Science)
Is modern life corrupting our DNA? Gibson’s cautionary tale points to the alarming rise in diseases like diabetes, asthma, and Alzheimer’s, warning that more than half of us will die from our genetic vulnerabilities if we stay the course in our do-nothing, eat-a-lot lives.



Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World by Trevor Paglen (Dutton)
Area 51 is probably the most famous place that doesn’t exist on a map—at least not any map the U.S. government wants you to see. But it’s far from the only one. Paglen pulls back the curtain of secrecy on the military’s classified locations, from downtown Las Vegas to Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species by Sean B. Carroll (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Darwin is the public face of evolutionary biology, but he doesn’t deserve all the credit. Carroll, a noted evolutionary biologist himself, gives a nod to the scores of underappre­ciated researchers who have filled in the gaps. In this exhaustive history, we learn the true extent of evolution’s influence on the way we think.

Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald (Pyr)
The advanced technology of the near future runs smack into a millennia-old culture in McDonald’s clever imaginings of life in 21st-century India. This anthology includes previously published short stories and an intricate new novella that explores the digital divide in surprising ways.



TV American Experience: The Polio Crusade

PBS, Monday, February 2, at 9 p.m. (EST) In the early 1950s there were more than 20,000 cases a year of poliomyelitis, a disease that causes paralysis or death. But on April 26, 1954, researchers began administering a vaccine in what would become the largest public health experiment in American history. The experiment paid off: By 1960 the number of annual cases had dropped to about 3,000, and by 1979 there were only about 10. This intimate PBS documentary chronicles the story of the polio vaccine’s success—a triumph of science over disease

from http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb/best-new-science-books

A casestudy “The Ecological Footprint Dilemma”

This case study is a “clicker case.” It combines the use of student personal response systems (clickers) with case teaching methods and formats. The case is presented in class using a series of PowerPoint slides punctuated by questions (called “clicker questions”) that students respond to before moving on to the next slide. In this way, students work through the material to understand (and usually also solve) the problem presented in the case. Specifically designed for use in large introductory science classes, the method integrates lecture material, case storylines, student discussion, (clicker) questions, clarification of answers to those questions, more lecture, and data.

The world’s resource base is quickly becoming depleted and a steady increase in the human population is a concern as we seek long-term solutions to a global, environmental crisis. In addition to this, affluence in industrialized countries constitutes another challenge for a more equitable distribution of resources in the pursuit of a better quality of life for more people. For these reasons, this case study will be of interest to students in an introductory biology course. As they work through the case, students calculate their ecological footprint. They are then asked to decide whether a new parking lot is more effective in accommodating the needs of an expanding university campus than a community garden. Campus greening is becoming a challenging component of the experience of millions of college students throughout the world. Many institutions of higher education are committed to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as a way to educate students to become better stewards, and are actively seeking viable strategies to better control global climate change. The American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) counts among its membership hundreds of colleges and universities in the U.S. Moreover, since 2006, about 400 presidents of institutions of higher education have signed a petition to reduce CO2 emissions from their campuses.

Written for a non-majors introductory biology class, this case would also be suitable for courses in ecology, environmental science, conservation biology, environmental studies and general biology. The case is designed to be taught at the end of an ecology unit of the curriculum. Students should be familiar with population ecology concepts (richness, distribution, carrying capacity, competition, symbiosis), including human population ecology, growth, and competition.

The Jakarta Schools Football is about to start again... http://twitter.com/JakartaFootball

1000 Islands Trip

Palau Seribu or thousand islands are just north of Jakarta's harbour. I arranged a school trip to an Island here, called Pramuka Island, for my senior IB Biology class. The students completed a number of hands on studies relating to ecology and envirnomental issues.

here the students were conducting a number of transect lines on some coral reefs, looking at the biodiversity and health of each.


transplanting coral.



Examaining mangroves and seagrasses.... another of the islands we visited for lunch.




some local kids playing on a home built raft ..... also a visit to the turtle hatchery, we later released some turtles back into the wild.

teaching in indonesia

This is my first post for this, my new blog. I'm teaching in a National plus school in Indonesia in the city of Tangerang, which is basically being swallowed by Jakarta. I'm a science teacher, Biology, being my area of speciality.

I've previously taught in Indonesia, about 1o years ago, at an international school, and also spent the last 5 years teaching in Bangkok, thailand, at a large international school in Bangkok.

www.ajarn.com is an english teachers based website for thailand (ajarn being the thai-word for teacher)

overqualified thai secretaries

"The bride received a Bachelor of Business in Finance from Bangkok University (Bangkok, Thailand) and a Master of Economics in International Trade from Victoria University of Technology (Melbourne, Australia). The groom is self-employed."

this is a wedding annoucment of a former colleague and friend of mine....she was working as a secretary! WTF? - a bloody typist/PA in thialand with an educational background like that?? wot gives? in a similar manner i recall a mates wife being refused a job as waitress at the londoner (expat bar in thailand) because she didnt have a degree!!