Definition, Morphology and Function of Leaves

Leaf is one part of plant, of course, besides stems and roots. In general, leaves are green because they contain chlorophyll, but there is also leaves of plants that are yellow and red etc.

There is chlorophyll in leaves which serves as a catcher of sunlight energy used for photosynthesis. Leaves are the most important part for plant because the plant is autotroph obligate organism; to carry out its life, plant must supply energy through change of sunlight energy into chemical energy (photosynthesis).

Leaf Morphology

In fact, there are many shapes of leaves, but generally leaves are in the shape of thin and thick strands. The basic shape is round, with some variance of finger shape, elliptical and elongated. There are also spiny leaves, generally live in dry areas, such as cactus, succulent, Xerophyte, etc. The thistles do not require photosynthesis because they experience function transition from energy storage into water storage.

The green color in leaves is derived from chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is a pigment compound that is instrumental in the process of leaf photosynthesis. There are also other pigments such as carotenoids (orange), xanthophyll (yellow), anthocyanin (red, blue, purple, depending on the degree of acidity).

Functions of Leaves

1. Place of photosynthesis

At dicotyledonous plants, the photosynthesis is in the palisade parenchyma tissue, whereas for monocot plants, photosynthesis occurs in spongy tissue.

2. Respiratory organ

Respiratory organ in leaf is stomata, which serves as the organ of respiration

3. Place of transpiration

Transpiration is the release of water in the form of water vapor through the stomata and the cuticle to the free air

4. Place of Guttation

Guttation is the process of water release in liquid form on the leaf tissue.

5. Tools of vegetative proliferation

It is proliferation that occurs in leaves. Here shoots of plants grow on the leaves.

Definition and Function of Stem

Stem is one part of the plant that is very important and a crutch or body for the plant.

Natures and shapes of stem

1. Generally, stem shape is spherical length like a cylinder or can also have other shapes, but always be actinomorphic; it means that a number of fields can be divided into two symmetric parts.

2. It consists of segments as the place of plant branch

3. The growth is usually upward, toward the light which is fototrope / heliotrope.

4. It always lengthens in the tip. So, it is called stem that has unlimited growth.

5. Stems conduct branching and plant is not prolapsed during the life, except sometimes branches or small twigs.

6. Generally it is not green, except plants that have short age, for example, grass and young stems.

Functions of Stem

1. Supporting the parts of plant above ground, such as leaves, flowers and fruit.

2. Extending assimilation by the branching.

3. The transporting way of water and food substances is from the bottom to top and the transporting way of assimilation results is from the top to bottom.

4. Being storage of food reserve substances.

On the type of plants that the outer stems are covered by leather, there is cambium then wood.

Benefit of Ants and Classification of Black Ants

Benefit of Ants and Classification of Black Ants

Ants are insects with the number of species and individuals are huge. The number of ants in the earth's surface consists of more than 12,000 species, but only about 7600 species from 250 genera that have been named and described. The largest variety of ants is in the tropics. Ants are widespread all over the places except in the ocean, starting from the Arctic in the north to the south polar area (Daly et al., 1978).

Benefits of ants (Anonymous, 1998):

1. Ant nests on the ground makes the air able to get into the soil

2. Some types of ants eat bugs

3. plant-eating ants help the environment by eating plants that interfere

4. Ants fertilize soil when processing food

5. Ants can serve as decomposers

6. Ants help spread seeds

Dolichoderus thoracic Smith black ants are ant species that are widespread in Southeast Asia, especially in areas with an altitude of less than 1,300 meters above sea level. Black ants are often found in citrus, cocoa, coffee, and mango (Kalshoven, 1981). Black ant nest is usually located above ground (dry leaf litter piles) and coconut leaf midrib (if cocoa is planted with coconut) or in dry and dark places, and not far from the source of food. (Way and Khoo, 1992)

D. thoracic black ants usually come out of the nest in the morning and evening when the temperature is not too hot. Ants will lead plant shoots to get sunlight while carrying out their activities. But on the day when the air temperature is hot, the ants will hide in places that are protected from the sun directly, such as in the nest, behind the foliage, on the ground, and others (Elzinga, 1978 in Rahmawadi, 1997)

D. thoracic black ants are included in Hymenoptera Ordo (clear-winged insects) and in Formicidae Familia. According to Kalshoven (1981), D. thoracic black ant classification is as follows:

Phylum: Arthropods

Class: Hexapoda

Ordo: Hymenoptera

Family: Formicidae

Sub-family: Dolichoderinae

Genus: Dolichoderus

Species: Dolichoderus thoracic Smith

Caste Groups of Black Ants

Caste Groups of Black Ants
Dolichoderus thoracic black ants live in social organization that consists of a number of individuals forming a society called colony. Ant colony consists of groups called caste. Black ants consist of several castes: queen, males, and workers. Worker ants are divided into two; workers and soldiers. Castes of ants have different tasks, but still interact and work together for survival (Son, 1994).
a. Queen ant
queen ant has a larger body than other members of the colony, about 4.9 millimeters in length, the eye components are perfectly developed, and has flight mechanism in the form of wings that have been developing well since entering imago phase. In one colony, there is usually more than a queen. At every 100-200 worker ants, there is always a queen (Kalshoven, 1981). Ant queens are more common found in the rainy season than when dry. This is because in the rainy season there are many sources of food and plants to make nests so that it supports for the growth of the colony (Mele and Cuc, 2004).

b. Male Ant
The size of male ant is smaller than the queen, blackish in color, has antennae and wings like the queen, and the eye components has been developed perfectly. Male ants are more numerous than the queen, but have shorter life. Male ants are produced only at certain times of the year, which is in mating season and after mating with the queen, male ants will normally die. (Anonim, 1988)
c. Worker ant
Worker ants have characteristics easily recognized, 3.6 to 4.1 millimeters in length, brown legs, reducing thorax, and the flight mechanism never develops (no wings), the front abdomen shrinks with one or two bulges towards the dorsal, brown and geniculate antenna; the first segment lengthens and the next segments are short forming angle with the first segment (Samiyanto, 1990).
d. Soldier Ant
Worker ants have various sizes. The worker generation of queen egg who first build a nest is smaller than the workers born after that. In this case, it appears two different castes of workers, the large size called soldiers and the small size become workers. All soldier ants have large heads, consisting of sturdy chitin material and strong mandible upper jaw. The jobs of soldier ants are fighting and protecting the nest. In addition, all soldier ants also help small workers to carry the food into the nest. (Anonim, 1988).

Life Cycle of Black Ants

Ants go through the different development processes of body shape from egg to adult. This process is called metamorphosis. D. thoracic black ants including insects experience complete metamorphosis or holometabola metamorphosis. Ant life cycles are: egg, larva, pupa, and imago or adult (Karindah, 1992).

a. Egg

Ant eggs are white, oval-shaped, 1-1.5 millimeters in length, and long phase of eggs is 14 days (Cadapan et al., 1990). Eggs are produced 10-20 days after copulation between the queen and male ants. Black ant egg production is about 1300-1700 eggs per year. The eggs are laid in the nest that is in holes of trees or behind foliage (Elzinga, 1978 in Rahmawadi, 1997).

The ant eggs in the nest are treated by worker ants. Worker ants will move the eggs from the nest if the nest condition turns humid or deteriorate, and put them back in the nest when the situation is normal. This is done to avoid fungal infections and interference from outside such as predators, antagonist ants, and others.

b. Larva

Ant eggs will hatch into larva. Ant larva looks like a maggot, white, the head consists of 13 segments, and the long phase is 15 days (Cadapan et al., 1990). Black ant larva is fed in the form of saliva liquid getting from queen salivary glands, from fat reserves of queen fly muscle, or if the colony already has workers then feeding done by the workers (Samiyanto, 1990).

Larva usually eats all the time because they have to store enough energy to enter pupa phase.

c. Pupa

Ant larva will turn into pupa. Black ant pupa is white, not wrapped in a cocoon like most other insects, and long phase of pupa is 14 days. At the time of pupa-shaped, black ants have period of not eating or non-feeding period (Cadapan et al., 1990).

d. Imago

The last phase in the metamorphosis of ants is imago. Imago is black, the body organs begin to function, and begin to separate based on their castes. Colony will produce more workers than the other castes in the early formation of colonies. This is done to ease the queen�s task because most of colony activity will be carried out by the workers. Long life cycle of black ants is about 40 days and ants can survive for 2-3 years (Cadapan et al., 1990).

Definition and Scope of Social Research

Definition of social research is a scientific study about society and how people behave and affect each other.

Social research investigates outside the direct experience of researchers and helps to explain how communities are formed, for example, economic growth, the implementation of legal, politics or etc.

Scopes of Social Research are:

1. Demographic and Social Statistics, Methods and Computation

Demography is the study of changes and population trends using resources such as birth data, death and disease and others.

Social Statistics, Methods and Computational involve the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data.

2. Developmental Study, Human Geography and Environmental Planning

Developmental study is a multidisciplinary branch of social sciences that discusses about various social and economic issues related to the development or study of poor countries.

Human geography studies people, society and culture, especially regarding the impact on the environmental changes.

Environmental planning explores decision-making process in managing the system of human and nature relationship.

3. Economics, Management and Business Study

Economics tries to understand how individuals interact in the social structure to answer key questions about the production and exchange of goods and services.

Management and Business Study explore various aspects related to business management such as strategic and operational, organizational psychology, work relationship, marketing, accounting, finance and logistics.

4. Education, Social Anthropology and Linguistics

Education is one of the most important social sciences that explores how people learn and develop.

Social anthropology is the study of how society and human social structures are organized and understandable.

Linguistics focuses on language and how people communicate through the spoken voice and words.

5. Legal, Economic and Social History

Legal focuses on the rule made by the government and people to make sure the society becoming more orderly.

Economic and Social History see the past events to learn from history and to more understand the process of contemporary society.

6. Politics and International Relations

Politics focuses on democracy and the relationship between humans and policy at all levels from the individual to the national and international levels.

International Relation is the study of relationship among countries, including the role of other organizations.

7. Psychology and Sociology

Psychology studies the human mind and tries to understand how people and groups experience a variety of emotions, ideas, and awareness.

Sociology involves a group of people, not individuals, and tries to understand how people relate to each other and function as a society or a social sub-group.

8. Technology Study

Technology Study relates to the role of technology in society, the policy and debates that form modern technology.

9. Social Policy

Social policy is interdisciplinary and subject concerned on community responses analysis to social needs with focus on the aspects of society, economy and the implementation of policies to improve social justice.

Definition, Objective and Benefit of Health Research

Definition, Objective and Benefit of Health Research

Health research is a step of scientific method oriented or focusing the activities on the problems that arise in the health field. Health itself consists of two principal sub-areas; the first is individual health oriented on clinical treatment. The second is sub-field oriented on group or community that is prevention. Furthermore, these sub health fields consist of various disciplines, such as medicine, nursing, epidemiology, health education, environmental health, health service management, nutrition etc. The sub-fields are interrelated and affect public health in general.

So, based on this background, health research can be interpreted as an attempt to understand the problems faced in the health in promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative and issues related to the elements; by searching for evidence and conducted through certain steps that are scientific, systematic and logic (Notoatmodjo, 1993).

Health Research Objectives

In general, health research objectives according to Notoatmodjo (1993) are:

1. Finding or testing new facts or old facts with respect to the health field.

2. Conducting an analysis of the relationship among the facts found in the health field.

3. Explaining about the facts found and the relationship with existing theories.

4. Developing a new method or concept in the health services to improve public health.

Benefits of Health Research

In short, the benefits of health research are:

1. Research results can be used to describe the health state or status of individuals, groups or communities.

2. The results can be used to describe the ability of resources and the possibility of these resources in order to support the development of health services.

3. The results can be used as study materials to find the cause of health problems or failures in the health service. So, it can be used as a reference to find an alternative solution or problem solving.

4. The results of health research can be used as a means to formulate policy of health care development.

Types of Health Research

Types of Health Research

Grouping of health research types is many kinds. It depends on the method used. Based on the method, health research can be classified into two groups:

1. Survey research method

In survey research, the results are the whole results although it is not carried out to the entire population, but only a sample. Results of the sample can be generalized as results of population. This method is classified into two parts, descriptive and analytic.

a. Descriptive Survey

In a descriptive survey, research is directed to describe a situation in one community. Such as the distribution of disease, the distribution of gender or other characteristics.

b. Analytical Survey

In analytical survey, research is directed to explain a situation. Analytic is basically used to answer the question why. Analytical survey is divided into three:

1) Cross-sectional

In a cross sectional study, data collection both dependent and independent variables and influence factors are collected at the same time.

2) Retrospective study

This study examines the phenomenon in the past. Data collection is started from the effects or consequences that have occurred and seen whether there is a connection with the past, for example, when looking for the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. Then it started by searching for data on cases of lung cancer patients and they are questioned about smoking history in the past.

3) Prospective study

This study examines the phenomenon in the future, starting by looking at the variable causes and seen the effects in the future. For example, to see the relationship between alcohol and liver Chirosis, it is started by collecting the data of alcohol users and then forwarded to the next observation, whether the users are positive in liver Chirosis or not.

2. Experimental research method

Researchers conduct experimental research in respondents and measure the effect or influence. Treatment can be either deliberate or controlled. For example, research on the effects of music therapy on anxiety level of patients who will do the surgery.

However, when viewed in terms of the benefit, the health research can be classified into:

1. Basic research (basic of fundamental research)

This research is conducted to understand the symptoms that appear in an issue. Then the symptoms are analyzed and the conclusion becomes a new theory or knowledge.

2. Applied research

This study is conducted to repair or modify the system or the existing program. The study is conducted by applying a new system or method but still trial.

3. Action Research

This research is conducted to find a practical knowledge base in order to improve the situation in a community. The research is usually conducted which the problem solving needs to be done e.g. action research to improve transmigration public health.

4. Evaluation Research 

The research is conducted to assess the implementation of a program in order to seek feedback, for example, examining the level of patient satisfaction in hospitals after applying the concept of primary nursing.

Definition of Character Education

What is Character Education?

Education is conscious and deliberate effort to create learning atmosphere and learning process to make the learners actively developing their self-potential to have spiritual power of religion, self-control, personality, intelligence, noble character, and skills needed for them, society, nation and country.

Based on Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (2008), Character is psychological traits, morals or manners that distinguish one person to another. Thus, character is unique values that hardwired within and manifested in behavior. Character coherently emanates from the results of paradigm, heart manner, feeling and intention manners, and physical manner of a person or group.

Character is also often associated with the term �temperament� that is more emphasis on psychosocial definition associated with education and environmental contexts. Meanwhile, character seen from behavioral perspective is more emphasizes on somatopsychological element owned by a person since birth. Thus, it can be said that the process of a person�s character development is influenced by many unique factors of the person concerned which is also called congenital factor (nature) and environmental factor (nurture) in which the person concerned grows and develops. Congenital factors may be said to be beyond the reach of the community and individuals to influence it. Meanwhile, environmental factor is factor that is in the range of community and individuals. So, the effort of a person�s development or character education can be done by the community or individuals as parts of environment through modification of environmental factor. 

Character Education Factors

Environmental factor in character education context has very important role because behavioral changes of learners as the result of character education process are determined by the environmental factor. In other words, the formation and modification of environment includes physical environment and school culture, school management, curriculum, educators, and teaching methods.

Character formation through environmental factor modification can be done through the following strategies:

1. Modeling

2. Intervention

3. Habituation conducted consistently

4. Reinforcement

In other words, the development and formation of character requires modeling development transmitted, intervention through the learning process, training, and habituation continuously in the long time that is done consistently and reinforcement and should be accompanied by noble values.

Purpose, function and Pillars of Character Education

Purpose, function and Pillars of Character Education

Purpose of Character Education

Character education essentially aims to form a strong nation, competitive, noble, moral, tolerant, mutual cooperation, patriotic, dynamic developing, oriented science and technology which are imbued by faith and piety to God.

Functions of Character Education

Character education serves to:

1. Develop basic potential in order to be good, good thoughts, and good behaved.

2. Strengthen and build the nation's behavior.

3. Improve the competitive civilization in the world association.

Six Pillars of Character Education:

1. Trustworthiness 

Be honest, do not deceiving, plagiarism or stealing, be reliable - do what you say you will do, ask for the courage to do the right thing, build a good reputation, obedient - stand with family, friends and country.

2. Respect

Be tolerant of differences, use manners, not bad language, consider the feelings of others, do not threaten, hit or hurt others, make peace with anger, insults and dispute.

3. Responsibility 

Always do your best, use self-control, discipline, think before act - consider the consequences, be responsible of your choice.

4. Fairness 

Play by the rules, take the necessary and share, open-minded; listen to others, do not take advantage of others, do not blame others carelessly.

5. Caring 

Love and show your care, express gratitude, forgive others, help people in need.

6. Citizenship 

Make school and community better, cooperate, get involved in community affairs, be a good neighbor, obey laws and rules, respect the authority, protect the environment.