Hello world,

I’ve came to the last project of Q4 (which also means the last project of the year). This project was called “Comic Cells”. the goal of this project was to create a comic about how diseases and cells interact with one another. To actually understand what I was learning throughout this project I kept in mind the curricular competencies, for this project. These curricular competencies are called questioning and predicting (the curiosity of scientific topics), Scientific communication (the communications of scientific ideas), and Evaluating (the understanding of evidence). Overall I was also trying to find an answer to the driving question, which was “How do cells and diseases interact?”. To answer this question I worked on many milestones and steeping stones, which will be explained through this post!

Firstly, I started milestone one “Project Start Mind Map”. Just like the other mind maps I’ve done in the past, I developed questions about this project (as well as knowledge I’ve previously gained). The way I created these question was by noting down what I previously learned and contemplating the gaps within my learning by asking questions. Build these questions I completed (a somewhat entertaining steppingstone) called “Osmosis Jones”. Osmosis Jones was a movie about cell and virus interaction (even though some of the information was scientifically inaccurate). To incorporate Osmosis Jones into my learning I basically blended it within milestone one because it was the foundation of my questions I asked. These questions acted like supporting driving questions because I drove to complete them (which I mostly did).

In addition, This milestone shows my best learning experience with the curricular competency “Questioning and Predicting”. The spot in this project where I feel like I demonstrated a ongoing curiosity about a scientific topic was throughout questioning ideas about diseases and cell interaction. The biggest area I showed a ongoing curiosity about disease and cell interaction was with driving to answer supporting questions I created. The area I could have improved this competency was predicting a final product, to enhance the overall experience of a mind map. Overall I think the competency was built with an extending opportunity. 

Secondly, I moved onto milestone two “Disease Wanted Poster”. This milestone was about accurately displaying a wanted poster about a disease or virus (I chose virus). There was I clear information guideline that was involved with making this poster. The certain things on this ‘criteria’ included…

-Explaining how many people this virus affected in total

-Explaining how the virus affects the body and cells

-Explaining where/when the virus was discovered 

To make answer these somewhat questions I chose the virus Pertussis (or also known a as Whooping Cough). I also throughly researched the main concepts and clearly displayed them throughout my wanted poster. To actually make these concepts come to life I had to created this poster on a media design app (and I of course chose Canva!). When I reflect on this milestone I realize it accented on this project by having a connection to the upcoming information we would be learning about.

Thirdly, I moved onto milestone three “Khan Academy Cells Test”. This milestone was about completing a khan academy unit test about cells. To work up to the unit test I watched many videos and read many articles to help me learn more about cells. From my personal experience with this milestone I feel it took a long time, seriously a really long time, to complete. The reason this happened is because I spent I lot of unnecessary time taking notes about things I was learning. Even though I did struggle with completing this milestone to my best of my ability I did learn a lot of information about cells, such as the difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. With this knowledge, and much more, I felt proud of how I could apply my learning to the different aspects of this project.

In addition, I moved onto a steppingstone called “Disease Contact Tracing Experiment”. This stepping was about making tracking down a ‘disease’ and finding out would originally had it. Of course this wasn’t a really disease (because that would be highly unsanitary) and it was a, some what, easy way to find the start of a disease. This was a really entertaining steppingstone because it was a class experiment, meaning we all worked together to track down who had the ‘disease’ first. To track down the disease we all had a eye dropper and a beaker (with a ‘disease’ in it or not). We then went around the class infecting other people’s beaker and we also recorded who’s beaker we infected. Once we infected three people’s beakers we added a solution to our beaker to see if we were effected or not (I was). Then with the recorded information we could find out who first had it.

Click Here! to watch the result of my experiment!

Fourthly, I moved onto milestone four “Storyboard”. This milestone was about creating a storyboard for what the final comic would be about. I went through many idea’s and concepts, such as photosynthesis and bacteria movement. Once I had a brainstorm of idea’s I noticed a concept that could represent my used of logical outcome and interesting interactions between characters. This lead me to my current idea which was able a virus that seeks ultimate power by trying to dominate an eukaryotic cell. When I had my idea set I worked on creating main scenes that would help guide the story. These main scene were the foundation of my drawings, vocabulary and much more.

In addition, this milestone best represented my use of the curricular competency “Evaluating”. The way I showed an understanding of evidence was throughout the integration of disease and cellular interaction. The reason I think this is because I showed the concept of how of how a cell and a virus can interact with one another using scientific information as well as supporting diagrams. An area I could have improved on is my used of determining outcomes of symptoms throughout the story. Overall I approached this competency with a sophisticated understanding of where to grow. 

 

Lastly, I worked on milestone five “Comic Book”. As you can probably tell from the title of this milestone, this milestone was about creating the actual comic book. To create my comic book I took the main concept of story board and used it as a sturdy foundation for my whole story. To my this comic book come to life I went through many steps such as…

-Making a script

-Drawing images 

-Adding drawings into Comic Life 3

The first step I did was making a through script about every frames that would be in the story. This step was very important because it was that actual information that I would put on my comic, so I wanted it to be outstanding! Once I was happy with my script I started to make drawings to go along with it. While I was making these drawing I tried to reflect on what I could improve, which was basically self feedback. When my drawings and script were finish I added them both in to Comic Life 3 and created a final comic (that I’m really proud of). 

 

Furthermore, this milestone shows my use of the curricular competency “Scientific communication”. The way I expressed my scientific ideas and language was throughout diagrams and vocabulary. The reason I think this is because I create scientific diagrams to accent on the main idea that was previously described throughout vocabulary. I could have improved my use communication by taking a more interesting approach. In addition I think I used this competency to my full potential. 

In Conclusion, this project taught me a lot about cellular and virus interaction. As well as informing me about how to gain certain competencies. These competencies also lead me to answering the driving question “How do cells and diseases interact”. My answer is… cells and diseases can interact in many ways. From my knowledge, cells and viruses can interact by a penetration of a plasma membrane, replication DNA and much more. Even though these are some events that can occur a virus and a cell can come together in ways that relate to other situations. Overall cells and virus interact on a cellular level (meaning they could interact within or around a cell). 

That bring my final grade 8 blog post to an end. I hope you learned more about how cells and viruses interact. In addition I hoped you enjoyed reading my entire blog posts over the months, I really feel like this year has been an important learning experience!

Bye for now,

– Alicia 😀