How do people and the environment affect each other?

From the work we did, I found that the environment helps us so much by giving us food, water, shelter and clean air, but we just trash it and blame all the bad things on NASA, scientists, the government and politicians. But most often people just don’t know that what they’re doing is bad for the environment. If we start taking better action now we are going to have a better word in the future.

Evidence of my learning

Stepping stone 

In one stepping stone we had to review videos on how multiple people helped the environment. This taught me about many ways to help the environment and how many people do it. One video dealt with people planting trees. I saw that people can make a difference. It made me wonder how I could make a difference to the environment.

Milestone

In the CommonLit learnings, some of the stories showed how much danger we are in if we don’t take action on climate change. I really liked Quiet Town because it went more into depth about what could happen to one particular family. I learned about writing persuasively through foreshadowing and showing impact. 

Project

For my project, I wrote a letter to Terry Beech about how we could positively affect how many electric cars were sold. I showed through evidence how this could help the environment and I gave some action ideas. 

I can analyze how texts use literary devices to enhance both meaning and impact

One of the stories we read in CommonLit was Quiet Town. It used the literary device of foreshadowing. It shows what will happen if we don’t take enough action towards climate change. The way the story showed this is by taking time to show how much danger everyone is in. The foreshadowing built a lot of tension in the story which kept me interested on what was going to happen next.

I can use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create original, engaging, and meaningful texts for a variety of purposes and audiences

In my letter, I used the learnings to introduce evidence about how electric cars are better than gas cars. That was easier after the learnings because the milestones and stepping stones taught me how to create a paragraph better than I knew before. I think my letter was persuasive and I hope Terry Beech is going to take action.

I can reflect, assess, and refine texts to improve clarity, effectiveness, and impact for purpose, audience, and message

I found when I was making my letter I saw that the more revisions I did, the better it got. Also, over time after working on it a lot I could see how much better it got because it started with an extremely rough idea and draft and it turned into a fairly good letter. What really helped was the conference, the stories that I read in common lit and also all the stepping stones that we did.

Overall I think that this project was really fun and I like that it taught me a lot about how to make multi paragraph letters and how to properly convey a persuasive idea to a person of power.

For this recent project my team made a game based on chutes and ladders. I worked with Luca and Zach. The competencies that we used to make the game were:

Reasoning and analyzing

Our game explored logic and patterns and the exponent laws. We analyzed what types of games people like that can have math in them. I think I learned more about exponents by creating the questions in the game.

Communicating and representing

We had to think of a fun way to work with the expressions and present math in a concrete form. We did that by making a board and pieces and setting out clear rules to follow so people could play with exponents in the game. We refined the game board multiple times to make the game better and more interesting.

Applying and innovating

By making the game, I found how exponents could be used in many different ways. The team collaborated well. We shared tasks like thinking of the game structure, making the game board and pieces.

Overall I still don’t love exponents, but the game turned out fun and we worked well together

For this project we created a comic book about how cells and diseases interact. My comic went well but I could have done better.

My comic

For the first milestone I made a mind map in MindNode that was supposed to show what we know about how cells and diseases interact. I did a good job on it because I put down all I knew and thought about the topic in the mind map.

For milestone 2 I made a disease wanted poster. I think I did well because I put lots of details into it and made it seem like it was made during the time of the plague. This and the other milestones led up to Milestone 5.

The milestone 5 competencies were:

Questioning and predicting

For this competency I demonstrated a sustained curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest by staying interested in the project and searching up facts that could help support my topic. I was interested in the bubonic plague because it was one of the most deadly plagues in the history of the world. I learned lots of good facts and used them in my comic.

Scientific communication

I used the facts that I found to help my story progress and I used pictures of my main character and the human immune system to make characters that made up the story. I think illustrating them this way made it a little bit easier to find out and share what the bubonic plague did to the body’s cells.

Evaluating

I researched facts about the Bubonic plague to create a story of what would have probably happened in comic form. I also learned a lot of facts about the plague that I put into the comic as well. I showed how the cells interacted with the plague virus and showed one of the possible outcomes of what would have happened if they interacted.  I gave my story a happy ending but during the plague times, it may not have happened this way.

Thanks for reading my last PLP 8 blog and have a good night.

For this most recent project the class was tasked with creating a 3D model of something that ether has more surface area of more volume. Me and Julian decided to make a spaceship because of how cool they look. The design that we decided to make was big and very complicated but we managed to make it even though it took two pages in Tinkercad to make it.

The presentation went well but it could have gone better because we were a little bit late presenting and we could have shown more pictures of the project.

Competencies:

Applying and Innovating

We innovated our design by changing our spaceships name because we named it the HMS. EMIPASHATSLPT, or the HMS Brown Crown “extra maneuverable interplanetary advanced super heavy assault and tactical support luxury passenger titan” class of stealth titans.

Reasoning and Analyzing

We analyzed how to make the Earth to mars spaceship and made it with a series of cylinders, cones and semicircles which would have been different if we were making an actual spaceship. We reasoned how the spaceship would work and how all the different parts of it could move if it was a real spaceship

Communicating and Representing

Me and Julian communicated because we both thought of cool Ideas for our project and how it could be better and we both thought of what our 3D model could be. We eventually decided to make a Earth to Mars Spaceship.

In total I think that the project was very fun and we did get a lot of work done, but if I could do it again, I would have gotten it done faster.

For the project the class just finished was a game or matter simulator in Scratch.

Scratch is basically a coding software on the web that is kind of  difficult to use when I started using it but I eventually got used to it.

My game that I did was either a solo pong or a brick breaker game where the point of the game would be to keep the atoms from touching the ground. Even though it is a super simple game, it is difficult to get a score of over 20 points. I could’ve made some changes but I think I did the best I could.

Competencies:

 • Questioning and predicting: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest

I showed this by having an interest in working on the game and finding more efficient ways of making my game. I also did this by deciding how to make my game more focused on atoms and molecules than just of pong.

• Communicating: Communicate ideas, findings, and solutions to problems, using scientific language, representations, and digital technologies

I showed this competency by finding ways to make my game better and by working out problems that happen during the game. Secondly I had to find a way to pause and make the atoms speed up and slow down. I eventually figured out how to fix these problems and it was fun too as well.

Some of the milestones leading up to the game:

Milestone 1:

We created a mind map on what we knew and what we wanted to know about the behaviour of matter can be explained by the kinetic molecular theory and atomic theory. I am interested that I had so many questions and things I already knew because and I am looking forward to answering all my questions about it.

(Sorry for my bad handwriting)

Gemstone project:

For this stepping stone we measured gemstones to roughly figure out what type of gemstone they were. What we found investing was that even though the gemstones were different sizes and weights, when we tested them in test tubes the water reacted the same to them.

Worksheets:

For this we had 4 different worksheets that we had to do about atoms and molecules. They were mostly about who discovered a certain atom or showing us what each atom looks like. Even though I don’t like them, I still learned a bit of useful things.

Overall I think that this project was pretty fun and I enjoyed experimenting what I could make in scratch.

In The More Things Change unit, we learned about New France and about the effects of European exploration. Me and Julian made a video about one survival tip that we thought people should know. We chose to do our video about how to make a shelter. It went well but it could have gone faster if we worked more efficiently.

The last project that we did was making an infographic about how European exploration affected all the people involved. We also completed a Pages package with a lot of things in it. One of the things that was in it was an Iron Chef protocol package about facts that we found about Quebec. I found that Cirque De SoleiIl was based in Quebec. Also I learned that coureurs des bois were unlicensed fur traders.

I was also proud of what Julian and I managed to make. The only thing I wish we did was make it faster.

My favourite part of this project is when me and Julian were putting little jokes into it even though almost all of them were taken out except for one picture I took of one copy:

The only difference was the that I put in was the Arrow.

I learned that European exploration helped a lot more than I thought because instead of helping for a short time it helped for hundreds of years. I think if I could do the project again I could’ve tweaked it a bit to make it better but it is very good for the time we had.

(Our infographic up in the school)

Thanks again for reading my blog!

For Destination Imagination, my group was supposed to make a video for our main challenge instead of being in person because we aren’t allowed to get togther in large groups. I was kind of happy that it was a video because I get nervous public speaking in person and might have forgotten my lines.

Our group picked the technical challenge and called ourselves “Technically Happy”.

We were challenged to make a video about a adventurer that finds the ultimate prize, BUT you had to kinda make it in a video game style. I think that it was great but it had a few problems because it could have been longer in some parts and the background was a bit dark.

There was also some cut content that used to be in the video. There used to be a section in the trial arena where you could see all the events leading up to what happened in that mini scene. We just didn’t really have the time to make it look real, and it wouldn’t have fit within the time limit.

My team worked well together because we all had something important that we completed, which was basically, Aaron- SFX Declan- music, Cooper- sound effects, Julian+ Me- final weapon thingy.

I am really proud of what we made in the time we had. We thought it was so good that we decided to make a game about it.

Thanks for reading my blog and have a good morning.

For this blog I was supposed to make a reflection post about all the other blogging challenge blogs that I have done.

I think I have gotten to be pretty good at writing blogs but I could get better at it. I think I can get better at having less text in my blogs.

The hardest blog post was, even though all the blogs were easy, was the Quality commenting. Even though it was easy, it was the hardest because we had to comment on three blogs. I took so long because it was hard to find a blog post that was easy enough to make a detailed comment on.

My favourite blog post that was very exciting to make was the one about the Antonov 224 Myra. It was the most exciting because I really like airplanes. One thing that I didn’t mention in is was that I originally was going to do it about the Lockheed Constellation. I switched the topic because I didn’t have a lot to write about the constellation. I put in a good amount of work to my blogs, and I am really happy about it.

I think that I will probably continue to blog after this but because I am going to go into PLP again next year I will definitely write more blogs.

Thanks for reading perhaps my last blog in the blogging challenge.

Before spring break we were focusing on growth mindset based projects. The first thing we did was learn about growth mindset and fixed mindset.

We also completed a sheet that shows what mindset we have. One thing that interested me was that I didn’t get as high of a score as I thought I would. A high score would have meant that I had a growth mindset, so I must have a mostly fixed mindset.  Based on what we have learned about growth mindset, I want to practice to improve my skills.  I will try to not give up as easily, and I will try as hard as I can on projects.  I hope I am already getting better at this.

One place where I had to practice this skill is our last project.  The last project that we had to do was a pick long term goal, do a graphic, and write a blog post about it. I made my goal really simple, and put it in simple font on a black and white selfie.

I chose to make “I will make decisions faster” as my goal because I feel like I am stalling at making decisions and taking too much time to do schoolwork for example, this blog post. I have learned that when I make a simple decision and get started, things usually go better and faster than they would have if I didn’t at least try.

I feel like this project benefited me because it has helped me find out what I need to improve on. Each time I make a decision I get better and faster and more confident.  This works on lots of things both in and out of school.

Thank you and have a good afternoon

For this blog post we were supposed to create a blog about anything we wanted. I chose to make my post about one of my favourite planes – the Antonov 224 Myra.

I chose this plane because it is very unique – it is the heaviest plane in the world.

One fun thing I learned about this plane is that there is only one of it and it was originally supposed to be used to fly a spaceship up to 30,000 feet and have the spaceship take off of it. This would save costs when compared from launching a spaceship from the ground.

The plane also costs $200,000,000 to make, which really surprised me.

Something else that is really interesting is that it is so big, the Wright brothers could have made their first flight inside of its cargo bay.

The plane was made in the USSR.  It was completed during the time where the USSR was dissolving, which is why there was never a second Antonov 224.

If you really want to see the plane up close, you can rent it for only $30,000 an hour.

If I didn’t describe it well, enough here is a video that explains it better:

Thanks for reading this blog because it definitely has been my favourite to make!