This is my blog post talking about work that I have done this year. I will present this post during my SLC on March 1st
Most of my work this year I have felt proud of, whether it is in humanities or scimatics, but I want to focus on my Blue Sky project about Harry Potter. The point of this project was to come up with an innovative question that we answer by researching and coming up with hypothesis’ and sometimes solutions. When our class was told we would be doing a project on Harry Potter, I had mixed feelings about it. I didn’t know very much about Harry Potter and I was never a huge fan of the series. Even though I was not as comfortable doing this project as some of my classmates, I thought it was going to be very interesting finding out a creative way to show my project. I wanted to do one about animals, because the articles and images of them I thought were interesting enough to do a project on. I decided to create an exhibit on transfiguration, a type of magic that lets wizards morph in to a variety of different animals. I also wanted to research how it worked in the real world and how metamorphosis could be performed on humans.
With these blue sky projects, we have to come up with a creative idea that we can present our project with. One of the challenges I had while working on this project was coming up with an idea to present my information. After a while of waiting I came up with creating a game board that would explain the journey and adventure of transforming into an animal. Players could choose between being the test subject or scientist, and it was a huge success at the exhibition. People of all ages came over to my presentation, and thats when I knew all of my hard work in this project payed off. I was feeling awesome about this project and I felt I did a great job presenting my information and having an original way to present it using my game.
Something I have grown at as a learner is my attentive listening skills on field schools. At the start of December, our class went to Seattle to take footage for our documentaries that we started with our group. The plan was to to take as much footage as possible while enjoying our time in Seattle.
The three day trip was fun and exciting, but I tended to sometimes not pay as much attention as I should have. I tended to goof off a little bit, and I think that influenced my mark in the first term, learning from those mistakes, I chose to perform better during our Florida trip. I focused more on actually learning and trying things more than hanging out with my friends. Learning about the history of my attraction, space, NASA and all of these other places we went to in Florida made the trip more enjoyable.
My last piece of work I will talk about today is my growth mindset on DI. After our first attempt at Destination Imagination back in Grade 8, I was assigned to the technical group. Our task was to create a moving stage that would then move a person from one location to another. Last year, I was in the engineering group. It was a stressful time because the challenge was very tedious and overall was not that fun of an experience. This last DI we undertook was a lot different from the year before. Last year, I feel I didn’t learn anything. I thought Destination Imagination was just another excuse for a project. My overall experience of it was not enjoyable for me, and I didn’t want to do it for next year. However, this years Destination Imagination was not as I thought it would turn out. I learned that being a leader was difficult, and it added a new type of pressure I hadn’t experienced last year. I learned that being in a group can activate peoples emotions and make it a tough environment to work. It was really tough for us to work on DI. We expressed our thoughts and feelings to our group and it wasn’t a very healthy environment. I didn’t think DI would make us do that, but then I figured our that it helped our group. That motivation helped us finish our project and place 1st at regionals. During Destination Imagination, my group and people skills have been changed from quite mediocre to exceptionally well, and my perception on Destination Imagination has changed drastically.