February 3

ReconciliAction

Throughout the ReconciliAction Project, I learned a lot about what does true reconciliation means, and how young people like myself can make a difference. For me, this project is not just about facts and research, it is about understanding the impact of colonialism on indigenous communities, figuring out how we can support the healing Of first people in Canada.

     The driving question we explored was “How can we have meaningful reconciliation?” At first, it seemed like a simple question and really easy to answer. However, as I got deeper, I realized that reconciliation is more than just saying I am sorry, or admitting what happened. It is about listening to indigenous voices, respecting their culture, and taking action to repair the relationships between communities. This is a long process that requires everyone to keep an open mind and take responsibility. As non indigenous people, we can help bring real change.

     What struck me was the importance of education to reconciliation. To raise awareness of colonialism and promote understanding and respect between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. Understanding the emotional and cultural weight of indigenous peoples’ history, especially with residential schools. For many indigenous families, the loss of children who never return home is generational. This pain is not just in the past, It still affects many families today. It made more effects on indigenous communities than you have ever imagined. For example, in 2021, an anthropologist found evidence of 200 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential Schoo. Leaning the knowledge in class has made me realize how important it is to understand the history. If I hadn’t learned this, I might never have understood the hurts done to indigenous peoples.

     One thing I didn’t expect to learn so much about is how powerful Indigenous art is. Through our project, I have discovered the beauty of indigenous art. It is deeply connected to culture, identity and community. The arts have helped keep traditions alive, share stories and resist the erasure of indigenous cultures. I now understand how supporting indigenous art can help revitalize the entire culture. Is a way to help preserve these important traditions for future generations.

     The art theme also happens to compound my winter exhibition project. 🎨Indigenous Cultural Revitalization Projects. At the exhibition, I presented a powerpoint presentation on “The Meaning of Art to Indigenous People”. I share what I have learned about the deep cultural implications behind Indigenous art, and how art can play as an important role in reconciliation. In addition, our main exhibit is an indigenous style large drum with images representing the contributions of each group member on it. This drum is a powerful symbol for our project. It is a work of art, and a representative of the cultural Renaissance we are trying to support. It was great to see people interacting with our exhibitions and talking about the importance of culture and art and reconciliation. People are willing to learn and take action in their own way.

My presentation:ReconciliAction

our group’s exhibit:

     For me, this project has helped me connect ideas in new ways. I see how history shapes the present and how important it is to understand the past in order to move forward. Reconciliation isn’t just about saying the right thing, it’s about taking action and showing, through our choices, that we are truly committed to getting things done.

     Looking back on everything I’ve learned, I realize that reconciliation is a shared responsibility. This is not something that can only be left to governments or indigenous peoples – it is something we all need to be involved in. It begins with learning, it continues with listening, and it can only really progress if we are all involved in healing.

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June 6

Back ⬅️ to the Future

With the Back to the Future project, I started on a journey of self discovery. I began to understand who I really wants to be as an individual. This PGP project develops ourselves and helps us look for potential career paths. In this project, we explore the goals and lives we can achieve. In my opinion, this project is not only academic, but also an important step in planning for the future.

This project allowed me to summarize and evaluate my own characteristics. I am more aware of my skills, interests and values, as well as my strengths and room for growth. I identified my hard and soft skills, such as analytical thinking and problem solving. I think more deeply about my passions and ambitions for my future. By learning about myself, I believe it is very important to pursue a career that is relevant to my values and strengths. With a better understanding of my skills and interests, I began researching possible career paths. The career test allowed me to choose the career of engineer, Architect, surgeon and so on. I know that my mbti personality is INTJ

This project allows me to learn how to present myself in professional situations and let others know about my abilities. I learned how to craft a compelling introduction that highlights my strengths. I can confidently present myself in a job interview now because the training. This kind of preparation gives me with great experience in my future professional field. The job interview experience also let me to clearly express my values and my unique strengths and experiences.

We learned to make resumes and cover letters. Making these not only helps students understand themselves, but is also an important step in finding a career in the future. I learned how to effectively present my experience, skills, and accomplishments. And how to use my experience to resonate with employers.

The ultimate goal of this project is the interview called “Dragon Den”, where we present ourselves as candidates to HR. The experience was stressful but exciting. I got great feedback on my presentation, and I know what I need to improve. I should have a clearer, more achievable, and more motivating plans for the future. In a professional environment, clear communication, confidence, and authenticity are very important qualities.

My resume for the dragon dan

Throughout the project, I faced many challenges. The most important one is time management. I often get panic because I have bad time management and often can not finish my homework well enough. To avoid this problem, I make a schedule where I prioritize assignments based on their due date and importance. Another challenge was the presentation. My problem was that I was not confident enough, but through eye contact and a confident smile, HR did not notice my nervousness.

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April 30

Cray Cray Yay Yay

Do you know what is a PuchaKucha? PechaKucha is a presentation style. It has 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each, totaling 6 minutes and 40 seconds per presentation. It’s a concise, fast-paced and engaging way to share ideas. It is also is the final project in “Cray Cray Yay Yay.”

In our project called”Cray Cray Yay Yay,” we explore the driving question: “Why does it take a crazy person to change the world?” Inspired by the iconic Apple commercial “Crazy Ones,” we set out to discover the power of innovation and creativity. We had a field trip to Seattle to give us first-hand information on the question, we explored some of the city’s most innovative and influential companies, as well as the crazy ones. Finally we need to create an PechaKucha presentation to express our answer to the driving question!

During my learning journey, I faced many challenges and successes, and these things shaped my growth. Here are my reflections on myself:

What I did well:

I’m more comfortable in public speaking situations. I used to be afraid to speak because I wasn’t confident, but I stepped out of my comfort zone. I helped with the process of writing scripts for my team. I was always the kid in the group who didn’t do anything, but I now have a 

awareness of helping the group.

What I did bad:

There is one area I struggled with the most, which was relying too much on cue cards during presentations. It affects my communication with the audience. Also, I found myself scared to participate in class discussions and answer questions, which was largely due to self-doubt about my English. But I have to learn to accept myself and believe in myself.

Improvements:

Despite the challenges, I can overcome the nervousness of public speech. Through practice and preparation, I become more confident when speaking in front of people.

Need to Improve:

I’m going to be more active in the classroom and overcome my fear of expressing myself. Due to language issues, I was shy and didn’t want to talk. I need to recognize that my English skills are better than I thought. I’m going to contribute my ideas more freely because I know my contributions make the learning environment better.

How field studies help me learn:

The field trip broadened my worldview and taught me the culture and experiences of a different city (Seattle). Trap to Seattle not only enriched my knowledge, but also made me curious about the world. Seeing a lot of ways that crazy people deal with challenges has inspired me to want to be a person who makes positive change to the world.

Here is some of the photos I took in Seattle:

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April 30

Who are You Gonna to Be

There is no end to growth, and every day is becoming a different version of myself. 

     I have thought about what kind of person I want to be in the future for a long time. It’s hard for me to choose. I always feel confused because there are so many role models. Until my friend Angela said something inspiring to me. 

     Angela is an ordinary person, not a celebrity or a rich person. But her actions influenced and inspired me. As an international student, Angela moved to Canada after living in China for 12 years. But after spending a year in Vancouver, she had to move to Winnipeg because of her parents’ work. In that time, she had to move twice and leave her newly familiar environment. Angela studied at a French school in Winnipeg so she had to learn two new languages at the same time.

     Angela went through all those things, but she never gave up or became negative. She works hard on learning and trying to make friends with the local French speakers. Angela records the good things and posts them on social media. She is a really happy person. One day when we were talking, I asked her, why don’t you feel bad because of all those things? She said to me, “I just want to try to make life better, instead of sad every day, try to make yourself happy.”

     I was touched by her words. Adults and my parents often talk about optimism, but few of them did that. Angela is the one truly cheerful and optimistic. She is now studying at secondary school in Winnipeg, has a lot of friends and good grades. In my opinion, all these good things are due to her positivity and courage. (Video of the interview) 

     In the project “Who Are You Gonna Be” the driving question is “How can we use our blog to communicate the kind of person we want to be?” However, before this project I already knew what kind of person I wanted to be. Although it is hard to do, I will learn from Angela. I want to become a person that isn’t affected by bad emotions and full of positive energy. I wants to live with a positive spirit, work hard, and move forward.

     In the class, I watched Michelle Obama’s speech, which she asked a similar question “What kind of person do you want to be?” After hearing that, I am interested in her. I want to know how Michelle and her husband became so successful and even became the first family of the US. So I read Michelle’s book “Becoming”.

     Michelle’s book does not feel superior, and she does not make readers think that she is in a much higher class. She just like a good friend to talk to readers. Her narrative style is intimate and natural, without preaching and slogan, but simply telling her life experience. I was deeply touched. It wasn’t just Michelle’s sincerity that touched me, but many other wonderful qualities, and I wrote about my feelings in the notes. (Picture of the notes)

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April 30

Save Juno Beach🪖

Young people should bear in mind the terrible disaster that fascism has created. and they need to be wary of the reemergence of fascism that affects world peace. If people can’t learn lessons from history, they will never progress. 

     It is important for people to learn from experience and lessons from history, and they gain wisdom from that. 

     The disaster caused by World War Two(WWII) is something that all people who love peace can never forget. At that time, Germany caused the death of tens of millions of Europeans through many cruel means. The Japanese caused terrible crime in China, and they invaded more than 10 Asian countries. 

     History tells us that fascism is an anti-human and anti-civilization. It brings disaster to mankind.  

     Looking back at history, people can see that it was expansionism, right wing thought, and extreme nationalism that made the fascists control the countries. 

     The people have been deceived by fascism, and the country has become a tool for the politicians to enslave people. 

     Now, although the smoke of this world war has cleared, this painful lesson of history will always be worth learning.

     In this project, I learned about the historical significance of WWII, and why people should always remember about it. I need to write a essay at the end of the project. Let’s we see how learn about WWII, and finish this essay.

     Building Knowledge 1: The Causes of WWII “PEE” Answer.

I need to think about why in WWII started in three ways, they are: my point, why I think that, and why it is important.


Building Knowledge 2: Historical Significance of WWII.

The chart that shows my understanding of the affects of WWII.


Building Knowledge 3: Bulletin Board Contributions.

I did a BRIEF (2 sentences) to the driving question: Why is it so important to learn about Canada’s involvement in World War II?

The Essay: Brainstorming.

Ideas that are as many as I can think of  for the .

     Thesis of the essay: It important to learn about Canada’s involvement in WW2. because people should not forget history, the suffering of the victims, and the sacrifice of the soldiers.

Outline:

The Final Draft of Essay:

  • In this project, I learned a lot. The World War II was the most curl  war in human history, with more than 60 million people losing their lives. The significance of commemorating World War II is to remind people not to forget history, and today’s peace does not come easily.
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April 30

This is Us🇨🇦

     In this project we learned about Canadian identity. I’m from China and I moved to Canada few years ago, so I’m actually not familiar with this project. But, I am really interested in national identity, and I actually never learned and wrote things at school about Canadian. I don’t really feel like I belong in Canada because I haven’t lived here long enough. But I know that a sense of national belonging is very important. Our final goal was to done a human library project.

The definition of national identity that I learned: National identity is people’s sense of belonging to their country or nation, and it is an important part of nationalism. It is the idea of a country as a cohesive whole, and national identity is represented by the country’s unique traditions, culture, language, and politics. It also means that one shares a sense of country with another group whether they are of the same nationality or not.. For example, Koreans in Japan are not Korean citizens, but this does not prevent them from recognizing Korea as their national identity. National identity is used to show “awareness of difference”, and it differentiates “my group” and “other groups”.

     1.The first homework, launch question: answer the question “why does it matter to think about who we are as Canadian?” 

My answer was this:

This work really helps me understand why is having a national identity so important as a Canadian. I used to think that national identity was a spiritual thing that didn’t affect me. But through this thinking, I realized that the sense of identity is actually an important part of people’s happiness. When I first came to Canada, I was often unhappy because I didn’t feel like I belonged.

     2. In order to learn more about how our Canadian identity has been shaped, we got an assignment “Women Questions”: I investigated and thought deeply about Canadian women’’s identity. I asking 20 questions. 

They are:

This homework is actually my favorite one because as a woman, I am always really care about the problems that women are facing or have faced before. So I ask questions about them, and I think about how does they shaped Canadian women.

     3.To study the impact of government on Canadian identity, we studied the Charter Rights, and we got to write why it is important and what rights it protects. 

The Charter is the government of Canada established to protect the freedoms and rights of Canadian 

My works here:

I am truly grateful to the government of Canada for its responsibility to protect the rights and freedoms of Canadian👍. The Chinese government has not done that well, which is one of the biggest reasons my family and me came to Canada.

     4. To prepare for the Human Library, I needed to become an expert in a certain area of Canadian identity (by looking it up online). The topic I choose is Canadian local animals. But before I do that, I need to raise a driving question. Driving question means a question that drives the whole project, and my project was to write a essay.

 

Here’s my driving question: “How has local Canadian animals shaped Canadian identity” 

Here’s need to know before answering the driving question: The answer to this question is not to list the animals that are found in Canada. It is to write in detail how these animals have shaped Canada, such as the impact of this animal on the environment, history, and economy.

And here is the essay I just said, which called the Independent Inquiry Research in Showbie.

Finely is is the human library, it was really fun and I heard interesting experiences from other people that are really different from my. Unfortunately, I didn’t took any pictures, but I help setting up the library and I made the name card for the books.

Here is my reflection after the human library.

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April 30

New Year! New Me!

What strategies can I use to maintain balance in my life and support my own well-being? Everyone wants more time to do the things that they liked, so a better life balance is simply hard to done. In fact, it’s much more than that. Whether people are students or office workers, achieving a life balance is good to their both mental and physical health. Lack of balance can cause people to get sick and depressed. They also feel negative and being unproductive on working. Being in a constant state of stress is not healthy for any people. So, in this project, our teacher teaches us the ways to keep balance in our life and being happy. There are many ways to maintain balance, such as managing time and energy, planning for future work, setting goals, and considering the surroundings.

The good, bad, and  quadrants and next steps: the pros and cons of last school year.


Norms: some things just like class rule, but are actually not.


Craft notes and 421 on happiness video with why comment: we watched a video about well being and made some notes about it.


PPS: intro and tools evidence: learning how to use apps to manage time.


PPS Cleared Backlog: making time backlog and managing time.


PPS: reflect and engage evidence: learning how to set goals.


Positive brain training daily reflections: doing training about well being, including, meditation, exercise, and writing positive thoughts.

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February 1

Roller Coasters Challenge and Stop Motion Video mini blog posts

Roller Coaster Challenge:

Have you ever been on a roller coaster? I’ve always wondered why people like to go on these horrible rides. It’s actually because the experience of danger stimulates the release of endorphins in the brain, which makes people happy. In the project “roller coaster challenge” I learned about the the roller coaster work, and we build a real roller coaster with paper tubes. We use a marble as a passenger, and we put it on a roller coaster. Our group got the third place, and our score is 21 points. The project was very interesting and I learned what I was interested in. I hope there will be more projects about building things.

Stop Motion Video: 

I always think that those stop motion video things on YouTube are really cool, but I never think about I make one of them myself. However, I don’t even know how to make them before this project. After I learned about the video and learned how to edit video, I start to really like to make stop motion videos. 3d stop motion animation is the most common one. First you use clay to make characters, and when every time they need to move. Take a photo with a stop-motion app. Repeat the process. Once the character is made, it can be used many times, but you also need to make scenes and items. And requires a location and equipment (which you can do at home). That’s the way I did it.

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January 10

Winter Exhibition

In this project, we learned the techniques of interviewing. Interviewing has always been something I’m interested in, I like to watch videos that people interviewing scientists, celebrities, or passersby. However, I didn’t think about making those kind of interesting video myself. This project has made me change the way I look at interview videos. I used to think that making videos like that required professional equipment and a lot of knowledge, but that’s not the case. Anyone can make an interview video, and the teachers summarize all the things you need to be an interviewer. If you want to know more about the interview please keep reading my blog post.

We learned about the movie avatar and the connections between it and the real world. We also learned how to do interviews and make a interview film. 

The plot of the movie is that on the beautiful planet of Pandora, where live the Na ‘vi people. Humans invaded Pandora for the Earth’s energy problems. Due to the toxic environment on Pandora, the artificial Na ‘vi, known as Avatars, connect with the human brain and work on Pandora. A paralyzed ex-marine travels to Pandora on one Avatar and falls in love with a Na ‘vi. He drawn into a war between man and Na ‘vi for his love and Na ‘vi’s survival. In the end, man was defeated.

I think Pandora is a metaphor for Americas, rich and dangerous, beautiful and deadly, attracting intrepid explorers. Five hundred years ago, European explorers were tempted by the Golden Empire. As same for the humans who have invaded Pandora, but the advent of “Avatar” has ensured the safety of them.

We made an exhibition to show the videos made by us. The theme of my room is exploration. I talked about how the technology in the Avatar movie changed the way human explore the new world. The exhibition was very good. Everyone put on a good display. I hope we can do better in the next winter exhibition.

How to interview: https://www.craft.do/s/bzKgi7o23gNY2Q

My video:

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November 8

Vibrant Video

In this project we learned about making films, setting goals, and learning what we really want. I learned about movies knowledge, history of movies, and storyboards for making them. I also went over shots and angles to consolidate my knowledge. I think my film making skills have become better after learning this project, and I can use it flexibly with other themes. Students will use more videos in their projects as we enter grade 9, and it’s useful to learn them now. The teacher taught me how to set goals. Goals make a clear direction for my behavior, and make me fully understand the purpose of each things. Goals let me know what is most important and help me manage my time. It also makes me stronger and more confident. Therefore, goals can make me a better learner. Knowing what I really want helps me to know more about myself, which can helps me to have a clear goal. Having a goal is very important to me on my way to becoming a learner.

Skill 1: Clips. I tell a visual story in clip about what inspired me. This is the link to my video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4jRbsDup7aI&feature=share

Skill 2: shot and angles. It is bad that I am absent, but I write a story about how I finish my goal.

When I was eight years old, I made a goal in the summer vacation. Which is is to wash my own dishes after eat every day. After make this goalI I really wash my dishes every day. I was a very lazy kid, but it was amazing that I really did it at that time. although sometimes I will go out to play and then not do it, but it is only a small part of the time. I still accomplished my goal.

Skill 3: planning and shooting. It is an tutorial video on how to open a locker. Each clip was shot from a different Angle. I’m a person in the video that trying to learn how to open a locker.

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