Destination Imagination is a tournament using your team’s skills and abilities in science, technical, fine arts and improv. In this blog post I will summarize my team’s process of creating our DI challenge and I will also talk about my growth as a learner.

I was put into a group of 5 (Fraser, Zach, Cale, Sabrina)  and assigned the Scientific challenge. During our Maker class we started organizing and preparing for the tournament. There were lots of parts to the challenge but the main idea is that characters travel into a microworld and at least one of those characters encounter a mysterious object. We also had to include a technical method, 3D microworld scenery, microscopic imaging technique and two team choice elements. For our story, we decided to write a plot where three scientists and Uncle Frank accidentally travel into a bacterial cell. When in the cell, they find a mysterious object that they think is useless. They also interact with 3D scenery including some ribosomes which we represented through balloons. In trying to find a way out the scientists find that the wall of the cell is covered with fluorescents which they can see with a black light flashlight. Later when Uncle Frank trips on the mysterious object, again, he picks it up and presses two buttons. These buttons used hydraulics, our  technical method, to open the box. Inside the box there were other parts of the cell tagged with fluorescents and when the characters touched that they were transported back to the lab. During our story, we also displayed two team choice elements. The first one was musical. Zach created music on an app on his iPad which we used when Uncle Frank enters the lab. The second team choice element was a poem written by Fraser and myself which was read by Uncle Frank. It showed the idea that he thought very highly of himself which was a funny part of the performance. It took a long time to plan everything out and make it. My favourite part of the project was when we actually got to create the items and I did not enjoy the planning as much. We designed the microworld scenery, the mysterious object and all the items in the lab. Mostly we used cardboard to construct these items but we also used balloons, glow in the dark paint and hydraulics. The rest of our set used items from home and our costumes involved lab coats and a cowboy hat and plaid for Uncle Frank.

I showed the most growth in my collaborative and personal social skills. The collaborating part was challenging with communicating with my team and setting up time to get work done. Some of my team members did not show up for the morning and after school practices we had decided on doing. When we started building our sets we communicated better and work together in a more collaborative way. For personal and social skills I improved on speaking up when team mates did not come to the decided on meetings. Since, we didn’t have much time before the tournament and one of our team members had to drop out of the performance,  our meetings were very important. In the end, I was happy with the way our project came together and with our performance at the tournament. We got third in our age group in our challenge.

Another thing we did well was adding humour and puns to our performance because we wanted it to be interesting and the appraisers were fans of puns. The pun were did at the beginning of the performance when the asked if we were ready was: “We have our ions on the prize!” At the beginning of DI this year, I did not have an open mind and I was not certain I would enjoy it since last year was all on video. Although there times when I did not LOVE the project, I did have a lot of fun and am happy with our end result.

Metaphor Machines, that is the name of my most recent scimatics project. For this project the driving questions we had to answer were “How can we represent the scientific method? And What factors affect the function and efficiency of electric circuits?”. I answered these questions with all the stepping stones, worksheets, and milestones that all contributed to the end product, a metaphor machine. 

We started off this project with a start mind map to write down the knowledge I already had about electrical circuits and the scientific method. Then just a few days ago I added to that mind map with the knowledge I have learn though out this project. 

Start mind map:

End mind map:

After the start mind map we did workbooks to learn more about electrical circuits. We also did an experiment on parallel and series circuits. Before we could do the experiment we needed to test the voltage and current in a science simulator. I found the simulator very helpful because it meant I could visually see what the workbooks were talking about.  

We also took a khan academy test on scale diagrams. I found this really difficult to do but in the end I understood what the test was about. After the test we drew our own scale drawings of what we thought our metaphor machines could look like. I had some trouble with showing all the steps in the scientific process but in the end i love the creativity that came with putting it all together. 

Here is my individual blueprint:

We ended off this project with the final product a metaphor machine that shows the 7 steps of the scientific process. I worked in a group of four to create this metaphor machine and a final scale drawing blueprint of it. My group had a lot of trouble getting the machine to work. We especially had trouble with the questioning step where we had a cup move down with the added weight of a marble. In the end we did get everything to work and we did show all 6 steps of the scientific method. We then took a video with voiceovers to show our machine.

Curricular competencies:

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

I think I did an accomplished job on this competency as i used all my class time efficiently and went to lac during class time to work on workbooks without distractions. I also showed this competency when my group fell behind on our machine and came in during flex time to try to finish building the circuits part of the metaphor machine.   

Reasoning and Analyzing: Estimate reasonably.

I showed how I accomplished this competency in the math test, individual blueprints and in the final blueprint. The math test took me long but i did get to understand how draw things The final blueprint has a grid scale, all lines are easy to see, and it is complete and accurate. 

Planning and conducting:Select and use appropriate equipment, including digital technologies, to systematically and accurately collect and record data. 

I think my team and I did a good job one this curricular y competency. We hand built all the machine parts including the circuits. We included in our machine both a working parallel and series circuit that were turned on at different times. We included our circuit diagrams in our final blueprint.  

Scientific Communication: Formulate physical or mental models to describe a phenomenon

I think my team did really well on this part of the project. We created a video with the whole machine working and slow motion videos of every part of the scientific method. All six of the steps were clearly shown in the video and explained in the voice overs. One thing I think we did really well on was that to show the observe step one of my teammates created a spiral with an eye on it. 

I really enjoyed the creativity of creating a metaphor machine out of cardboard, wood, and anything else we could find. I did find it hard closer to the end of the project to get the whole machine to work and I am very glad I came early during flex time to work on it. This was a very cool project where I got to grow my knowledge on scale drawing and electrical circuits. 

“How can an understanding of nationalism of the past, help us make sense of today?” That was the question that drove this whole project. The end product was an Instagram post that was all about how different nations show nationalism. We each chose one of the topics in basecamp related to nationalism for our post. I chose to do french nationalism in Canada, because I was introduced to it when we learned about the colonization of Canada, but I was was interested in learning more. 

To start off this project we had to learn a lot about our own topic which started with understanding the idea of historical perspective. While we were doing our research, we were discussing about how certain statues are being torn down and if they should be left up, put in the museum, or maybe just take it down in a different way. We learned about how our perspective today is different than the perspectives at that time and how what those leaders did back then was thought of as OK, but today we would consider it wrong. I showed this curricular competency of understanding historical perspective in the confederation simulation assignment, where we were put in teams. My team and I had to figure out if our group wanted to join the constitution. I was in the Nova Scotia group where I studied about their perspective at the time, what they needed with the confederation, what they didn’t need, and what they believed in.

We also did a current events project where we had to communicate a current event that was happening in the world today that showed nationalism. I chose to do the emergency act extending in Canada because that hasn’t happened in a really long time.  I was very interested to read up more about it because I had never heard of it before. I discussed my research in a small group which went very well. Another way I showed the communicate compellingly curricular competency, was in a caption to go with my French nationalism images. I collaborated with my teammates ( Brooke, Zach, and Declan) to make a better one altogether. This is the one we created.  

 This caption was put together through all the research and evidence we had found out about our topic earlier in the project. I also showed this competency with my opinion writing piece where I communicated my thoughts on French-Canadian nationalism back in the 1700s to early 1900s with evidence from multiple different sources. In my opinion piece I wrote about how French nationalism has always been showed in Canada. It was showed in New France, in the lower Canada rebellion, and Canada wouldn’t be the same without it.     

Aside from writing and discussing, a way that I communicated my view and what happened was through the three images that I had to create.  I created three images that show the story of French nationalism in Canada starting with the time of new France. Discovering and designing which images that would be most powerful was more challenging than I had thought. Then, with my group we chose four images to put in the Instagram post. 

My images

My team and my Images.  

Now with both the images and captions done, the teacher put together our

instagram post.   

To conclude, I think I’ve showed a lot of learning growth throughout this project. I’m more comfortable with sharing my opinion like I did in the current events assignment and confederation simulation project. I am also getting better at communicating my opinion with the images and opinion piece. My collaborative skills improved with this project which was shown with how I worked with my group when deciding what caption should be our final caption, and in the end we chose a bit from everybody’s. Overall, throughout this project I’ve really enjoyed learning more about French nationalism in Canada over the past few centuries. I find it very interesting the different ways that they show their culture and language throughout the many challenges that were placed ahead of them and how they still show their nationalism today. 

Have you ever participated In a courtroom been a lawyer, judge, witness? Because as of last week I have. For this humanities project we had to answer the driving question ”How can we as legal teams determine the effectiveness of a revolution?”. 

I really enjoyed the whole project. There were multiple steps where I learned and showed the curricular competency of continuity and change as well as connecting.

The very first stepping stone we did in order to answer the driving question was Nation X. This was very fun way to be introduced to the ideas of continuity and change. We were trying to make a fair and functional society. We had roles and made decisions that could benefit our society. Right away we could see the impact of decisions we made such as when we overthrew Colton, the King. 

After learning Crane Brinton’s theory of revolutions, we then connected it to the novel Animal Farm and to the revolutions we were assigned. These connections really helped me show my learning in both competencies. For example, for the connecting competency, we had group discussions about Animal Farm and how Crane Brinton’s theory related to it and I shared my opinions during these discussions.  For continuity and change, all the connections helped us see throughout a revolution what stayed the same and what changed. One continuity I noticed was that in every revolution the government system was replaced and by the end of that revolution, the new government was similar to the one before. 

In a group of 5 people, I studied the effectiveness of the Haitian revolution that happened in 1791. I created a graphic organizer to share my understanding of the revolution. Then, we were assigned a mock trial with another group. They were the defense and my group was the prosecution, which meant we had to prove that the revolution was ineffective. Part of the project was finding primary sources from the revolution to make our points. This was difficult for our side of the argument because the letters were mostly about slavery and we were not arguing about slavery. Feeling like our points were not strong enough we took apart everything we did and started to rewrite it. In the end, we worked with the other team, meeting before and after school, in order to improve the overall presentation of both sides. This meant we really had to communicate about our points and talk about our opinions.

Our FIRST PLP exhibition: Mock Trial!

First of all, seeing the other trials helped me compare and contrast between the Haitian revolution and the other three revolutions. Secondly, I found it a really cool experience. Seeing all the research and work shared in that format helped me to see both sides better. Below you can see the video of our trial. I am proud to say that the jury voted in our favour. 

Through this project I learned how legal teams prepared for a trial. Using research skills, communication, creativity we completed a successful mock trial, which then answered the driving question. 

Hi this blog post is about a career is 9 project “take our kid to work day” where each grade 9 student had to go with a parent or family friend to their place of work to learn about how that person makes a living and contributes to their household. I went with a family friend, Mrs. Murray, who is a grade 3 teacher at my old school. 

I went from 7:30 in the morning to about 4 o’clock. I helped out in the classroom organizing files, folders, handing out tests, and helping a couple students. Working with small groups, I assisted students with their social studies learning. It was particularly interesting to go back to the same school and classroom that I went to for grade 3. I really enjoyed going back there and helping out in the grade 3 classroom. 

Look at the videos below to see some photos and an interview that was taken on the day while I was there. 

Overall I really enjoyed take your kid to work day. I enjoyed seeing the kids and helping them out. The classroom was as loud as I remembered for grade 3!  I really enjoyed seeing Mrs. Murray work and I loved her creativity. She created a whole money system with the grade 3 classroom which surprised me because  I thought it might be too complicated. The students have fake money from doing jobs and having clean desks and they can do more jobs for more money because they need the money for things like prizes and for rent on their desk. I really enjoyed and learned a lot during take our kids to work day. 

When I arrived at home, I was exhausted!