At this exact moment in time I am in sunny Mexico. Not where the resorts are but in a small surf town where I have been swimming everyday and will soon be starting to surf. The town is called Puerto Escondido and it isn’t huge or to touristy it is actually mostly locals. So far it has been absolutely amazing, in the place I am staying we are 5 minutes from the ocean and have a pool directly in front of our house. Where I am staying it is very simple, all concrete and just plain but we have friends staying right next to us, literally next door. They were actually the people who recommended Mexico and are living here for a year. There son stayed with us in Vancouver for a month. Anyway these last days it has been just reading a book by the pool or beach with a pina colada in hand or going to the market for fresh fish and all the rest of it. Then in between all of this, eating a taco with beans and fresh salsa or hot sauce. I will be here for a couple more weeks and will keep you updated.
Here’s a video of where I was staying for a night:
So that’s all for now thanks for reading this post and adiós!
SLC’s are Student Led Confrences where you discuss your work and the things that you have accomplished. It is presented in front of your teachers and parents (privately) and you are in charge. Now here is the begging of it all!
The work I am most proud of is my blog which you are on right now. I feel that my header is laced out well and describes me in a way, different and original. And the actual picture is from my cousin who lives in gibsons so I have a connection with it. All of the posts I think have been improving each time and are actually edited in a way that people can understand without being overwhelmed by it. But I am going to continually improve my blog and not leave it behind. (Here is my first blog post)
Next is the work that demonstrates my growth as a learner and that would be my Star Wars Blue Sky project. For that project I decided to recreate a part of The Death Star so it had no flaws. I did that by physically making it out of bowls and pipe and then just explained what was happening along the way when I was presenting it to everyone. This represents my growth as a learner because I learnt till the very end of the project, even on the day we were presenting I was still learning. And I learnt from the very begining even if I changed my mind a couple of times I got the basic gist of it at the beginningand started research immediately. A story that would accompany this would be that I thought I had it all figured out and the whole design and everything but then my dad pointed out where I went wrong so the last couple days before I had to present it I changed my design so that was a bit stressful. But I learned from that experience to research even more and look over things with others. Another thing I learned from this project was simply the heating in buildings and cars. Overall I think that best represents my Growth as a Learner.
And finally what have I shown that demonstrates my growth mindset? That would be Destination Imagination. In my blog post it explains why
Destination Imagination was actually really fun, and the Instant Challenges always left me with a smile on my face. Though if I were to do it again I probably wouldn’t leave it to the last second and would actually finish it. But it was a huge challenge to make the instrument so light and you can see that because we were running around 10 minutes until we had to present it.
Us doing an Instant Challenge
Over the past school year it has always been interesting, but now I am done my SLC’s!
Thank you for watching and now if anyone has any questions feel free to say them.
These last 7 weeks or so in class we have been working on a Destination Imagination a project/competition where you choose a category (or rather in are case assigned) and there are four categories. The categories are Scientific where you have to make a play type thing that showcases a camouflaged organism. Next there is a Fine Arts group where you present a mystery story set on Earth in a time period before 1990. And discover, live on stage, which of three suspect characters is responsible for a mystery. Also there was a technical group where you have to design a vehicle that will transport a team member multiple times along with a story. And then finally my group we had Structural and we had to create a musical instrument that can hold weight and is under 175 grams.
Us as a class with the grade 10’s once we were done
My group which costisted of Alex, Adam, Aiden, Ryan L., Ethan, Robbie and me did pretty good I think. We weren’t able to hold weight at the competition because our instrument didn’t really work but the story was good and got lost of points. That was about Arnold who had a strange instrument and wanted to playing the Deep Cove University marching band at half time. But no one liked him, then suddenly the lead snare breaks his spine and Arnold’s instrument is the closet thing to a snare so he takes over. He does a solo and we all do a football play that we made up and it really is quit good. Even if we didn’t win any awards for it. And we did have many troubles along the way even get to where we were. At first we had no idea what to do or even what it was we were supposed to, but then we just started coming up with ideas, some good others not so much but at least we got somewhere. Then when we got to our tournament and we had a couple of things that threw us off. First we were missing two team members and we new that before but still. Next we thought our instrument was 21 grams and that’s kind of impossible since that is basically a feather. And so when we put it on the scale it said 221 we were over by 41 grams so we frantically thought of ideas of how to get the weight down and so we started just cutting of peices. Now we had no utilities, no knifes nothing so we sent half to team to find some and the rest to try anything that would cut it down, and at one point while we were waiting we started just sawing with keys because we had nothing else. With all of this we were so stressed because we had to present in half an hour but we had to sign in for the prevention 20 minutes before so we had around 10/15 minutes to do all this. Thankfully we found a knife and another team lent us there drill and while we were thinking of just cutting of a bit it actually happened that we cut the whole thing in half. Anyway it all turned out good and we got it done and we have the opportunity to go to provincials but I don’t think that we will.
We were so stressed out
Here is us frantically trying to saw and then breaking it in half:
Here is our first dress rehearsal:
So that was our wonderful experience of Destination Imagination Bye For Now!
A couple of weeks ago we started to read Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. We all thought that we wouldn’t like, and at the being it was true. But by the end it turned out to not be that bad. We started of just reading it in class, then we went on to worksheets and then finally a performance where we rewrote a part of the play then acted it out in groups. Our group decided to reenact act 3 scene 1 where Brutus stabs Caesar. We had to modernize it so my group chose to set it in a spy environment. In my group it was Mimi, Kate, Adam, Aiden and Ryan L. We worked pretty good together though there were a couple things that we got sidetracked on for instance a scarf I brought as a prop was called East-Van and we didn’t seem to get over that. Other then the scarf we did bring other props also such as sunglasses that we changed every time a person changed character because we didn’t have enough people to play just one character. Also we used fake knives to stab Caesar (Adam) when he dies. Over all it was pretty fun and interesting and I did learn at lot about Caesar.
Now here is the script comparison:
A bit of our script
A bit of the original script
I think that we did a good job changing it over and performed it well now, here is us actually performing it. The first time it was pretty horrible but by the second we were masters at it.
So that was it thanks for watching and Bye For Now!
In science we are starting a new unit about the human body, cells and how to use a microscope. So far we have studied bug heads, insect wings and even human blood under a microscope. I thought it wouldn’t be that interesting, but I was completely wrong. It is actually really interesting, kind of gross but also amazing. It is cool how you look at something so simple and plain but then once you look at it closer it is something entirely different with all different designs and patterns. I can’t believe that an object (microscope) that is simply made of glass and metal can do that. Then of course there is the wonderful teacher who teaches it in such an interesting way. Now enough talking, here are picture of some of the things we looked at.
This is an insect head.
This an insect wing
I can’t wait for the next speciman we get to look at, and study in more depth.
Did you know that drownings in British Columbia have been going up since 2011. I learned all about drowning in a course I am taking (bronze medallion). It is teaching me how to save someone and give CPR if they are in need. Once I finish this, and all the other courses my goal is to become a lifeguard. Now back to the subject of drowning I was surprised to hear that 8 out of 10 are men who have drowned. And the ages are between 20-24. I always thought it would be toddlers at the ages between 1-6 but apparently not! Now the reason it is men and at that age is one thing that isn’t surprising, it’s alcohol. They probably just had a bit to much to drink and are fooling around in the water then suddenly it goes too far. Now all of this isn’t to make you sad but to make you aware of the dangers that could happen.
Here is a graph of what is happening from 2012.
You might be wondering where this is taking place so you can be careful in the future. The number one place is natural bodies of water #1 rivers, #2 lakes and #3 ocean. But it is also important to be careful and watch infants around water as they can drown in very little water very fast. For example you have to be careful when your child (0-4) is in the bathtub because that easily happens a lot of the time.
All of this is for your benefit so your safe and also have fun. I recommend learning a little CPR so that if you do see someone drowning you can help and save someone’s life.
I got my statistics from Life Saving B.C. so click Here for more information and here is the article about drowning that I got statistics from.
You might be wondering from the title of this post what I am talking about we’ll I will explain. In class we are learning about Julius Caesar and also Shakespeare so to do that we had to learn not just about Julius Caesar himself but also the people surrounding him. To accomplish that we were put in groups of 5 and assigned a person to research and then make a body biography which is basically an outline of a life size person with facts and pictures on it and then presenting it, so my group was assigned to Marcus Brutus. Here is a slideshow I made that explains it but just before you watch that you should now he was born in june 85 BC Rome, Roman Republic and died 23 October 42 BC (aged 43). Now here it is!
I saw the new Star Wars movie! It was great now I won’t do any spoilers but it is action packed. I personally liked it better then the older movies. Now to corespond with the new movie coming out we did a Star Wars. The night before the movie came out we had our Star Wars exhibition. Where everyone in PLP grade 8 & 10 created a question about Star Wars that they could look into and present. Now there were a variety of things from dresses to creating a movie to dancing. And I chose to do mine about the Death Star and what a huge design flaw was.
I found out that the huge flaw was in the first movie when Luke shoots into the exhaust port and the Death Star blows up that shouldn’t be like that. So I decided to recreate it so that there wasn’t that huge of a flaw. I changed it by not having 1 exhaust port but 2, also by using an energy recovery system. Having two pipes with one with new air coming in and the other letting old air out and then crossing over the two not only protects the Death Star but also saves energy. Because when the old air going out crosses under the new air coming in it heats up that air and then you could distrubt it through out the Death Star keeping it heated. If you want see my presentation here is a link to a slide show I made click Here to see it.
Me at my station showing of my project
The exhaust port on the Death Star
A Death Star model of what should happen
So that was what I found out about the Death Star. It was a great experience because I did learn a lot. At first I didn’t understand but then it just came to me and I understood it all of a sudden. Overall it was great and I learned what an exhaust port was and whole bunch of other mechanical things and I had a great time doing it.
In my last post I talked about making a quilt with a group about a myth. This myth was created by Willa, Ethan, Adam and me. Our myth was about the civilization of the Polygonians, a civilization that we made up. Along with the myth we had to create a quilt, so each of us picked a part of the story and had to create a quilt square about it. In the end we will be sewing them together to create a big cozy quilt. Now here is the story!
The finished quilt square
The first part of the story was done by Ethan this was the part where we meet Cordelia a girl from Astoria who doesn’t like it there because she thinks it is discriminatory and wants to go to Canada because she thinks Canadians aren’t discriminate but can’t leave USA. Meanwhile Poseidon the god sees leadership in her and wants her to create a civilization based around him. He telepathically tells her to go onto flight 19 the first plane to crash in the Bermuda Triangle so she can start a civilization.
That is where my quilt square comes in my part of the story is when she is on the plane. And there is a huge storm happening and Cordelia doesn’t know what is happening because Poseidon told her she was going to Canada. She crashes into the Bermuda Triangle where she is transforming into a Polygonian which is a goose/fish/beaver person and in the corner you can see Poseidon doing this.
The third part of the story was done by Adam this is where Cordelia is done her transformation and realizes that she has changed. She swims around for weeks discovering what she can do. With her is Kai the guy, he was on the plane when it crashed and was the only other person to survive. He transforms into a goose/fish/beaver person with Cordelia becauce she is going to start a civilization and needs him. After all of this and the weeks of swimming they finally find a beautiful island in the Bermuda Triangle.
And finally Willa finishes it off where Cordelia and Kai the guy create there civilization together. Passing on there history and values to there civilization. They also decided to call themselves the Polygonians because they are in the Bermuda Triangle. As time goes on they are remberd for this Legend of the Polygonians.
The End
My first draft Quilt Square
(Look at my last post Ouch I Poked Myself if you want to now how we made that story and what we went through to get to this story.)
To make that we drew on our iPads using the app Paper, we then printed them out on fabric. It was really interesting how what you just drew on an iPad and it was now on fabric. We didn’t print it first time we drew but after a couple of drafts we got there.
Almost finished quilt square.
We also had to do the actual sewing also. At first I had no idea what to sew but then it just started coming to me. First I did the border and then all the actual quilting inside. I did poke myself a couple of times but I’m okay.
Recently we were learning about myths and how they are created and the heroes inside the story. So to tie in all of this our groups made a myth and hero. To finish that unit we have created a quilt through our group. Each member had to create a square and we are all going to put it together this week. Our group consists of four people. We had to make charts, storyboards and it was a very long process. Working together wasn’t the problem because we all had ideas and we put them into one myth and quilt. But, the real difficulty was that it had to be perfect and ours was good and now is pretty perfect but it took like 50 times to go through and even if one word was out of place we had to go back and change it. Now that took a couple classes and you might be wondering what this myth is about we’ll you will have to see in my next post.
1st draft of the story board.
The final draft of our storyboard. Quit a difference from the first.
So you can see we put a lot of work into this myth and in my next post I will show the quilt itself and my quilt square.
