Good morning. We start this morning with general questions. Our first question is from Mary Friedy. To ask the Scottish Government when the transport secretary last met bus operators that served Renfrewshire. Cabinet Secretary, Michael Matheson. Last met with stagecoach on 5 February, 2019, I also met with first bus on 26 November, 2018? Mary Friedy. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. McGill's buses, the main operator running as a monopoly in many parts of Renfrewshire, have recently announced changes to services such as Axing the 907, Lincoln Glasgow and Renfrewshire 2, and originally proposing increases of up to 62 per cent for fares on peak time journeys between Erskine and Glasgow. The company has since backtracked and proposed fares increases of up to 30 per cent, with local MSP Derek Mackay championing this increase as a win for passengers. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that extortionate fare increases are only a win for bus operators and shows the need for regulating the bus industry across Scotland? I know from the discussions that I've had with Derek Mackay that he was concerned about the increases that were being proposed by McGill's on some of his particular routes. I know that he's been making strenuous representations to them in order to address that. I welcome the fact that McGill's have sought to reduce the level of increase that they were proposing. The member will also be aware that, in the transport bill, we have set out a range of options to help to strengthen the role that local authorities can have in how bus services are provided in their area, including that of bus service improvement partnerships, in order to ensure that there's a greater recognition of local need within the way in which bus operators provide bus services. Those measures, I believe, will help to strengthen the way in which we can ensure that bus services are delivered within local communities in a way that reflects their needs. I hope that the Labour Party will support that when it comes before Parliament. I add my concerns to some of those price increases in the west of Scotland. The minister talks about the potential of the transport bill to address some of the issues around local authorities setting up franchises. I haven't met a single local authority that's interested in doing this, or indeed will have any money to do this. Can the transport secretary tell us how many local authorities have expressed interest to him to set up these local bus franchises? The member seems to try to characterise this as though franchising is the only element that is being provided within the bill. As a member of the committee that is considering the legislation, we are aware that there is a range of measures that are being provided within the bill to allow local authorities a range of different options that are not available to them at the present moment. It has also been suggested to me by the committee that we should add further options to the bill, and that is something that we are giving active consideration to, and we will consider that at stage 2. It is important that the member does not characterise the bill as offering only one option. It offers a suite of options to local authorities to consider what best meets the needs within their local communities. To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to forge greater links with Singapore. Scotland's international framework sets out how our international work supports the Scottish Government's central purpose of creating a more successful country. The Scottish Government values and appreciates the long and positive relationship that we have built with Singapore, which has been an important trading partner for Scotland for many years. 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of trading between the UK and Singapore with the arrival of Stamford Raffles and William Farker, who was a Scot. Scottish Development International's Southeast Asia office has been based in Singapore since 2001, demonstrating our commitment to a strong relationship. In fact, Scottish Direct exports to Singapore went from £585 million in 2016 to £655 million in 2017, an increase of £70 million. We will continue to promote Scotland's trade capabilities in areas such as oil and gas, food and drink and renewable energy, as well as encourage inward investments in data analytics, life sciences, energy manufacturing and tourism. We will also continue to welcome exchange between Scotland and Singapore in education and culture. Rachael Hamilton I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The cabinet secretary acknowledges the bicentenary anniversary of the founding of modern Singapore in January of 1819, notably two of the three main founding fathers were Scottish major William Farker and John Crawford. Given the significant historical ties that the renewed British Council NCA's Singapore memorandum of understanding and a greater need to forge links across the world, will the cabinet secretary support the establishment of an MOU between Creative Scotland and NCA Singapore? Rachael Hamilton I will be pleased for an MOU between Creative Scotland and the National Arts Council of Singapore to be signed. We are welcoming 70 technology leaders from Singapore and Southeast Asia on the connect government leaders summit in Edinburgh this July. That is very positive. Can Rachael Hamilton not consider that it is a bit rich for the Conservatives to come to this chamber, encourage more trading links but not leave the country to do so, not have our First Minister visit them? She is encouraging us to help support the 14th largest export partner for Scotland but not that that is the second. Our First Minister was championing Scottish business in France this week and in the US and Canada. Can she get Maurice Golden to apologise for attacking our First Minister? Is it a bit time that we, Presiding Officer, all come together to support Scotland and our business trading partnerships? Let us make sure that our First Minister and this Parliament can fly the flag for Scotland. Following on from reports of cancelled trade talks with China and souring relations with Japan as a consequence of the high-handed approach of the UK Government, which has indeed been described as gunboat diplomacy, the cabinet secretary outlined the approach that the Scottish Government takes and how that benefits Scotland in contrast to the reckless and incompetent approach that we have seen undertaken by the UK Government. In that considered question, I want to explain to Parliament that we are currently working on our trading nation, a plan for growing Scotland's exports, and we are expecting that to be published in spring 2019. It is of serious concern in terms of diplomatic activity that not just the defence secretary but also, very importantly, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, has jeopardised very important trade discussions. The EU and Japan, as we know, have just signed an agreement that has come into implementation in relation to customs, exchange and exports. That is very important to business across the UK, but particularly in Scotland. It is very worrying indeed that some of the cac-handed approaches that we have seen from the UK Government are symptomatic of how they are treating the Brexit situation generally. It is really important that we all get behind our companies at these fragile and difficult times for our export companies. That needs leadership from the top and that does not need bumbling diplomacy that we have seen from the UK Government. Question 3, David Torrance. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the importance of food banks and supporting people in receipt of universal credit. Even the UK Government has finally recognised, after years of mounting evidence, that rolling out universal credit has increased the need for food banks. Universal credit has caused huge damage and pushed people into debt and hardship, and we will continue to call for no one to be migrated to universal credit until its fundamental flaws have been fixed and it works for people, not against them. Recognising that people have been badly hit by UK Government welfare cuts and to protect vulnerable communities against the economic damage of Brexit, last month I announced a further £500,000 investment in fair share, which will further support organisations that are responding to food insecurity. That is in addition to our £3.5 million fair food fund to tackle food insecurity. Presiding Officer, though it is shocking that we have to take such measures because we want to reach more of the people who will need the help most. David Torrance. I thank the cabinet secretary for the answer. In my constituency, Cracodi Food Bank has seen a 90 per cent increase from a period of December 2017 to December 2018. Does the cabinet secretary agree that amber rods are recent acknowledgement of the link between the roll-out of universal credit and the increased use of food banks is too little, too late, and that accru on chaos actions of the UK Government has caused untold misery for thousands of families living across Scotland? Yes, I do. It is a long overdue acknowledgement from amber rod, but acknowledgement alone won't help families in Fife, Scotland or the rest of the UK. What amber rod needs to now do is to act and to change this failed system, and that means reversing the benefits cap and the benefits freeze and the parent rape clause. Then we can start to see the progress that doesn't leave people relying on food banks for that basic of need. Andy Leighton Smith. Since the cabinet secretary is clearly aware of the increasing necessity of food banks, something that's frankly shocking since we shouldn't need Victorian-style charity in 21st century Scotland, does she agree that the £5 child benefit top-up that Labour has been calling for would make a big difference to many families, including those in receipt of universal credit? That's why we're working currently on an income supplement, as the member knows. I think what the member should also do is recognise that we need to work together to put the pressure on the UK Government to recognise the failed system of universal credit, the impeding cliff edge that many people will face if there is a no-deal exit from the EU, which will punish those with least financial resilience the most. Does she not agree that we should unite on that message, especially when we've had to announce £500,000 to prepare for Brexit to tackle food insecurity, which we know will happen if there is a no-deal exit from the European Union? That, quite frankly, is ridiculous and is tantamount to the reckless actions of the UK Government, which will punish people who have least in this society the most. That is an absolute shock and indictment of the UK's approach to welfare reforms. Jenny Gilruth To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to modernise facilities at Carcody Sheriff Court. Minister Ash Denham The question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunal service. The service is currently creating a two-court criminal annex within Carcody police station to hear sheriff and jury cases and custody hearings. That is due to be fully operational by autumn 2019. Jenny Gilruth I thank the minister for that response and I welcome the Scottish Courts and Tribunals service investment of £3.7 million to modernised facilities at Carcody Sheriff Court, in line with recent recommendations from HM Inspector of Prisons. In the context of the new protecting vulnerable witnesses legislation, is there now an opportunity for Carcody Sheriff Court to lead the way in developing a pilot suite for child witnesses to give evidence on commission with the ethos of the Barnahouse approach at its heart? Minister Ash Denham I am glad that the member has made mention of the vulnerable witnesses legislation, and I am aware of the detailed consideration that Jenny Gilruth and her colleagues on the justice committee have already given the important reforms that are in this bill. In terms of investing in facilities, the Scottish Government has already provided £950,000 of funding to support the creation of new child and vulnerable witness friendly hearing suites in Glasgow and made another £1.1 million available to court service to upgrade other venues and also IT. As part of the upgrading work, the court service is also procuring portable recording equipment and camera operators. That will allow some commission hearings to take place in sheriff court buildings across Scotland. We are exploring how the Barnahouse concept could operate in Scotland, and we have asked Healthcare Improvement Scotland and also the Care Inspectorate to develop Scotland-specific standards, which will set out a road map for developing our approach. 5. Angus MacDonald To ask the Scottish Government when it last met Falkirk Council to discuss the proposed growth deal for the district. Cabinet Secretary Michael Matheson My officials last met with representatives of Falkirk Council to discuss the development of their growth deal proposal on 16 January this year. The next meeting is scheduled for 28 March, when progress with the growth deal will feature on the agenda for a meeting of the Falkirk economic partnership. As part of our aim for 100 per cent coverage of Scotland with growth deals, the Government fully supports Falkirk's deal proposal. We will look to the UK Government to join us in common purpose and ensure that as much progress is made towards that goal in 2019 as possible. Angus MacDonald Cabinet Secretary for his reply. I am aware that the leader of Falkirk Council is meeting with the Secretary of State for Scotland today to discuss the proposed growth deal, and I clearly hope for a positive outcome from those talks. Given the significant investment plans by the private sector, not least the seven national-scale developments under way are being considered at present for Grangemouth, will the Cabinet Secretary highlight to the Secretary of State when he next meets him that the gross value added from the proposed growth deal would be in excess of £330 million across Falkirk district, and it will set a new course locally for sustainable inclusive growth? I will continue to highlight the potential benefits of the growth deal for the Falkirk area. When I last met the Secretary of State for Scotland to discuss growth deals at the end of January, I asked again for the UK Government to give a formal commitment to 100 per cent coverage of Scotland with growth deals. I am conscious that Falkirk Council is one of only three local authority areas that still does not have a formal commitment from the UK Government on this matter. My view is that working in partnership with the Scottish Government to achieve that would mean that real benefits for local communities right across the Falkirk Council area could be achieved in generating the investment that Angus MacDonald has highlighted, helping to create new jobs and to create wider economic prosperity within the Falkirk Council area. As has been mentioned previously, the Secretary of State is meeting with representatives from Falkirk Council to discuss plans today. I am sure that we all agree that the city and regional deals that thus far have gone through have been beneficial for Scotland. Can I ask the cabinet secretary if he could just assure me that any potential growth deal in Falkirk will include the regeneration of the town centre specifically, and not just as it is on the table going eastwards down towards Bangemouth? I am aware that the Secretary of State for Scotland is meeting with Falkirk Council today, and I hope that at the end of that meeting with Cecil Meecal-John, the leader of the council, David Mundell will give a commitment on the part of the UK Government to supporting a Falkirk Council growth deal, which it has not provided to date. However, the member will recognise that the various issues that are highlighted in a growth deal are for the partners to determine not the Scottish Government, and the content of that growth deal is one that is shaped in partnership with the different agencies who have an interest in developing that growth deal, and are not directed by the Scottish Government. No doubt, they will be looking at a whole range of regeneration projects that can help to support and sustain the Falkirk economy going forward in the years ahead. To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made on the Stirling and Clifmannanshire city region deal. The Scottish Government and its agencies are in on-going and constructive engagement with the regional partners as we seek to progress the Stirling and Clifmannanshire city region deal towards its final deal signing. Keith Brown Can I thank the cabinet secretary for his answer and point out that the investment of £45.1 million in the Scottish Government and £40.1 million in the UK Government is indeed a welcome transformative opportunity for both Clifmannanshire and Stirling. As the cabinet secretary will be aware, the UK Government pledged £8 million to Clifmannanshire as part of the deal to be developed collaboratively with Clifmannanshire Council and other local partners. I would like to ask the cabinet secretary his view and reports that the UK Government is actively considering bids for this fund from outwith the agreed formal governance structures, despite the risks of proper partnership working and the viability and sustainability of projects. To seek the cabinet secretary's assurance that when considering bids for the Scottish Government funds, he will ensure that the integrity of the local decision-making process is maintained. I am aware of the concerns that were raised with me by the leader of Clifmannanshire Council. I raised the issues with the Secretary of State for Scotland when I met him at the beginning of February. The Secretary of State has acknowledged the need to have proper governance and assurance around the process. He has assured me that he was dealing with the concerns that have been expressed by Clifmannanshire Council about the competing bids for projects to be funded through the Clifmannanshire fund. My officials understand that there has been a constructive meeting now taking place between Clifmannanshire Council and the UK Government to discuss those very concerns around the Clifmannanshire fund. We expect to get feedback from that in the coming days. What I can assure the member of is that I am very clear that regional partners need to be at the very centre of any city deals or growth deals. Stirling and Clifmannanshire have already established a city region deal joint committee to oversee and direct the implementation and delivery of the city region deal. The Scottish Government is clear that this committee has to be an integral part of any decision-making process. That is part of the agreement that we have in place with this particular city deal. I will continue to assert that view as we go forward with this deal and any other deals across the country. Does the cabinet secretary welcome the investment of more than £45 million from the UK Government in the Stirling and Clifmannanshire city deal? That includes £10 million for the establishment of a new national tartan centre that will create jobs and boost tourism in the Stirling region. I welcome any investment alongside the other £45 million that has been invested by the Scottish Government, which I am sure the member welcomes in order to make sure that we do everything that we can to help to support the regional economy within Stirling and Clifmannanshire. Equally, it is also important that that funding is utilised in a way that sticks to the agreement. That is to recognise that regional partners, particularly local authorities, are key to the decision-making and how that funding is used. I hope that the UK Government will ensure that that process is adhered to with this particular growth deal. Thank you. That concludes general questions. Before we move on to First Minister's questions, I invite members to join me in welcoming to the gallery his Excellency, Mr Vegard Stroman, ambassador of Norway. Would you also join me in welcoming to the gallery his Excellency, Mr Dan Mihalaki, ambassador of Romania?


Next question is from cup of Joe. What is a good pre-workout meal? I've been doing Ezekiel bread with honey and peanut butter and a cup of coffee for months But are there better things to eat specifically for strength training? Yeah, boy people really get caught up in them in the details and minutiae of things that I don't think are that important So yeah, here's the things to focus on Studies will show that for performance about a couple hours before workout You want to have some carbohydrates and some protein, okay? Where they come from doesn't matter except for this Make sure it's very easily digestible.  Isn't whether or not you had this faster absorbing starch or honey and this fructose versus sucrose versus what who cares about that? It's not that we're splitting hairs. It's about digestive digestion And do you feel are you going to your workout feeling bloated? Do you feel your body internally fighting something as you're now going to work? Yes, eat something really easy to digest so for me pre-workout meal would be like some chicken Some white rice and that's really easy for me to digest that have maybe 50 60 grams of carbs 30 40 grams of protein and I'm ready to go. I wouldn't choose You know proteins or carbohydrates that might give me a little bit of digestive distress Which we're maybe later on the day when I'm not gonna work out that might be okay Not good before I'm so glad that you went that direction with this advice because when I was competing I actually got into this a little bit I mean when you're when you're weighing and measuring and tracking and never missing and like we're you're looking for every Half a percent of advantage that you can get you start to pursue some things like this like up into that point I never did like it never doesn't make sense unless everything is perfect. Yeah, that's what I'm saying like it like before that I'd already been training for 15 years of my life and never once did I like try that hard at times? Certain foods or really care about that so long as the overall diet was was good in the in the day But when I got to this level where you know again, I'm looking for every competitive edge I can I started to play with this stuff and you know, there's lots of stuff There's people that are doing pop tarts to do it. There's people that are fast absorbing cars Yeah, and they make this case for it and here's the thing that I what I had found from trying all the things is It was it was the meal that just digested well for me It just made me feel good in general like it and you know Maybe it wasn't the perfect ratio of carbs the protein that you might read that. Oh, this is the most ideal What is it when they say two to one, right? Yeah, there's and there's there's there's material out there to read that will That will point you in the direction of what that should look like but the truth is It's there's such an individual variance with everybody's digestive system that it's whatever food gets digested Really easy for you that it doesn't impede on your training that will probably benefit your training the most And just because somebody else does this one thing that like, you know slams two or three pop tarts And they feel amazing and they swear by the pumps doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna work the same way for you Especially if things like that upset your gut So, you know find a meal that you know keeps you satisfied You don't feel overstuffed. It feels light when you when you digest it It's you've given yourself by the way, too I think time is important like sometimes people do something a half hour before your workout For me it was for me it's about two hours. Yeah, two hours. I mean, it's I think it's 90 90 minutes to two hours It's typically I mean liquids are different But for most foods your body takes about that long to to digest and convert it over into fuel So, you know, if you're doing something an hour before and you think it's impacting your workout I mean, it's really not the most of that's not even getting converted yet So, you know find something that you can you can eat that you like and there's nothing to that matters consistency You know, if like maybe you could put together this perfect combination of foods that gives you like your extra 1% in your workout But it's like so difficult to put that together every day.  I'm saying like find something that you know, you can consistently do and and stick with that and that's probably the most important I work out fast at every day every morning. I work out at about 7 a.m. And I didn't eat anything that morning It's the it's the dinner before that's my pre-workout meal. It's not that big of a deal That's the biggest thing is the digestive piece really the difference between rice versus potatoes versus, you know Pixi sticks or gummy bears.


is done we are now going to go to rotation. Again what the game we play? We have a diatomics which is rotating and then we go and calculate the, solve this Schrodinger equation assuming as a rigid rotator. Remember rigid rotator of quantum mechanics? Okay and what are the energy levels? Important thing is that I is moment of inertia in the denominator just like in translation M would be in the denominator. Moment of inertia more energy levels get quashed together. Okay so this is the A we usually use this notation but I do not swear I use this one. So Ej. So now important thing one very very important thing in rigid rotator that given J is the quantum number like N there was the quantum number in harmonic oscillator. J is the quantum number however here it comes with the degeneracy. If you remember rotational levels come with a degeneracy. Anybody remembers Ray's hand? Who remembers the rotation as a degeneracy? Okay one guy remember two guys remember. These two does not, oh you three remember others do not. That so and when there is a degeneracy then it is trivially, partition function is written trivially. So this factor is the degeneracy factor. Degeneracy of an energy level. Okay so it is just the weight. You know G is the universally used as a weight factor. It is the density of states. G is used as a density of states and so it is essentially weight of that like in radial distribution function again G used. So G comes we use G as a is almost universal thing in a density of states and so this is the same thing. So this is the density of states 2J plus 1. So I put it there and this is the energy. So I put the energy H square JJ plus 1. Now something very interesting here did you notice that? That if I take derivative of that I get that quantity. This one beauty. So then I write this quantity but if I take the derivative of that what happened? J square plus 1 become 2J plus 1 but I also get out H square by 8 pi I square I get which I should then compensate for and that is compensated here. Okay so now write the partition function in a very neat way in this in this in the following form. Pretty neat very nice but unfortunately we cannot evaluate it. Nobody has been able to evaluate this. So our rotational partition function remains little bit stuck. This has to but of course these days is trivial. Before people used to have tables and people tabulated tables for all by rotation and different molecules. Our times we used to have tables but now you do not need tables, tables have disappeared because you can put one line in computer. So you see now in this case there is a very strong dependence on momentum inertia I. Okay very strong dependent on momentum inertia I. As I told you it is very important. So low temperature but we can though we cannot evaluate this one. We can evaluate a high and low temperature because at low temperature there is one case. High temperature one case. A high temperature this becomes small. Low temperature this becomes very low temperature this becomes so large. This becomes large and so negative it goes to 0. So low temperature and only first term would be enough. Okay so and then low temperature I can just evaluate this j equal to 1 becomes 1, j equal to 0 become 1 then I keep I need to keep only one term j equal to 1 that is 3. Okay and then I get this term and that is pretty good. Okay so this is the partition function at low temperature. High temperature now gap between energy levels become very small. So I can now replace this sum by an integral. Okay is that clear? One things become very close like translation of partition function. I can replace the by an integration and this integration I can evaluate. Any way I know that this is d by dj and d by dj is trivial to integrate because you just evaluate in the two limits. This integration is done for you and then that is this quantity. So in the high temperature your rotational partition function is t by 8 pi square i by k B T. Now we define and since this quantity has a dimension 1 over temperature then I define this temperature as a rotational temperature. These things are important because this can tells you that what is the relative rotational temperature tells you below this temperature you have to be a low temperature limit above the temperature you have treated as high temperature. Similarly in vibration theta vibration tells you this is a crossover temperature. Below that and above that things start of course it does not change at that temperature but it kind of goes through this swing. So it gives a very good estimate of doing those quantities. Now we go again and do the partition function minus k B T L and Q.  Now this Q rotation is L N 8 pi square by A k B T. This is I am doing now the high temperature and as I told you many of the cases high temperature is reasonably okay because it is 50 80 centimeter inverse. You are drawing say 300 Kelvin to 1 centimeter you are not great but still you can get away.  So I have this neat expression of free energy N k B T L N T by theta R okay. Remember that now I play the game again I find the what is the rotational entropy that is a term turned out to be extremely important and modern days. What is the rotational entropy? It was not even our time when we studied these things we really thought circuitated equation. Translational partition function only good for P B equal to k B to the beautiful derivation. Then vibration we liked it very much we knew because side by side with soil state physics the soil state chemistry was taught so we knew that rotation we did not pay any attention to. However it turns out I will tell you why it is so important. So this is the entropy now I take this derivative from here this quantity neat and clean and very simple. So I can calculate the rotational entropy right we go there you take the derivative one term comes from here another terms comes from here and when I do that I get this is the first term this is the second term. So this is the beautiful expression for rotational entropy then I take the specific it just I get in vibration and then I get derivative of that this term does not carry exactly parallel to vibration. So then this ln become 1 over t by theta r then A and it becomes 1 over t and that cancels the t cancels the 1 over t minus minus and all these things become nkv. So rotation with this is beauty is that rotational specific it is nkv vibration you already know. So it is becomes r now we will just talk of some of the thermodynamics. So we have now derived all the things vibration translation I did in the morning we did vibration and rotation and I have to come back and do little bit of monotomic but that I will do in later because there is still some amount of way to go and as I told you that I wanted to start fresh and do this good job to diatomics because that is not done in a unified way. I have not seen even the all the stat mech books have not done a good job in bringing the whole picture clearly to A. Now let us see some examples again. So ideal we go to now before we do that ideal polyatomic molecules we did ideal monotomic ideal diatomic then polyatomic for example linear we have 3 translation 2 rotation these are the vibration these are standard questions in oral some type even in phd interview of course it has to be even your job talk even job talk sometime we ask the suddenly the faculty candidate also ask these questions. So if we are nasty we ask that and many times we find that by that time they are giving a job talk they forgotten these basic things ok. So you know all of this that in a non-linear 3 rotational degrees of freedom so 3 and minus 6 ok. Vibrational partition function total partition function rotation not vibration total partition function then is translation non-linear means 3 rotation then 3 vibration. So this is the total partition function this should be total partition function. So this is the total partition function in all its glory. So vibrational partition function is this quantity rotation and translation we just described. The reason of writing separately it was not written before. So, this is the rotational partition function of a spherical top. Spherical top is like a methane is we are now doing polyatomic we have done monatomic, diatomic, polyatomic and this is where much of the, well diatomic already lot of interesting things are there like oxygen, nitrogen then you have carbon dioxide not carbon monoxide, oxides, cyanide all these things are diatomic but polyatomic is where water, methane, ethane and ammonia all these things. So, but you have a symmetric molecules then all the moment of inertia are the same that is the definition of a spherical top then it is very easy this is it. These things do not matter in vibration but it matters in the rotation. Then there we can do these calculations here that these integration as we did just before is the same thing again done. However, if they are symmetric top not spherical top then the condition is that two are equal but third one not equal moment of inertia. In that case I write the rotational partition function in the following way clear. Two of them that is why half goes away from here third one the asymmetric one comes here as the half. So, this is the partition function of the rotation of asymmetric top molecules and that can again be calculated by the kind of approximation. Now, if it is completely asymmetric then you have to be work much harder you have to write IA, IB, IC are completely different from each other then you have to write them explicitly with their moment of inertia. There is a symmetry number that comes to take care of the symmetry of the Hamiltonian here which is typically 2 or 3 but I forgot the exact origin of that and anybody remembers this is classical mechanics otherwise you have to clarify in the next lecture. In terms of theta r this is the rotational partition function. So, all these things work done now leaks through this is the table that I wanted to talk of that characteristic temperatures and then and we now beginning to see what is the why what is the low temperature high temperature approximation. Look here water so this is with the remember with respect to KBT h nu by KBT and this similarly theta rotation is here is the theta rotation. So, it is essentially the moment of inertia everything else is constant. So, then look at here how high these things are in vibration rotation they have come down drastically. Water is an there is no symmetry and all the 3 vibrations are different all the 3 rotations IA, IB, IC 2 of them are close to each other in vibration and by rotation all 3 are different. Here is ammonia and these are the ammonia vibrations and these are the rotations of vibration then sulphur that's all these things. Now these are given in my book and they have been one of the important thing that say all these things are taken from the book. Now this is entropy of polyatomic molecules. So, this is trivial because they are not interacting so entropy is the sum of the entropy. So, you have the rotation this is the translational entropy circuitator equation this is the vibrational entropy in the general form for anisotropic molecules and this is the vibrational entropy. So, translation rotation vibration 3 things added. Now most of the time because of vibration water I think this is so high that in there is only one term that is important and here is this the table for water translation is this is the absolute value of entropy that it is 17 but look at rotation rotation at 5.45 that is rotational entropy is about 30 percent of translational entropy. This is an extremely important result for ammonia is again but look at vibration vibration entropy is negligible. So, if I think of water ideal entropy of water whether I told you is a significant actually real entropy of water still these 22 makes a huge contribution. Entropy goes down to maybe a value of 10 or 12 but these still makes the lines contribution. So, thermodynamic properties of water and ammonia lines contribution comes from the ideal this is something I had no idea myself when I I was taken away completely by this interaction and all these things but ideal plays a very very important role. Again repeat then case of water rotation vibrational entropy makes no contribution rotational entropy is about 30 percent of total and this is the decomposition but you can see though these are fairly different molecules there is a near constancy of yes that is correct chemistry of the molecules will come through electronics and so that that is a good question. So, but the ammonia and water is different chemically because of their electronic property also there is a polarizability which is again electronic properties and so we are doing ideal and because of electronic polarizability and the shape of the molecules interaction between two water molecules and two ammonia between water and ammonia they are very different those things are not here. So, we are not having any interactions. So, when I am doing of thermodynamic properties ideal gas that we should not be carried away you are right when it comes to chemical properties then the electronic features play an important role. So, the translation entropy contributes most but rotation is 30 percent of the total actually very recently till about about 5 to 10 years ago when you are calculating entropy of water we are neglecting rotation contribution and we are writing a paper which will be submitted in the next few days. I told you are that you are doing a ice water interface and ice water interface the ice goes into water in the ice you know I never have translation entropy not of much rotation but when it goes to liquid translation and entropy you do not gain too much which is still highly constrained but rotational entropy is the one that dominates ice water interface for any molecule sorry rotational entropy is very easy to recover because rotation is not a conserved quantity but translation is a conserved quantity is a very important. So, I can destroy the rotational order very easily you know I can take one out of a rotational degree of freedom but I cannot do in real space orientation is not a orientational density is not conserved conservation is a spatial density or number density yeah but you see it can be anywhere in this sphere. So, again it is a very fundamental concept coming from a little bit different field but it is a number density okay if I I don't I had to do that because I think most of you will not be able to follow it but let me tell let me try I have a density which is space dependent and I have a orientation dependent okay I write it as a spherical harmonic expansion that is what I didn't want to I should not have said what I said because it is just going to confuse you guys now this density is conserved where does the conservation come if I integrate over and I say that's a conserved quantity that will then these conservation will be will be constrained only on a 0 0 isropic part orientation this you have to think yourself I think I should not have got into that and you don't want to get into that but that's a very interesting thing I mentioned in the context of rotational entropy that many cases you recover rotational entropy but you do not recover translational entropy okay this is the path of I now want to go back and five minutes do the okay these we have done in the morning up to this day chemical potential gran canonical take the derivative the now we'll do what the question you asked that what is the way to do the micro canonical ensemble for ideal gas right and I said the following it is very difficult in a classical but it's trivial in quantum so if I want to do if this is the ideal gas monotonic ideal gas this is the Hamiltonian so partition function should be dr1 I just do one particle dr3 dp1 dp2 dp3 then delta h-c so nve constraint means Hamiltonian has to have constant energy okay so you pick up a hyper surface you pick up a hyper surface and these of course gives me just the volume as before but this has to have this constraint so I cannot have any momentum and any a so see what they become trivial in the canonical partition function because I have just a Gaussian integral because I love energy fluctuations in by bringing temperature but in the constant energy surface this is you can do only numerically okay however in quantum it becomes easy because in quantum I have to sum over energy levels and I can solve particle in a box and this is my volume here right a length of the box this is a cubic I can give a cubic box then it is like that okay now this is nx ni nz all I introduce as n square then that n square here if is the constant energy is there then I can go there is a reason I am going to do that this is very cumbersome way I will first define the energy then I would say nx ny nz can be 0 to infinity and then it is amazing that students even after 5th year PhD students they have no idea many times how to write equations of course that is the problem will come in chemistry I remember I worked with a very distinguished physicist who is now a chair professor of something university of urban shampoo and he has a very famous book on statistical mechanics called Yoshigo Ono and I used to work with Yoshig at one state in Chicago and as a postdoc and Yoshig always used to tell me Viman why do you write equations in such cumbersome form and a physicist has certain affection and love for mathematical equations which shows in their writing here also see how cumbersome it is written okay nx ny nz are all of them from 1 they are not from 0 remember okay if that is then if I now I should introduce that these quantities n square because they come together remembering that nx ny yz can vary each of them independently then I put them equal to E now I am going to use something the because I this nx ny nz make a make a cubic system I vary nx along x axis ny along yn is there they are discrete points in a in a digit in a disc in a grid so however since mine is 1 to infinity I populate because of my energy levels 1 1 1 1 8th of that okay so however the n square I can write at as this quantity a vector in that space is n square and that is given by e so that is this 8 ml square h square by e now in three dimensions with the radius n so I can calculate the density of states by calculating the number of points is this clear so these are all so so my total number now nx ny nz are all positive okay so they will be on the one side of that that will be I need to calculate okay it is not the whole space so if I do that then it is 1 8th of the whole average so total number of points is in the radius radius is n is nx square ny square nz square this is really lucky so then it is 4 pi by 3 pi n cube this is the volume oh so 1 8th of that n I know n I know because that is connected to energy e I have a envy envy ensemble ideal gas in envy e they are non interacting so my volume of the box comes through l energy comes through e total n will be when I put them to the n because n number of them so envy each play a role each plays a role okay is a really very pretty so this is your density of total number of states omega of that gives you the partition function sorry this is your partition function ln of that gives you the entropy so this is the way you know this goes on doing this is the what soil state physics the density of states and all these things but we do not need it right now for statistical mechanics this used in some cases but we if we need later we will do but this is where correspondence between quantum and classical statistical mechanics of a monatomic ideal gas this is the capital omega these total number of states capital omega which depends on I should have put it into capital omega again so this is the depends on e this is depend on v of course because n can be one to infinity particle in a box remember the quantum numbers quantum numbers from one to you remember that are to forgotten okay so then no between doing so you are using so these that's why many parts of statistical mechanics we cannot teach unless quantum is done like when you particle in a box we need harmonic oscillator we need rigid rotator so that's why in everywhere stat mac 1 starts in the second semester first semester quantum 1 quantum 1 and thermodynamics so courses that I have taught in many places it was always the second semester which was very bad because everywhere quantum stat mac used to be full winter when I taught at Harvard taught Wisconsin everywhere it was always the month of January February March April which is horrible thermodynamics is the first semester which is the called fault here also in at our a in a list of science ss 201 sorry our sorry state ss 201 used to be thermodynamics ss 202 used to be statistical mechanics same in physics everywhere but by the time we are doing ss 201 side by side ss 204 or 5 is the quantum mechanics so quantum is done parallel to thermodynamics then comes as okay but that's a different thing so this is what completes I said I'll take 10 15 minutes more is done so next in the book one usually goes doing both science and condensation and both statistics I'm not going to do that that will do later because this is a non-interacting system I think next what we need to do is the interacting system because that's where much of our applications are but if you do not do the ideal gas or ideal case then you cannot do the interact interact resistance no you take the center of mass center of mass is always well defined yeah the center of mass total mass and then total mass then for rotation you will have mass of the you will have momentum inertia along each axis there are three principal axes so in non-linear molecules we have three moment of inertia are you on i to i3 similarly when you do vibration each vibration we will have an effective mass so translation will have one mass which is the central mass and then three masses for vibration three masses momentum inertia for rotation anything else okay


A retrospective look at Nigeria's business sector in 2022 shows a mix of too ugly and not too good. As experts say, with the forthcoming election and change of government built for this year, the sector would likely stagnate. A rewind of 2022 and how the nation's business sector fed pictures a period mad by inflation, high unemployment rate, poverty, insecurity, unfavorable foreign exchange regime, narrow depreciation against other currencies, high energy costs, slow growth domestic product growth, fuel scarcity, flooding, oil theft, conundrum, high interest rates, soaring public debt, and the narrow redesign policy with its attendance implications. On business insights for this week, we will be doing an economic outlook for Nigeria this year. Welcome on board. I am Justin Akadone. Welcome back to store business insights and lost TV Africa. We'll go straight to the discussion for the day. We have gospel, Obele, an economist I'm standing by. Many thanks for joining us, gospel. All right, gospel, let me just start by asking a general question based on what we went through in 2022. If you were to just summarize or just predict as it were, do you see Nigeria smiling before we get into the business of the day? Do you see this year as a better year? Well, it depends on where you're looking at it from. This year is a year that comes with a mixed narrative. On some levels, it will be a better year. On some other levels, it's really going to be a more uncertain year. I would really say it's going to be a bad year, but it's really going to be a more uncertain year. But on some other levels, it's going to be very positive and a very good one. Again, dependent on who is looking, what you're looking, and how you're seeking to engage and interpret chain leadership as a critical pathway to understanding uncertainty and approaching uncertainty with the necessary intelligence around market to unlock and maximize opportunities as they come. All right, gospel, the president just recently days ago signed the 2023 appropriation bill into law. I want to just ask a question right now. The finance bill was not actually signed in my head. I'm thinking that we are projecting revenues and incomes and all of that. Does it really make sense not really having defined the financial law or finance law as we are even talking about how much we are going to be making this year? Finance bill law, you get? Well, I would say it's the development story. It's a development story also because there are a lot of considerations that went into this budget. Let's not forget that the supplementary budget was presented in December and this is still the fresh of the start of the new year, taking to constitutional as well elections. The change is made. There are many other things to think about and many other constitutions to put into context. And I think that there are going to be a lot more pronouncements around the budget around revenue mobilization around the finance act as we move into January and the rest of the month. But then again the most important thing is how can Nigerians take advantage of these opportunities and navigate a very high on a certain year that is largely plagued with a very high cost of living crisis and big questions around what the electoral result or the election result would mean for policy direction and for stakeholder engagement in the later part of the year. So it's going to be an interesting series of events to look out for as we proceed into the year and I believe that somewhere around the corner we'll get to have more clarity around what the finance act will be if we're retaining or some metrics should be changing. All right, Gospel, let's talk about the inflationary trend for 2022 as we juxtapose and see what we are outlooking for this year. From January inflation jumped from 15.56% in January 2022 to about 21.47% in November. Look at the lead that's over about 6% in 11 months there about although we've not seen the figures for December yet but let's just project and see are we going to continue that particular trend? It's very likely that we'll continue that particular trend because the economics of this current inflation that we're dealing with is not really monetary you know to a very large extent they are also very structural to a very large extent the bill of monies and circulation which the central bank has been trying to manage to recent redesign and draw policy. There's also been the climate effect or okay so I mean there's a situation Ukraine won earlier in the year which has impacted on food and energy prices along the value chain. There's been a global climate effect on food generally in the world today and that has tripled down you know in terms of somewhere around October November I saw the flood crisis in Nigeria and the estimations by the FAO that is a lumen food crisis that may lead to an estimated 17 to 34 million Nigerians in poverty in 2023. So this is to tell you that the narrative around the cost of living crisis is evolving which technically would mean inflation because the inflationary numbers or the inflationary pressure permits heavily on food and also energy elements as well as basic basic necessities for the average Nigerian. So yes it's likely going to continue because these narratives are still in view and but I don't think that using inflation interest rates to curb inflation will be very sustainable it's necessary but may not be sufficient as a measure to managing inflation and also to curbing inflation in the new year. All right so humble gospel rather the 2023 budget is about 4.3 percent deficit of the nation's GDP. Analysts believe that this deficit may leave Nigeria into a huge borrowing capable of creating an economic setback for the country. Do you agree? I mean Nigeria is always in borrowing so it's not news number one and actually Nigeria would need to borrow more as it goes on and that's because of the fundamental root causal challenge of the revenue crisis that we have you know that's one and two the economy is also not growing enough in terms of capacity you know to generate its own monies you know Nigeria actually needs more money to expand as an economy in the real sense even our budget size in the real sense of things is more related to the potential above we have as a nation and investments we need to drive you know that development that we need as a nation also to state on the other side of things is the fact that we've not been able to properly unlock the non all revenue drivers you know in terms of organizing the markets that currently exist and that currently contributes more you know because in first half of 2022 we saw that none all sector only contributed about 1.1 trillion there are more in all revenue sorry in revenue than the all sector you know and that's to say that the quick wins are there you know this sector also contributes about 94 95 percent of Nigerian economy services sector alone contributes about 57 percent to the Nigerian economy that's to tell you that the low-hanging fruits are there but for some reason we've not been able to maximize that and they've been a lot of focus around the all sector and the somewhat leakage is around the Nigerian economy so because you have a strong and clear revenue crisis that the political economy regardless of who is in power now in regards of administration the political economy have not been able to step up in terms of will to deal in terms of reforms and all of that just to properly structure this revenue base to ensure it's productive and sustainable there's a likelihood that we'll resort to debt financing for to close our debts in the future sorry our budget deficits in the future and again budget deficits are not necessarily a bad thing debt are not necessarily a bad thing the big question is what are you borrowing for and are you borrowing to plug into sectors that would be productive enough to to to set resource debt in the future all right it is really not a very good I'll leave you ask me in the wake of all the issues and the long queues and being experienced them across Lagos and other states the country is still planning on spending about 3.36 trillion naira on subsidy between January to June this year what does this really portend in real terms gospel yeah um thank you for asking the question I mean that personally I do not think that the argument is really a subsidy um yeah government is spending a lot of subsidy that's very very um it's not sustainable to be very honest but then again if you take out the subsidy we you can imagine what how much it would cost you know to have to buy a few this one the likes but that's either subsidy really really exists you know to start with um so those are different sides of the conversation what I know is that subsidy is not sustainable in any way because it's eating heavily on our revenue block and um there are big larger conversations on table outside subsidy that that lack of ability to address those issues are being reinforcing the need for subsidy number one is the fact that i've been close to 70 to 85 percent of the of consumers of pms are actually households and businesses in Nigeria so if you fix power by 50 percent you realize that you know households will have will not have any business going to the printing stations um businesses will have no business going to the the stations to get fuel and all of that and which you mean that you reduce the demand pressure on pms all right and that means technically that you reduce the amount of pms and all of these things you need to import because demand has dropped and if you reduce the demand it means that you will not need to pay any subsidy any longer because you are not importing as much as you require one of reasons why subsidy is the major issue because you need to import so much because it's high demand for these services or these products in contact to be very honest that the Nigerian government created its own crisis and and in the main in trying to fix those prices or these issues you're recreating new levels of crisis in context you could have also fixed the local refineries fixing local reference will relax uh demand for imported fuel and all of these dynamics you know so the big ticket competition even if you remove subsidy there is a big there's a huge dependent economy on oil consumption in terms of oil consumption and that may reinvent the wheel of some sort again if you close our subsidy and push those monies into a government funding program like shopee during the genital era the big ticket questions will now be how many Nigerians will have access to shopee funds for businesses and all of that for sorry business development growth and all of that you know and what would these funds be used for in terms of enabling prosperity or relaxing the cost of living crisis as we have today so these are different legs of conversion that we can look at if for whatever subsidy itself is not a sustainable pathway for the current and the next administration all right let's look at our nations and forexom regime it's like a full blown crisis if you ask me for for instance in January the naira stood up to the dollar at um 415 naira official rate where the black market rate was about 567 naira or today the situation is worse the official rate stands at 448.8 to the dollar while the black market is about 737 naira going forward in 2023 what should we be doing as regards our forexom uh regime if you don't um Nigeria is at the situation i mean we're in a situation where um time has passed and we are now in an emergency state you know you need to get back to the basics to fix a lot of these issues we have today there is no hard and fast tool to fix in anything right now and um it's good enough that we are having a new administration coming and i would expect that the focus should be fixing these structural issues i mean come on it's not going to take anything for you to fix it and what are these structural issues your economy needs to be more competitive you know and in being competitive that gives you negotiation power within the international and regional community where a lot of institutional engagement are being done or you know are being carried out you know in terms of currency wars and fall against your currency and the Nigerian economy itself also needs to be much more productive than it is today you know and we also need to consume made in Nigeria to a very large extent as much as we can all of these things will go along with to powering up our local economy once your local economy is powered up and you're competitive facing regionally and globally it's a lot easier for your currency to gain value in the scheme of things you know and the only thing i just mentioned are the necessary conditions that must happen and on the on the on the sufficient conditions of condition of things would be for us to begin to institutionally manage our currency meaning that in the face of a dollar in the face of the yuan euro pound and all of that what negotiations that we have in what policy initiatives are we engaging in to ensure that the naira is being protected in view of these global shocks these are important issues that we need to discuss not some form of matter fast food approach that the central bank is trying to push into the economy right now and is largely reactive in nature and would hurt the economy and the naira to a very large extent as we move into 2020 the current approach is not sustainable and it will further make the naira devalue in the face of other currencies as we go into the economy as we go into the year 2020 let's not also forget that the q1 elections and the lack of policy direction ahead of the next administration is also a big ticket conversion on the table that may impact on the value of the currency namely while you have a highly consumption driven economy as well so we hope that the the structural fundamentals will be will be done right at the necessary level the institutional fundamentals will be done right at a sufficient level and at those two levels the naira will be in a better position and give or take at the end of 2023 if they are done rightly all right there's a whole lot to discuss and this is an election you like we have been saying since we started the show but i need to set a bit of an agenda right now for whoever wins the election the presidential election because there's a whole lot you know to be done with the economy with 33 percent unemployment rate and insecurity in the northeast in the southeast and nigerians are not being able to even get the average staples to eat what should be the primary focus as it is now for the incoming or the next administration you know after the elections yeah i would say four things number one would be the issue of insecurity has to be dealt with because i mean everything bothers on that if your environment is not safe it can be prosperous you know there's no amount of policy anything you want to introduce if there's a perception of insecurity or insecurity itself those two elements the perception and the and the realistic nature of realistic nature of insecurity would worsen things for that underlying so there's need to deal with that then number two there's need to take advantage of the low-hanging fruits when there has a lot of low-hanging fruits adjusted about non-off sector i talked about the service sector i talked about a lot of said these are actually export ready you know i talked about the informal sector these are low-hanging fruits that we can use to show up every week that we can use to encourage or enable businesses to thrive in terms of pushing in the right policies and all the likes so once we deal with the low-hanging fruits you know i mean give or take interdependently there's need to also fix the economy you know the major drivers fixing the low-hanging fruits closing the cases of all that will encourage more revenue and you know sort of that push and that drive the economy needs to begin to experience newness and some prospects towards prosperity also will be the need to fix social infrastructure for social infrastructure we talk about hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure hard infrastructure will be all the rails the road networking everything we need to get it running internet and all that the hard infrastructure the soft infrastructure will begin to rework the political ideology the cultural ideology the behavioral patterns you know and the cultural patterns of the people you know to ensuring that as much as you're fixing the hard things the culture and institutions are also jet towards enabling people to thrive and i don't know if you go i'm trying to say so even if you have good infrastructure if your culture does not enable people to try you know it will it will draw people down the ladder and all of that so there's need to look at all these lenses at least as it from a takeoff standpoint then begin to deal as we go on and and i believe that if you look at it from this context it's a lot easier to drive reform and skill reforms more sustainably all right gospel as we round off right now we cannot go without talking about the cbn policies or policy direction or policy misdirection as it were as we closed that 2022 we're talking about them the cashless policy naira redesign and of course uh nigerians have to grapple with the fact that they have to you know obtain the new naira before the end of um january but that doesn't seem to be the case because um the banks are still paying with the old notes what do we do very quickly as we round off gospel yeah i mean to be honest the cbn has tried a lot of things you know into fix the economy and to fix problems that are not really monetary or not primary it's concerned so sort of positions as though it's firefighting on many grounds and the policies have been very incoherent you know and as a result of that crunch time pressure and all of that on the central bank will seem a lot of poor internal controls you know within the system and then that's why you mentioned what you just said right now in terms of central uh commercial banks still dispensing old notes and the life so a lot of internal control have to come to the fore to ensuring that this new policy succeeds you know and also to ensuring that um there has to be a lot more constitution next time in terms of rolling out policies i mean the uk by opposition where um due to the um to the loss of the queen realize that the new currency the new pound note has to carry the king's picture but that would be launched till mid-twenty four and the goal is for that to co-circulate with currency currently existing uh notes that has the queen's picture so there has to be a pattern and the plan you know and we need to pace things for that especially in very vulnerable and highly volatile economies that we find ourselves in and these are part of the commission that may worsen inflation as we go on because there is not supply demand pressure around accessing the new notes and withdrawal limits and right these new policies would not necessarily encourage the cashless economy no it may improve each transactions but Nigerians there's also going to be a rise in cash stack you know amounts of money that Nigerians will want to hold you know um in disposal because they know that there's a limit to cost every month and all of that so we hope that the central bank will be will be more not considerate all right collaborative in its approach in the coming year all right thank you so much um gospel for all the useful insights you have shared to various sectors of the economy i'm afraid time is never ever our friend talking about it yeah i know pertinent issues we do appreciate your time once again thank you for having me yes uh gospel obelis an economist and he has done justice to all of the discusser for today business insights return again same time next week i am justin akadony many thanks for watching


I wanted to take today just a couple of minutes to talk to you about time blocking, which is a really simple hack that can help with life work balance. Now, I get life work balance is a really tricky thing and it can feel impossible to get one, but I found time blocking makes a big difference. So time blocking basically is the idea of you guessed it, blocking at your time. So you decide, at this time I'm doing this thing, at this time I'm doing this thing. But the key to making it work and having an impact on life work balance is to block all your time. I don't mean like make sure all of your time is accounted for, but rather think about the things that matter to you and make sure you've blocked time out for them. So that means not just blocking out time for work, but blocking out time for play or family as well. And actually putting those things in your diary, the rest will fall in around it. It's amazing how things will fill in the gaps and so it will be fine. But if you think first of the things that you really want to do and you block the time out for them, then you will ensure that those things happen.  And when we block out our time like this, that's the first part of the battle because when we prioritize our time in this way and we say, I want to make time for, in my case, climbing, singing, playing with my children, then those things are more likely to happen. But the next step is what you do during those blocks of time. Obviously you're going to engage with the activity that you've committed to, but it's about really, really engaging with our activity. So if I blocked out two hours this afternoon to play with my children, that means I am not going to engage with work. My phone goes away, the computer goes away. They are the sole focus of my attention and any time that my attention wanders, I bring it back to my children. Likewise, if instead I have blocked this afternoon out for work, I'm working. I've decided what I'm going to work on, I turn off my emails, I turn off my phone and I focus right in on that task. This can only work if you really commit to it and if you let other people know that you're doing it. I am focusing on X, I don't want to be distracted and you can get into a routine and a rhythm with it and I'm working hard on this. I would not purport to have it perfectly, but I'm finding if I block out time to climb, if I block out time to sing, if I block out time to play, if I block out time to be a mum, if I block out time to be a wife and I block out time to work, then I'm able to do the things that really matter to me that keep me well and keep me connected and I'm able to do them quite well. It's not perfect, but it's a starting point and as we're in a break between terms at the moment, this can be a really good moment just to stop and think about what might the rhythm of your week be? When might those regular time blocks be? Are there blocks of time you can dedicate to yourself and wholly engage with things for you? Are there times that you can dedicate to your family and wholly engage with your family? And are there times that you can dedicate to work and really, really focusing on your work and get loads done and then get on with the rest of life? I'd love to hear how you find this, whether you find time blocking and becoming kind of more indistractable and really focusing in on the thing that you're doing helpful. I'm finding it really helpful, but I'm learning. I'm learning as I go along. So any advice and ideas on making it work better would be gladly appreciated. Okay, take care. Bye.


Now you guys for the main show you're gonna see what I have picked for our overall core for the upcoming homeschool year for her and we have decided to go with how you guys my name is Brittany and welcome back to my youtube channel you guys in today's video I will be sharing my sixth great homeschooling picks for the 2023 2024 homeschooling year so if any of you guys are new here to my channel again my name is Brittany I'm a homeschooling mom to three girls ages 11, five and three and I will be entering in my fourth year of homeschool you guys so I am so excited I am a little bit nervous you guys and starting off middle school I really did a lot of research and I really took a lot of time and selecting the picks for my middle schooler because I really was looking into picking curriculum that was really going to suit her overall and it was really going to help me accomplish the goals that I want us to reach this homeschooling year so you guys uh without further ado I'm going to go ahead and get on into this thing I have everything laid out and we're going to go ahead and start off with math so with math you guys we are going to be continuing using math you see and we are going to be going into the zeta level you guys switching to math you see this upcoming homeschool year was the best decision that I ever made Brielle is doing so awesome in math and I'm so so so happy with the series so this is Matthew sees data she will be using the live video lessons from Mr. Demi to get her video instructions and then for the math you see her manipulatives actually changed so she is going to be using the math you see a decimal and um or this is the algebra and decimal insert so she's going to actually be using this insert kit for pre algebra and for the zeta level so this is going to be her primary math we are going to supplement this this year and I will share with you towards the end what we're going to supplement her math with so as far as grammar goes we are going to be continuing with the fixate grammar series so this is fixate grammar book four we have completed three of the fixate grammar book series you guys and I absolutely love this grammar program it's short it's sweet it's effective it's very thorough and I'm happy that we are continuing with the series so um because vocabulary was a struggle area for my daughter I decided to add in an extra supplement for her for vocabulary and we will be using the word roots level one so I don't have any anticipation on us completing this book because it's pretty thick for a vocabulary book we are just going to take our time and helping her build those vocabulary skills now you guys for the main show you're going to see what I have picked for our overall core for the upcoming homeschool year for her and we have decided to go with oak metal you guys I am so excited you guys because I am partnering with oak metal to present you guys today's video and I'm going to share with you their entire great sixth level all of the literature and all the things that Braille is going to get up to this homeschooling year I really love this curriculum because it is set up for the student so I am really coming in in the back end as parent and as facilitator each week my daughter gets the opportunity to choose from several selections of assignments she's going to be really hands-on a lot of the assignments are creative it involves a lot of art and writing and I'm really going to be able to see another side of my daughter while we are using this oak metal curriculum so this is the English curriculum and as you guys can see this is the student book and the teacher's manual you see how thin the teacher's manual is compared to the student book again because it is written to the student so the English and the history actually coincides together so in the English this year she will be learning how to write expository descriptive writing she's going to be doing opinion writing persuasive writing and she is also going to be learning how to do MLA format you guys I didn't learn that till high school so this curriculum is really going to enhance those writing skills and I'm really really excited for her about that so the English actually pairs along with the history and this year we are going to be going over ancient civilizations and again this is the teacher's manual and her student book so what's really cool about oak metal is that when it's a lighter English week it means that it's going to be a heavier history week so by doing the weeks together it's really really uh it's really set up for the student and I really love how they automatically know okay if she's going to be writing a paper in history I'm not going to have her do a paper in English she's just going to be doing grammar so it's really cool how they combine the history and the English together in this oak metal series so here is all of the literature that Brielle is going to be reading this homeschool year and I'm going to briefly go over all the books so the first one is maru uh it says maru of the winter caves I have the rainbow people the golden bull the shakespeare stealer the eagle of the knife the ugly one this is castle diary once there was twice there was and then I have two reference books that we're going to be using which is the lairs book of Greek mythology and you guys this book is beautiful like all the illustrations and things like that in it it's awesome so I'm really really excited as we are going to be talking about Greek myths because again we are going to be going over all of ancient civilizations and then the last big reference book that came with the package is 101 inventions and awesome facts of muslim civilizations and again you guys this book is beautiful like all the illustrations and things like that in it so now for science we are going to be doing oak metals basic life science and I'm really really excited Brielle's going to get an opportunity to really master those skills as of writing like a lab report and things like that we're going to be using our microscope this year so I'm really really happy and I'm excited for us to dig in a really really deep into life science so this right here is the student course book and then the teacher's manual as well so to supplement Brielle's math you see we are going to go ahead and do the oak metals math the oak metals math you guys is so clean and it's so simple and I definitely think because this year this upcoming homeschool year is a testing year for us in a state of Georgia I do want her to get that spiral review of the other concepts that she learned in math you see already so we're going to be using the oak metals math as a supplement and I really like how simple and thorough the oak metals math is it's really easy and I definitely think we're going to be able to pair it very well with the math use these data this homeschooling year now you guys uh one thing I haven't showed you and I'm not too sure about it because as you guys can see oak metal is a is a pretty complete package like I really didn't have to think about everything anything everything's like really all laid out for me and I'm like second guessing this choice but I'm going to show it to you guys anyway because you know I love IEW I actually purchased IEW in November but because oak metal is very heavy in writing I don't know if we're going to need this so I'm going to hold on to it and if I find that I want us to start the IEW we will probably start this in second semester and or we will start it the summer of her seventh grade year so I do have this year this is going to be definitely an honorable mention because you guys you know I love IEW I definitely feel like the foundation that IEW laid is really going to prepare Brielle for all the writing she is going to do in oak metal so I have this year I don't know if we're going to use it or not but it's just going to be an honorable mention for right now and as our middle school years go on I definitely will update you guys and let you know if we decided to add an IEW or not now for Brielle's electives we kept it really really simple this year we are going to be doing music through living harmonies this is from thistles and biscuits I'm really really excited for her to learn all these musical instruments around the world and I definitely think it will pair very well since we are going over ancient cultures and civilizations so this is living harmonies as far as her personal electives she's going to continue doing creative writing I am going to have her do a creative writing class throughout school this home schooling year and hopefully she'll have fun doing that and she's also going to continue with piano through Hoffman Academy this is going to be our third year doing Hoffman Academy we are really nearing the end of these units and I definitely think at this point I'm going to have to decide if I'm going to do like private piano lessons for her because she definitely is enjoying using Hoffman Academy and we're nearing the end of this program so you guys these are my sixth grade homeschool curriculum picks I'm so excited I just definitely want to let you know flip throughs you definitely will see inside of Oak Meadow I definitely will have like a lot of planning videos um I will not leave you behind I definitely will take you guys along this process as I'm learning a new curriculum I'm so excited for us and I definitely know this is going to be a rich and fun homeschooling year for us and starting off middle school so as always you guys thank you so much for watching today's video I cannot wait like I said to update you guys on our journey with Oak Meadow and I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one bye


My name's Ellie. I'm an English teacher, although I'm Spanish or Catalan, and I work at the Foreign Language Department of Institute Uber de Catalunya here in Barcelona. So as a language educator, our primary goal is for our learners to be able to use new language to communicate effectively. But before they're able to do so, our learners will carry out a series of tasks and moodle oriented to the exploration of language use. And this usually starts with us setting a meaningful context that should make language meaningful, new language meaningful, followed by some language work to raise linguistic awareness and facilitate consolidation. So this all happens before our learners are actually able to use any new language. Now, to do so, we have made extensive use of moodle quiz not only as a tool for assessment, but as the backbone of our learning self-paced sequences and to enhance students' active engagement with the materials. We have created a lot of material on Genily, which we then embed in our quizzes using HTML. Now, let's see how that works in practice in a little learning sequence. Now, we know that providing contextualized instances of the target language is key to language acquisition. So in our quiz, which is called Travel Stories, we're opening the sequence with an invitation to travel. So what we've done, we've adapted a template from Genily and we are inviting our learners to explore six holiday destinations, choose one and share it in a class forum. So for example, if we chose to go to Kenya, we could go backpacking in Kenya now. Backpacking is a word that learners at this level will not know. They will not be familiar with this word. So we're offering them with a hotspot, we're offering them some indications and some visual support. Now, at this level, we're just planting the seeds. We're starting a process of noticing and helping raise awareness of certain things that we will analyze in the rest of the sequence. Now, so far, we've set a realistic learning scenario where our learners interact with content not so much as language learners, but as language users. They're doing what they would do in their real lives if they were looking for a holiday destination and that's the kind of engagement we're looking for. As for interactive elements, we're using them for engagement and also to draw attention to these linguistic items that we will analyze later, as I said. So we're starting the process of raising awareness now. So far, we've exposed learners to new comprehensible language, but we know that with adult learners, exposure to language does not lead to language acquisition right away. But for learning to take place, we need to... There needs to be some friction, a certain level of relative difficulty. And in this quiz, we're going to create this friction with an invitation to remember. We're going to invite learners to remember what they've just done. So this is a task two in our quiz, and we're sort of appealing to learners' visual memory of the backpack, if you remember, and prompting them to fill in the gaps with these words that we have created awareness of before. They would have noticed this in their interactions with content. If we take a second look at this activity, we know that we can also foster cognitive engagement with our use of gap text. Now, when we create gap text on Moodle Quiz, we are starting, like in this example, we're giving learners the experience of a certain language pattern before we give them the rule. So before we give them structured knowledge, learners have already had an experience of it. And finally, research shows that our brain absorbs information better or best when multiple senses are being targeted during the process, during the learning process. So in this little lesson on shopping, we have created very quickly an interactive image where learners can identify items and people related to a shopping situation so they can see the items, and when they click on the hotspots, they can read the word and they can listen to the word. Now, in the activity immediately below, they will go through the same process reverse. They listen to the word and they'll write the word. So we know we're providing this multi-sensory input. We're helping learners process information more efficiently. Now, yes, learners do need opportunities to develop and automate new language. And this is especially true when it comes to lexical content. Now, we can implement vocabulary retention strategies to take all these new words from short to long-term memory. And these strategies involve learners physically doing things with words. So things like matching items or ranking them, sorting them out into different categories, choosing them, making them personal. Now, this is established practice in the language classroom, in the real physical language classroom. But in our quiz, we are going to invite our learners to play actively with language with genially-dragable items. Now, we don't have an internet connection here, so I can't show you, but here our learners, we've asked them to match verbs and nouns to make phrases that are typically used when you talk about traveling. And so that's what they would be doing. Now, to reinforce all this, to consolidate all this knowledge. Now, I don't know what's going on. Yes, in the next activity, we'll take exactly the same contents and now we'll ask learners to sort these phrases out according to their personal preferences when they travel. So, for example, some people never read a guidebook when they travel, and some people do it during the trip. Some people do it before the trip. I don't know about you. Now, so they would do this. And when they finish, to finish the cycle, to close the cycle, we'll ask learners to make a recording just for self-practice of this. We've embedded a H5P audio recorder. And basically, this integration of genially-intimoodle, we think, introduces an extra level of sensory engagement, which works together with Moodle Quiz' ability to guide learners through the process and will help promote attentional processing and improve recall of new language. And that's it. Thank you for your attention. If you have any questions, only easy questions, please. I'm just a teacher, okay? I used to have that line, I'm just a teacher. There's no such thing as just a teacher. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for teachers, so just making that point. Okay, we have a couple of minutes for questions, if you'd like, but can you make sure you wait till the mic arrives? Hi. I would like to know if these audio recordings are evaluated by some teacher, or is it really just for you? Would you mind repeating the question? Just, I didn't hear it very well. Okay. You did show some audio recorder. Is it for you only, or is there some teacher who evaluates it? The audio recorder was, we use it in so many different ways. This is H5B, but in these sequences, which are self-based, we use them for self-practice. So they can listen to themselves, and that's it. You could send it to your instructor if you wanted, but that's not the idea. The idea is that you are doing something actively with that content. And in a language, it's also very convenient to have it, to have these recordings. But just for self-practice. Hey, I've just started learning a language, so that was really, really interesting. I wanted to ask, are there any accessibility issues with some of that? Yeah, because I saw some kind of drag-and-drop in hotspots. Yeah, in terms of accessibility. I know that the genuinely people are working on this, but I'm not sure it would be very accessible. Okay, thank you. Okay, we have time for one more. Yep, one more behind you. There you go, Matt. One last question, thank you. It's more of a technical question. You said that at the end that you were putting an H5P recorder inside of Genily. So do you have, is it? It's a quiz. So it's within Moodle. And it's everything I've shown you is on Moodle. So what we do is we create this interactive content on Genily, and then we take the HTML and we embed it on anywhere in Moodle. In my case, I do it in quizzes. So in the sequence I've shown you, you had like HTML for Genily and HTML for H5P recorder, which is in the repository. Within the same activity. Yeah, all together. Okay, great, thank you.