Recuperating

I just came back from a swim and it felt great! Exercising is like a ritual detoxing session for me especially in the holidays when you can idle some time away =P.


CCAL Camp 08

As the teacher-mentor of c6, I am really proud of the kids in my team. I can't say that I am a good facilitator but I definitely hope that they had learnt something from me and one another because to me, the camp was a great opportunity to mentor, not only to have fun. I remembered being quite stern with them on the first day we met but they lived up to expectations and kept the spirits up throughout the 4-day journey when we took good care of one another.
For some of these kids, you can really see that they have matured since the last time I saw them in RI and it gladden me to see them so.

They may not get the best sub-grp prize but how many can boast missing their kids only hours after leaving them? They had made the camp this year memorable for me and I do relish the fond moments with them. N they made me feel much loved with the big grp hug at the end before I left. To C6:



-------Right after the CCAL camp was the Sci Camp

Ahoy the pirates!
3 days of work and fun as we launched trebuchet, solved mystery, made new friends, indulged in some stimulating intellectual workshops and fought some wars!
IT was a crazy time for the students and the teachers I am sure. But the responses were rewarding, to know that the camp had made a difference in understanding and tackling science as a subject, and had enriched the lives of the participants with new found friends from other schools. The teachers as well. It made me realised the distance I can go and what do I want out of this whole education business.

Respire Expired

So many things have happened in the past two weeks (and beyond) that I did not have time to sit down and think. But the memories brought a smile to my face this afternoon when I walked home today... Let's leave it at that for now to fulfil the promise I made.

Today I finally finished marking the Resp tutorials. Hipee! It was actuallly quite tough trying to overcome the inertia of starting to mark right after the completion of Science Camp because once again, I was suffering from another round of sleep deficiency starting from CCAL camp on the plate. But I did anyway despite languishing in serious dream-state on Thursday (the first day after the finale) so that I may make it today to ensure enough buffer time for students to review. Now I can finally sleep/rest with ease. =)



Resp tutorial: general debrief

Overall, there appears to be good understanding of the topic. Putting concepts down in words hopefully helps to distinguish it from photosynthesis.


1) should always try to relate 'oxidative phosphorylation' to the 'formation of ATP'; to say that electrons move down ETC so that oxidative phosphorylation can take place is correct but somewhat lacking.

2) For anaerobic R, some are unclear in their description. you need to realise that while pyruvate/ethanal is the final electron acceptor but being that does not guarantee a regeneration of NAD+. It is the reduction of pyruvate/ethanal in the subsequent step that regenerates NAD+.

3)why do we adopt anaerobic R? It is not to generate more ATP. If it is, I rather generate more with oxidative phosphorylation. Anaerobic Resp is really a backup plan to ensure that we still have a small but sufficient supply of ATP to sustain muscle contraction even when we are out of oxygen. Imagine running away from a bear. Yup, you need it.

4) Quite a handful did not mention the formation of proton gradient in order to generate ATP.

5) students needs to relate answers to the diagram/visual aids given e.g. Question 2; make reference to the molecules given e.g. phosphorylation of glucose!
Question 4d) students only needs to talk about how ATP can affect the enzyme although it was well-written. This is partly an enzyme question so need to mention: end-pdt inhibition/ binding to allosteric site / altering the 3-D conformation at active site; there is no need to talk about AMP/ADP and citrate.

6) Question 7 as well. Pls note that there is no competitive inhibition even though PKF reaches max activity at substrate concentration. The shape is wrong.
You also know it as an allosteric enzyme.
The management of PKF is actually very complex so I will leave it out here for now.

I will go through the answers properly when school reopens. Conceptually, things are fine so I will just round up the points you need to take note of.

For DNA genomics, there will be no answers given to be fair to all classes. However, I would recommend you to do MCQs to test your understanding of the topic itself.

To top it off:
Respiration MCQs










Cheers!! Happy Mugging!

Slowly all will be revealed

Sorry 3L, I can only mark your tutorial after sci camp.
But I promise to sort it out asap so that you can review your work.


I think I still own
1) respiration review
2) MCqs answers for respiration

Hope I din miss out anything.

It's the mostly the same for 3B yah?
I am free for consultation on Thurs and Fri k?

Cheers!!