Possession is 9/10ths of the law

Alright, so I’ve gone over the whole “Identity” part of our trip, but what did we actually do on our trip? I’m sure that was on everyone’s mind while they were reading my post, instead of “Who is this kid?” or “What am I doing here?”.

As many of you know, I am Jason, and this is my official Alberta blog post.

So, in this post, I’ll be covering most of the things that I didn’t cover in my identity Video, so if you want a bit more info on Alberta, and specifically, one of the main projects we worked on. Check out my identity post after you read this post.

Also, before you read, I’ve made a little video documenting some of the places that I will mention in this post. Make sure to take a look at that. If you do not like EDM, then you can get out.

Just kidding. If you don’t like my music then just mute it. However, I spent a lot of effort syncing up the images to the music, so it would mean a lot to me if you enjoyed the full experience.

https://youtu.be/6P8OZum2tys

On one fateful day in September, similar to last year, at some undisclosed time early in the morning, 17 rowdy kids departed Seycove in the ol’ faithful Seycove bus, with their bags crammed under their seats and their headphones plugged in. And just like that, the trip had begun.

Canadian Pacific Railway

Along our trip, we visited several CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) attractions. The CPR was also a pretty big focus on our trip, as we visited Rogers Pass, the Spiral Tunnels, and most notably, the Last Spike. We also did a lot of research before and during our trip, including watching the CPR movie The Iron Road and watching some short filmstrips and documentaries on our trip, such as “The War on Snow”, which we watched in Rogers Pass and taught us about how the military launched missiles into the mountains to cause avalanches. Or something like that.

Calgary

We spent a few days on the road, staying in Three Valley Gap and Lake Louise, before arriving at our final destination, Calgary. We spent 4 days in Calgary visiting some well known attractions, such as the Calgary Zoo, Glenbow Museum, And The Royal Tyrell Museum (which technically isn’t in Calgary but we went there while we were in Calgary).

Beakerhead

But now, you might be asking, why did you go to Calgary in the first place? Well I’m gonna tell you.

You see, in Calgary, we participated in a magical event called Beakerhead. Basically, beakerhead is when a bunch of scientists, artists, and other people come together, and take over the city of Calgary, setting up various “Beacons” and “Pop-Up” events. Beacons are pretty much huge attractions that combine both science and art to represent something.

During Beakerhead, we visited a huge dung beetle, a burning man recreation, an up recreation (House covered in balloons) and giant tesla coils.

Through beakerhead, I’ve gained a better knowledge of both Science and Art. Also where else are you gonna get to ram into your fellow students in zorb balls for school? (Yes, we actually did that.)

The Art Of Filmmaking

Another focus for the trip was filmmaking. We worked on both our iMovie and clips skills by creating 4 short films/movies at various locations.

Obviously, you’ve seen the identity video, which was included in my identity post, which all of you obviously read, but what were the other 3? Well, I’m not gonna tell you.

 

 

 

 

I’m not gonna tell you.

 

 

 

 

Nope. Not gonna tell you.

 

 

 

OK, maybe I’ll tell you.

 

 

 

 

Hey, stop peer pressuring me to tell you!

 

 

 

Alright fine, I’ll tell you. Our first one was on one of the first stops of our trip. The Heritage Ghost Town In the Three Valley Gap. The Ghost Town is made up of many restored historical buildings, and is eerily creepy, due to the abundance of manniquins. And also the dental office. That was terrifying.

In The Town, we created silent films, which weren’t even allowed to include sound effects. Even though it was in a ghost town, it didn’t have to be spooky. Ours did have some spooky elements, but still has an old-timey movie feel about it. Take a look for yourself.

https://youtu.be/n_Lt3wFq8gw

Our second was a while later in Drumheller, where we had to make a video telling the story of one of the fossils in the dinosaur museum using accurate facts about the fossil. Check that out as well:

https://youtu.be/H2zppdozdMY

Our final project was on our final day, in the Enchanted Forest, which may have been one of the creepiest places we went to. Take a look at the figures in our video and you can see for yourself.

https://youtu.be/q6nJsipWFd4

Well, you’ve watched and enjoyed our movies (I hope) and you’ve enjoyed this post just as much (I also hope) and it is now time to cap off this post. The Alberta trip was definitely a great way to start the year and will definitely be one of the highlights of my high school days.

Identity 2: The Identifying

Hey, you remember back when I made that original identity post? Remember when I said there was going to be a part 2? Yeah? Well here it is. I’m Jason, and I’m back to give you your second dosage of IDENTITY.

Also, keep this in mind: remember how Worldview was a recurring theme in Grade 8? Well now we have a new recurring theme, identity.

So, let’s pick up where we left off. I believe we had just started talking about what identity was and our driving question. Do you remember it? “How does that land affect our identity?” I also revealed our fabulous Deep Cove Identity Video. Remember that? Now, after a 9 day trip to Alberta, I have returned with more knowledge and have made an all new video about identity.

Let’s start with some details about our Alberta Trip.

The Alberta trip was good fun, but I won’t go too far into detail as there is an Alberta Field Study post coming soon (shameless self-promotion). However, I will add in some photos and I’ll explain later a bit more about the important places.

Next, let’s recap the new knowledge I’ve learned after our last post.

So, we talked a little about what Identity was in the last post, but not too in depth. Also, I’ve got some examples of identity, worldview, and how they intertwine. One example we learned at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary was how the worldviews of the First Nations people were changed after the arrival of the Europeans, and how the Europeans’ identities changed after their arrival.

Also, I learned a lot about how the land can really change the identities and worldview of people. At the Columbia Icefield Skywalk, my friend Sam and I interviewed some people and we found that many people’s worldview have been impacted by the Skywalk.

One of the key words I’ve linked to identity is perception. Perception is a word I used a lot in my new video as it was the perfect word to describe what identity is really about. The main thing identity really impacts is perception. Whether it be the perception of the land or the people of the land, all of that depends on identity.

Alright, I’ve baited it all throughout this post, and I’m sure y’all are DYING to see it, so here it is. The centrepiece of my Albertan Adventures, my identity video. (applause)

https://youtu.be/B_cCMLRjY7Q

As you can see, I’ve separated my video into a few key topics and all of those topics intertwine together to make an identity. To quote myself, “Think of it as a pyramid, without any of the building blocks, it collapses.” I think that this unit was a great way to start of the year and a great intro to a word that’ll probably get pounded into our heads even harder than worldview, Identity.

Identity

Oh my god. Could it be true? Could it be…. ANOTHER BLOG POST?

Your eyes have not deceived you. It is indeed Jason Guan and I’m back for the first post in Grade 9. Today I will be talking about our first unit in Humanities, IDENTITY!

So far we’ve talked about identity, written about identity, and made videos about identity. But first, with every unit, there’s always an inquiry question. Ours was ‘How does the land affect our identity?.”

The introduction consisted of a few paragraphs we had to write about why the land affects our identity. I talked about how it affects our mental state, and how people from different regions may have different views on public safety and caution.

We then made videos about the identity of our community, Deep Cove. Take a look at it for yourself.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LzmIiQIRuZs

My group for this included myself, Kyle, and Emerson.

However, this unit is not yet over, which is why I don’t have much writing. Make sure to tune in sometime in the near future for part 2 of this post. (Shameless Self Advertising)

BlueSky

Hi there again. It’s your old friend Jason. In this post, I’ll be talking about something that happened a while ago, as most things do. That’s right. You guessed it. BlueSky.

If you don’t know what BlueSky is, don’t sweat. I’ll give you a quick explanation right here. So, BlueSky (Also called Genius Hour, 20% Time, etc.) was developed by the company 3M, and it’s pretty much when a company gives their employees some paid time to do whatever they want in hopes that it’ll benefit their company. This was later adapted by Google and Apple. This program has come up with some very well known inventions, such as the Post-it Note.

I could go on and on about BlueSky, and my experiences, and my prototypes, and all that stuff, but guess what? I wrote a BOOK! That’s right! So check out the link below to read up on that. I’ve written down pretty much everything I’ve written in this post, and more. You’ll find the LAUNCH cycle and how that worked out, my prototype process, and a lot more. Check it out!

Done reading? Nice. I hoped you enjoyed that. Well. That’s it. BlueSky was kind of the climax of everything I’ve learned in PLP throughout the years, or year. Revision, critique, teamwork, and much more. It really strengthened my skills I’ve learned throughout the year. I think the Star Wars Exhibition really helped me prepare for this, as I wasn’t nervous, nor was I timid and shy. I hope you enjoyed this post, and my book. Make sure to check out my other posts. Bye!

2 Alcoholics and a Monster

Hey you. Yeah, you. You wanna learn some knowledge? Yeah you do. Well, today, I’ll be talking about our latest and probably final humanities project, which combined Shakespeare and Colonization. How is that possible, you say? Well, prepare to find out!

Project Overview

So, our main project this term was to study Shakespeare, specifically the Tempest. We were also supposed to perform said play. Sound simple enough, right? Oh, wait, we also had to perform it as a Tableau, which is pretty much when the stage goes black, and every time a background appears, the actors freeze into poses on screen with some narration to hopefully tell a story. A bit harder, eh? But wait, there’s more. We also had to set this entire thing in New France. Yeah. Not that easy now, eh? What is New France, you ask? Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to discuss next.

New France

New France, the topic for our Tableau, took place after our latest unit, the Age Of Exploration. New France, as the name suggests, was an area colonized by France, which is now modern-day Canada. We then proceeded to learn all about New France in order to be experts and to be able to actually explain why the heck we were basing our Tableau in New France. Here’s all the stuff we learned:

The Discovery

So, New France was discovered by coincidence, as most good things are. The French explorers were searching for trade routes when they came across North America and Canada. However, there were already people living in New France. The French colonized the area and called it, as you may or may not know, New France.

Life In New France

As New France prospered, the New French began to develop their own way of life. Everyone had their specific roles in the community. At the top are the sovereign council, which consists of 3 officials. The governor, who ruled over all of New France, the Bishop, who ruled over religion, and the Intendant, who maintained law and order, while also keeping track of the economy.

Under them are the clergy and seigneurs. The clergy consisted of priests and nuns. Priests, otherwise known as “Black Robes”, went on missions into the remote lands and tried to convert the Natives. Nuns were a big part of education and health in New France. Meanwhile, seigneurs protected the inhabitants, who gave them a portion of their crops and earnings for protection.

At the bottom were the inhabitants, the filles du roi, and the couriers du bois. The inhabitants were pretty much peasants, who were pretty much regular country folk. The filles du roi were women who had come from France, who had come to marry the inhabitants and reproduce (ewwww). The couriers de bois were explorers, who had explored lands unknown. They sometimes also fought alongside their First Nations allies in battles. Couriers de bois sometimes took country wives, who were First Nations women they had allied themselves with. These country wives were helpful as they knew the land better than any French Colonizers.

Fur Trading Companies

The fur trading companies were businesses who had enlisted help from the First Nations people to get furs to make hats for sale in Europe. The 2 Biggest companies were the Hudson Bay Company And the North West Company. The Hudson Bay Company operated (surprisingly) in and around the Hudson Bay. They traded furs with the First Nations in the area for as little as 1 bead per 1 pelt. The North West Company operated pretty much everywhere the Hudson Bay Company didn’t, which was a pretty wide area. The NWC consisted of a few groups. The Wintering partners operated around the Fort Williams Area, while the Montreal partners operated around the Montreal area. The voyageurs made runs in between the 2 areas. The 2 major companies battled for a while, but the HBC eventually won and the 2 companies merged.

The Fall Of New France

The end of New France came at the hands of, guess who, the English. The English pretty much saw what the French had going for them, and thought to themselves, “Hey, I want some of that!”. So, they did what most people have done throughout history, and went to war. Many wars happened, but at the end, you know it, The English came out on top. The English winning the war is one of the reasons we speak English in most of Canada.

Rising Action

So, in the days leading up to the performance, our 5 groups were each given a section of the History of New France. Our group, consisting of Grace, Jackson, Anika and myself, were given Act IV. We were also supposed to integrate the Fur Trading Companies into our performance. Also, as you may know, we weren’t allowed to pose, so we made all of our backgrounds really animated to hopefully help tell the story better.

Showtime!

Below is a video of our performance. I hope you enjoy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oWCMY6vHVaM

Welp. I guess that’s it. Our final unit was a refreshing breath of fresh air from all of the comics and art, and what a better way to cap off a great year than with a performance. And with that, I will leave you.

tPOLs

Helo again loyal readers. My name may or may not be Jason Guan, and this is my very official tPOL blog post. As you may know, I have a post currently on my blog called mPOLs (midterm presentation of learning) and now, this is my tPOL post (transitional presentation of learning). This will probably be very similar to my last post, as I will be talking about my work, ethics, and growth as a learner and how PLP has benefited my learning experience. You know. All that usual stuff.

Alright. Let’s get started by going through my PLP subjects (the classes, not like test subjects… although there were some of those as well.)

Oh Wait. My goal this post and in my tPOL is to answer the question: Why am I ready to move on to the next grade? So look out for points in which I try to answer that question.

Main Skills

The main skills in PLP 8 this year were presentations, still images and storytelling. In this section I’ll be talking about why I think that I have improved a lot at these skills that will be vital to Grade 9.

So, I think the project that taught me the most about still images was the Tempest Tableau. This was the  one project in which we really learned how to elevate and make still images tell a story without many animations. We were able to figure out how to tell one of Shakespeare’s works by using just a few poses and some backgrounds. I think the still images part really came from the backgrounds. We really learned what a background could do to influence a story since we weren’t really allowed to move, so the backdrops really had to tell the story.

Also, this was the origin to the “infamous” flaming beavers in our rendition of act IV. In the fur trading company. Yep. Get the connection?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oWCMY6vHVaM

Now, I think the project that taught me the most about storytelling was the feudalism quilt. We had to figure out how to use a still image to tell a story, while using one of my most hated art forms, abstract. *sigh* Anyways, I figured out how to tell a story well with just a still image.

Ah, Presenting. The project that really taught me well about presentations was the Exploration unit. We had  to act as crew members to famous explorers, make a comic, and present why we should be given funds for voyaging to not only our teachers, but also all of our peers. This really helped me with my public speaking and, most of all, trying not to talk unnecessarily fast. This might have been one of the most useful skills I learned, as I’ll probably need it for the rest of my life.

Humanities

Alright. On to my first subject. Good Ol’ Humanities. Humanities is probably the subject in which I learned the most. I had practically no idea what the heck the Feudal Ages were and why Portugal was so important in the Age Of Exploration, so let’s get into business.

Out of all the work I’ve done in Humanities this term, I feel especially proud of my advertisements in Oregon and Deep Cove. This isn’t because of how good my ads were. They were not good, to say the least. However (there’s always a however), this was really the main project that taught me some of the key PLP skills. First of all, it taught me how to use some apps that I would end up using for the rest of the year and probably further. It taught me how to use Pages, Notability, and an app I have mixed feelings about, Canva.

Also, I learned a huge skill that gets you MAJOR bonus points in PLP, revision. If you’re in PLP and you don’t know revision, watch out.

You can just see the difference between my first and last advertisements.

 

Yep. All revision right there. Now, on to the other side of the achievement spectrum, is the Renaissance. I feel as this wasn’t really the fault of me being bad, I’d think this was just a product of poor timing. This was right smack dab in the middle of DI (Destination Imagination). If you’ve either experienced it firsthand or read my posts, you’ll know what that was all about.

What a DI-Saster

Also, some of you may not know this, but this was around the time I had registered for the VYSO (Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra), which, if you don’t know, is a pretty big deal. I had registered late, so I was pretty behind. Luckily, there was not a lot of challenge as I play the oboe, which is probably played by 1 in 200 Kids in Vancouver.

Now, I’m usually not one for excuses, but I want to clarify that that was REALLY lousy timing. Anyways, I was kind of distracted for this unit, so I didn’t really pay that much attention, and that really came back to nip me later. My end project, the tryptich, was rushed, late, and seemed half-done. Not especially good.

 

I think that Humanities has really helped me develop the skills needed to “survive” in PLP. It taught me revision, how to use a variety of apps, and most importantly, to pay attention in class. As you can definitely see by my “excellent” tryptich. Now, onto a different subject.

Maker

alrighty. I think that I’ve had my biggest and most important projects in Maker. I’ve had DI (what a wild ride), and the 2 exhibitions. Those were quite the experience. I think it’s only fitting to first talk about the “horror’… Destination Imagination.

If you’ve read my crazy, incessant rants about DI, you’ll know why I have mixed feelings about it. In one hand, we did win regionals and 3rd in provincials, and yes, we had the chance to go to globals, but what did it take to get there? My sanity? My happiness? My emotional well being? Just kidding. Or am I?

Anyways, I think the main skill I learned from this whole thing was teamwork. We were all kids from different backgrounds, with different passions, and different work ethics. Fraser, Luciano, Kyle, and myself. This project kind of threw us together and basically forced us to work together. I think we all learned how to work together well, and especially how to work with kids that are CONSTANTLY TRAVELLING *cough* Kyle *cough*.

Then there were the exhibitions. Star Wars and Blue Sky. I’ll start with Star Wars. Of course, I’m sure you all know about the infamous posterboard. Yeah. Guan revision at its best. In case you didn’t know, I’ll give you a brief explanation.

So, my project for the Star Wars Exhibition was prosthetics. I had made a prosthetic hand model, which was pretty bad, but then there was my posterboard. Just look at this abomination.

Blech. Yuck. Dis-GUSTING. BUT… that day, I was roasted so hard that day that I was motivated to go home and make it not horrible. Now, look at this “masterpiece”.

Although I said I’d work on my time management in my mPOL, I still think it needs work. Also, I realized I had said the words “time management” around 1,000 times in my last mPOL, so I’d think I should probably find another goals. Time management was still a major issue in this project and it led to me having to rush many, many times through this project. Now, let’s move on to the final subject:

Scimathics

Ah, scimathics. I’d say scimathics is one of the least stressful classes. A: We get tons of time for each of our projects and B: We get pretty much entire classes to work on our projects. It’s pretty hard not to do good work in that kind of environment. But, still, I ended up hacking up not 1, but 2 projects in this class. Let’s go through my work in scimathics.

So, a unit I was pretty proud of was the first science project of the year, yes, the Massive Mighty Molecular Motion Movie (MMMMMovie). We used our time wisely, and we (I) also learned a very valuable skill: iMovie. Who do you mean by we, you say? Well, for this project, I worked with none other than the one, the only Mr. Emerson Chong. 

Now, onto the not-so-good stuff. First of all, Optics. Let me just say, the optics unit was NOT fun, at ALL. I did not understand a word of the unit. I did pretty good on the test though, but that’s probably the only good thing that came out of the unit. Also, I was an idiot and the biggest mistake that I probably made that unit was probably that I did not ask for help, so that was quite a lesson.

Now, a project that I had mixed feelings about was the Earthquake Playground project. On one side, we (Myself, Sam, Emerson, Jackson) did great. We did our presentation just as practiced and we only hacked up a couple of little parts. On the other side, we really had to work especially hard those last few days to get it all together, and, to add to that, right after Blie Sky, of course all of my group members were busy, so I ended up having to do an entire model on formit. Let me tell you, In our class, people don’t recognize formit  for being easy to use. It is absolutely not fun at all. And to have to make this in 1 night really sucks the energy out of you.

 Work Ethics and Improvements

I guess my work ethics this half of the year have really improved since the first 1 1/2 terms. Before, I’d sit around goofing off for half the time and I’d produce work that I wasn’t really proud of. Nowadays, I put a lot more effort into my work, as you can see from the 1 night model above and I feel I’ve significantly improved from my last mPOL. Even my mPOL wasn’t very good, and I’m pretty sure you could tell I winged it. I was not well rehearsed in the least and it did not turn out very well.

An area for improvement for me is probably also still work ethics and, wait for it, Time management. Blech. Even saying those words brings bad memories flooding into my mind. Ugh. Yuck. Even though I really hyped it up as something I’d improve throughout the year, I didn’t. Occasionally I’ll still get distracted by a notification or a message and produce low-quality work. That’s definitely something I’ll work on for next year. Maybe I’ll refer to it as just study habits or work ethics. That seems a lot better than throwing up in my mouth after sayignthe words time management again (a bit of am exaggeration).

I guess the main things I learned this year were kind of the basics of PLP. Critique, taking critique, revision, using apps, and paying attention in class. I do feel that I have successfully learned these lessons and skills through hard work and epic fails (the posterboard). I think that this has really helped me prepare for next year and the horrors of Grade 9 PLP.

L to the A to the U-N-C-H

Hello there, person currently reading this post. In case you didn’t know, my name is Jason, and this is my magnificent blog. In this blog, I write posts, some of which I may or may not be forced to write. Anyways, in this post I’m going to be rambling about what the LAUNCH cycle is and what it has to do with school and how it’s going to help me in other projects.

So, unfortunately, LAUNCH does not refer to actually launching anything. No rockets or space shuttles or anything physical. Just our minds. So before you get disappointed, don’t say I didn’t warn you. LAUNCH is actually an acronym. It’s an acronym for a simple method to help you with completing a task and/or finding a solution, more specifically, designing something. It stands for:

L – Look, Listen And Learn

A – Ask Questions

U – Understand Ideas

N – Navigate Ideas

C – Create a Prototype

H – Highlight And Fix

Here’s a helpful video to help you better understand the LAUNCH cycle.

So, the main project and goal for this unit was to create a sport. But, as is in every M. Night Shyamalan movie ever, there was a twist. We were only allowed to use 2 squash racquets, some plastic cups, string, balloons, and a wiffleball in terms of equipment. All this really meant was that most of our games revolved around hitting wiffleballs with racquets. So, not very much variety. It was still fun however. Here’s a more in depth analysis:

First, we started with getting into groups. Mine consisted of myself, Emerson, Grace, and Taylor. We then proceeded to research some factors of what makes a sport interesting and also what the public is into. We first did a survey to find out public opinions. We were able to figure out that the public enjoys games in which there are teams of 6 people or more, using multiple body parts, having the winners decided based on a scoring system, and games that are 1 hour or more.

We then figured out what made sports interesting and also what made them boring. Exciting sports usually weren’t very repetitive, were fast paced, and kept the action going, while boring sports were repetitive, slow, and usually have long pauses in between. We used this information and the survey data to create a draft of our game.

Unfortunately, I was sick the day we created our sport, so I’m not very familiar with the rules. If I’m doing a bad job, you can go check out one of my group members’ posts or check out the video I’m about to link below.

So pretty much, our sport is usually played on a rectangular field with goals on either side that were made of 1 piece of string attracted to two balloons. There are at least 3 players in each team and there are two teams. Each team has 1 racquet and 2 cups. The other players have nothing. Only the players on each side with equipment can touch the ball, which is being passed around. The goal is eventually for a player with a cup to pass to the player with that racquet and for that person to hit it into the opponents’ goal. There are no designated positions other than person with racquet, person with cup, or some poor sap with nothing.

Also, our sport was called LLAMABALL. Unfortunately, there are no llamas involved in the sport. Our budget was too tight and I don’t think llamas are technically allowed in schools. Or even in Canada as a pet. Here’s a short video that my teammates and I created to help explain the rules better.

https://youtu.be/j1D_mNEojng

Wow. Wasn’t that delightful. After some fun and goofing around, we played our game against some formidable enemies. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure we ended up losing. Here are some action shots of our team in action.

Well, I guess that’s the end of this post… wait… I forgot to say why this will help us. This whole launch unit thingy is a skill that we’ll need very soon as we tackle the terrifying sss…sss….SUMMER EXHIBITION. Make sure to be on the lookout for that post, coming soon. Ok, that’s the real end of the post. If you have any compliments, complaints, suggestions, or just to tell me I suck, go ahead and post it. Although I do have the authority to delete your comments and report you, so keep the hate PG-13. Anyways, I’m Jason, and thanks for sitting through yet another of my posts.

The Good Ol’ Explorin’ Days

Yo yo yo, it’s Jason back again with another wonderful humanities post. That’s right, they just keep comin’. This one’s gonna be about the days of waves crashing against ships, invading lands, and takin’ stuff. No, unfortunately, it’s not the pirates. No no no, it’s not the Vikings either. What’s that, the Age of Exploration? You bet it is!

Also, unfortunately, or fortunately if you don’t like bad memes, I won’t be putting any memes into this post because all of the Age Of Exploration memes I found were nasty Columbus Day memes and I just don’t really want to get into that drama, so let’s carry on.

Alrighty then. Let’s start with talkin a bit about the final goal. Our final project this unit was a big ol’ comic book about an explorer from a certain country that we picked… wait, First, we were put into new groups yet again. Our NEW group consisted of Paisley, Izzy, Celeb, Luciano, and yours truly. Ok, now that that’s out of the way, I can move on. So, we picked countries by using a big ol’ digital wheel, and we picked Spain, mostly based on the fact that their names were the most interesting. We then picked our explorers and I picked a certain Mr. Juan Ponce de León. Fun Fact: Juan Picne de León was one of the first people to start searching for the legendary Fountain of Youth. Bet you didn’t know that.

As I mentioned before, we had to create comics from the point of view of a crew member on a certain explorer’s voyage. We had to also make a presentation while acting as that crew member and attempt to persuade the King and Queen to allow us to embark on our own voyages. Pretty “radical” if I do say so myself.

Comic Research

As we learned about explorers and trading and all that stuff, we also had a side project on comics, which to me, was an absolute godsend. Unfortunately, we had to make a very extensive chart on said comics. Meh. You win some, you lose some I guess. We had 4 main groups of comics we had to cover. Tintin, Superhero, Anti-Hero, And New Age. Upside: I got full bragging rights to my non PLP friends as I got to read comics in class while they were stuck doing textbook work. Downside: As I was reading comics and listening to music, my parents did not believe that that was considered as homework. They thought that I was just reading comics because I felt like it and that I was using Humanities as an excuse.

Motivation

The first thing we looked at after the unit overview was why the explorers even bothered to explore. We looked at what a Beringia was (land bridge) and some of the main reasons nations, such as Europe, explored. The 3 main reasons we looked at were because they wanted to insert themselves into the trade routes, because they wanted new metals to use as currency, or to spread the teachings of their religions. (Mostly Christianity.)

Challenges and Technology

The next things we looked at were what challenges they faced and the technology they used. We looked at the types of ships and equipment used on the voyages, and we also looked at how life in the Renaissance impacted their explorations. For more on the Renaissance, check out my post on that:

Changes This Everything!

Other stuff

After that, we looked at a variety of things, as the creative title suggests. We checked out who Jacques Cartier was and his expeditions to “discover” Canada. We also looked at the Middle passages and slavery. For that, we looked at 5 different documents about slavery and the middle passages from 5 different points of view. We then made a chart of the differences between the documents. After these studies, came the final project. Yep. The presentation.

The Climax

Oh, yes. The presentation. Now, as always, I procrastinated as much as I possibly could before the presentation. So, in the last few nights leading up to the presentation, I really had to rush to get it all together. In those nights, I had enough energy drinks to make myself vomit, and I listened to enough Iron Maiden to make my ears bleed. Finally, I finished the last slide of my keynote, I created the last block of my comic, and I wrote the last line of my script. Then came the presentation.

I think the quote that best describes the presentation comes from the immortal Homer Simpson.

I panicked. Yep. I absolutely choked. It was not good. I sped up my talking a lot and I made little to no eye contact to the crowd. Definitely not my best. Anyways, I managed to get it done with a decent mark and it was finally over. If I were to somehow redo it, I would not have procrastinated as much. I think that, as always, laziness was my downfall. Also, here’s a copy of my comic. You can check that out right here.

THE AMAZING, ASTOUNDING, ANTHONY DE CAPO-1felpwh

Well, I guess that’s it. If you’ve made it this far, give yourself a big pat on the back. I probably couldn’t have made it through my own post. I apologize if it’s kinda boring. I won’t take any offence if you think it is. Anyways…. bye.

Refrections and Reflactions

Bonjour mes amis. Je m’appelle Jason et c’est mon blog. Congratulations to you if you can figure that out without using google translate. Today, I’m going to talk about optics. Lights, lenses, mirror, and other stuff. Also, this is a science post! I think this might be my first science-related post and it’s about one of the most confusing topics I’ve learned this year. So, without further ado, here’s the first Science post ever on my blog.

First off, we started right at the end of our previous unit and attempted to prove why and how light and sound are waves. For this, my partner and I successfully proved how sound is a wave by talking about speakers and the sound waves emitted and picked up by the ears. Light, however, was a different story. We got pretty stuck on light, and all we were able to come up with was when you shine white light into a prism, it separates into colour beams. Yep. We were in for a looong ride.

Now, let’s talk ‘bout light. We then proceeded to watch a documentary about light and nature and cool stuff like that. Here’s the full video:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6co8oc

This documentary was kind of like an detailed introduction to the unit in a whole and helped us understand the unit.

Alright, now let’s have a little talk about mirrors. You know, The reflects thingys that are shiny. You know, you know… yeah. You’ve got your plane mirrors, your concave mirrors, and convex mirrors. And what better way to show off mirrors than with burning things.

Yep. We went outside, grabbed a cardboard chunk and a large concave mirror, and we burned the absolute heck out of it. Also, we also learnt about a solar furnace in France with enough heat and power to melt birds. Sad, but interesting.

This video, along with the mirror experiment really helped my understanding with mirrors and how powerful they can be if used properly. It also gave me a deathly fear of large, concave mirrors. Also, I showed this to my brother the other day, and now he’s scared of France. I’m not sure if he’s kidding or not, but I’m pretty sure he thinks if it can melt a bird, it can melt him.

After that, we watched a documentary about some guy going around the world looking at how the Islamic Golden Age impacted optics in the modern age. This was more about the origins of light, but was still pretty beneficial to watch. You can watch it for yourself right here.

This documentary shed some light on the origins of optics and also really helped us understand optics more. There’s a whole series of these documentaries by the same guy, so if you, my valuable viewer, are still interested about Science in the Islam golden age, you can go have a Golden Age Science marathon.

Some things that I found interesting were that although the Greeks are believed to have founded Optics, most of what we learn today came from a guy named Ibn al-Haytham in a period called the Golden Age Of Science (9th – 14th Century BCE). He pretty much challenged what the Greeks believed about light being emitted from the eyes and proved that light actually enters the eyes. So, when you think about it, he’s one of the real fathers of optics. Also, he wrote a book called the Kitab al-Manazir (The Book Of Optics) in an asylum after an angry Caliph (King) threw him in there after he faked being crazy to escape a promise he couldn’t keep. He was a pretty interesting guy, to say the least.

One of his most famous experiments was called the Camera Obscura, which was basically a pinhole camera. How it works is if you take a window with a view, black it and the entire room out, poke a hole in the window covering, and put some sort of screen behind it, the image will be perfectly reflected onto the screen, although it will be inverted. This experiment is also where the modern word camera comes from, as the Camera Obscura process is pretty much in everything that uses light, form modern photography to even sight. Here’s a diagram:

Of course, this is all in the video, so if you felt that I’m bad at explaining, or want to know how the Camera Obscura works, go check out the video above.

We didn’t really do much homework after that. We just listened to some lectures and did a couple of labs. My first lab was pretty basic. It was about mirrors and I worked on it with a certain Mr. Kyle Dandar. In this lab, we worked on some basic mirror stuff. We used a ray box and an optics kit and shined (shone?) light rays at different mirrors and marked down the incident rays and the reflected rays, which are the light rays shone at the mirror, and the ones reflecting off of the mirror. Pretty basic stuff, though still important. This pretty much acted as some of the foundation for the rest of our unit.

Ok. Now, onto the work that we did in school. We started by learning about Ray Diagrams.

A ray diagram is a diagram that shows rays. More specifically, the paths of rays that are shown at different mirrors and lenses. Also, the things you need to write down about a ray diagram follow one of the catchiest acronyms I’ve known in my life. Size, Attitude, Location, Type. SALT. Here are a few examples:

This was one of the biggest challenges I faced in this unit. And, even though I did not understand this at all,  and in all my panic, I forgot that there was a teacher in the room that knows more that I ever will, so, I was forced to go solo for most of this stuff.

Anyways, then we did our second lab, The BFLL (Big Fat Lenses Lab) which I did with Izzy. This one was about lenses and rays and cool stuff like that, as you can tell from the title. We looked at bi-concave and bi-convex lenses, and also how light behaves after being shown (shined? shone?) through different liquids (Water, Vegetable Oil, and Ethanol) and why we thought different liquids had different brightnesses of light rays. Here. Look at a few images.

For comparison, this lab was wayyyyyyy more extensive than the mirror one, but this one was also kore challenging, and therefore, I learned more knowledge. And, as we all know, knowledge is power.

Now onto our test. That’s right, no final project like in humanities, just a test to cap off our unit. And, I’m not going to lie, I did have to study quite a bit to do good on this test. Also, I had a ton of opportunities to get more practice in class with all the extra worksheets, and, like the overconfident naive child’s I am, I passed them up thinking I had my optics down mat. Unfortunately, I then proceeded to realize that it’s still optics and I knew nothing about optics. So, I studied. It was pretty hard having passed up all my opportunities, but I managed to get it done and wound up with a pretty good 21/23.

And that caps off my 1st ever science post. Wow. I’m just realizing that it’s over 1200 words. Good job to you for reading all of this. There might be more before the end of the school year, there might not. Be on the lookout for my next post about the wonders of exploration. And with that, I will leave you.

Wait, Wait, Wait, before I finish this post, I want you all to know, before you bombard me in the comment section, I know there’s a typo in my title. It’s intensional. I wanted to see how many people would actually notice it, well, now it’s not much of a secret anymore. Anyways, now, with that, I’ll really (finally) leave you.

Changes This Everything!

Hello there. Welcome back to another entertaining educational PLP post. Today I’ll be talking about the Renaissance. Yep that one. The era after the Feudal Ages that pretty much challenged everything we ever knew up to that point.

So the Renaissance was pretty much a hotbed of great things like the printing press, public education, new religions, new art forms, scientific discoveries, and challenging everything we ever knew up to that point. I kid you not. So we stayed in the same groups as our Feudalism groups. Ours consisted of Ben, Gabby, and Lucy. We did not yet know about our final project (or I’m just bad at noticing things) and we started by just learning some basic information.

What the heck is a Renaissance?

we started off by recapping what had happened leading up to the Renaissance. Not very interesting stuff. Then we started with receiving a side project of sorts. A page of answers to questions that we were asked throughout the unit. We then learned about why Italy flourished during the Renaissance and also what patronage is. Patronage is basically when rich people see potential in artists and other workers and sponsor them.

Changing Ideas

We then learned about some important figures during the Renaissance in three different fields. The Artists, Scientists And Mathematicians, And the Thinkers. We learned about some important figures like Michelangelo, Copernicus and Da Vinci who revolutionized their fields of interest. We also picked someone from each field to study as part of our unknown final project. I selected Marsilio Ficino, Johannes Kepler, And Michelangelo. I researched them and then made a radical Venn Diagram Of The three.

Spreading Ideas

There wasn’t really much of a main topic for this section. Just things or people that spread ideas, like the printing press, which made education more widespread and allowed for more people to enrich themselves in knowledge, and Martin Luther. No, not Martin Luther King, just Martin Luther. He was the guy who began challenging religion and the whole indulgence idea. Pretty much, the church wanted money, so they sold indulgences, which let people sin or do something naughty without punishment. He thought that whole thing was pretty gosh darn sketchy, so he did what any normal person would do. He started his own religion. It was pretty much just a branch of Christianity, but with some differences. And that’s how Protestantism was born.

The Impact Of Ideas

The final section before the main project was the impact that those ideas had on the Renaissance. This section included Politics and this guy called Machiavelli. This guy pretty much just said that all men are greedy, conniving liars and that leaders should only be concerned with maintaining land. Again, I kid you not. Also, we learned about the English Civil war, which included Charles I, a king who dismissed Parliament for money to fight Spain. He also believed in something called the divine right of kings, which said that all kings have the power of god behind them. Oliver Cromwell was another important fellow who opposed Charles I And took over the throne after Charles died. Unfortunately, the public didn’t like him very much either. After he died, they then chose Charles I’s son as the new king. Fun fact, after Cromwell died, they dug up his corpse and dragged it through the street, because that’s what all normal people do in their spare time.

The Final Project

The final project was later revealed to be a triptych. That’s pretty much a three paneled interconnecting work of art that has one common theme. Here’s an example:

So, we had to combine all of what we had learned into this triptych. The left side was Changing Ideas, the right was the Spread Of Ideas, And the Middle was the impact of ideas. And, once again, it was centred around the western worldview and how the Renaissance impacted it. Are you sensing a common theme with these projects? Because I sure am.

So, after many minute-I mean hours… of hard labor and a lot of procrastination, I created this abomination:

I know y’all are gonna roast me for this, but I know that my animation styles are whack. My reasoning behind this is that it’s hard to find really good images on Creative Commons of people that fit your theme.

Anyways, that marks the end of this post. In hindsight, I wish I had searched harder on Flickr to find better images for my triptych. I also really regret procrastinating so much and having to stay up until 2:00 finishing my homework. Those energy drinks sure ain’t gonna help me anytime soon. Well, I’m done. That’s it. Goodbye.