What is this project 

This new project is a interesting one. We are studying gender, and yes it is more complicated than it sounds, just like most projects. In this project we will pick either masculinity femininity or Bi-Sexual/Transgender people to study. I am aiming for Femininity because that is something I have never really studied. This project has a lot of interesting opportunities for me and I can’t wait!

The Big Question 

The way we started off this project is with a question. The question we were asked in class is something that I hadn’t really thought about yet, which is surprising because it is like time most basic question for this project, or really any project to be honest. I think often I try to skip straight to the hard questions instead of trying to figure out or even dissect the easy ones. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s where my mind went when this question was asked. Anyways, the question that was asked was: “Why is this topic important to you?” See what I mean by simple question. Well to answer this question I need to think of if this project is important, and yes of course this project is important. There is so much bigotry now a days surrounding sensitive topics like this one, which makes it just that much more important to understand. As for why this project is important to me, nowadays their is so much hate around the LGBTQ+ community and gender fluidity in general. Instead of this trend in our society slowing down, it is in fact speeding up, and that is not ok. What is even worse about this is it is becoming normalized in kids younger than me to be against LGBTQ+ people not because they are sexist or anti LGBTQ+ but rather miseducated or uneducated. 

Goals for this Project  

My two goals for this project are around Community and Creativity. I want this project to give me a opportunity to be creative with my final product. I don’t know yet If I will be able to decide my final medium but that would be cool if I could. For collaboration I want to be able to discuss tough subjects with my classmates in this project to get a better perspective on certain areas, to deepen my understanding. 

Overall…

I am super excited to see where this project goes. I think I will have the opportunity to grow and learn and even change some of my previous perspectives on this topic. My goals are to express my creativity towards the final product of this project and think outside the box. As well I would like to collaborate with my classmates more throughout this project. Thanks for reading, I’ll see you in the next one!

Welcome back to another Blog Post! Today we are going to be going over what happened in our most recent BCFP project and how I changed from it. This project had us question our own beliefs and assumptions surrounding BC First Peoples, and this turned out to be a very good thing!

For this project their were two major Things we had to do, one was pick a BC First Nation community to research, and two was write a chapter on this nation. This was broken down over a few weeks.

Finding My Nation 
To find which nation I wanted to research I went on a few different websites that gave out information on all the communities and nations inside of BC. I looked around for a bit then finally settled on a nation I had never heard of before, Blueberry River First Nations. They are located in North Eastern BC, and have been around for 100s of years going under different names since the 1700’s. They are a small but developed nation that have a special connection to nature. 

Creating My Chapter
My task of writing a chapter on this nation explaining who they were what they do and how they are relevant turned out to be quite the task. I took this job very seriously because I imagined how it would feel if someone from outside of BC wrote a chapter on North Vancouver and mis-represented us. I would feel angry and unjustified. So that’s why I went through and found a list of relatable sources that I could base my chapter after. I even reached out to someone in the BRFN (Blueberry River First Nations) Government to see if they had any insights I couldn’t find online, unfortunately I never heard back. The actual chapter that I wrote focussed on these topics: Population Patterns, Social Structure, Territorial Range,Language/ Oral Traditions, Economic systems, Traditional Hunting and gathering strategies, Subsistence Strategies, Cultural Practices, Education Systems, Governance, and Family Networks. All of this research took me quite a while, but I am proud of how the Chapter turned out.

Blueberry River FN

What I Gained
This project taught me how important tradition and growing can be when properly combined. I think that I originally had this idea in my mind that indigenous people have not changed all that much and rely more on tradition than modern strategies. After going through this project with a open mindset (VMV goals mentioned) I can see that Indigenous people, at least in my nation, have found a way to perfectly combine their traditional strategies with new ones, making their community a effective machine.

Summary
Overall this project opened my mind up to be able to see how change in the indigenous communities has helped benefit BC for better rather than worse. BC is growing and changing and a lot of credit is due to Indigenous people!

Welcome back readers (Teachers), and today we will be giving over what happened after I wrote This Blog Post (https://www.blog44.ca/jonahl/2025/11/21/will-i-become-a-great-debater🤔/) and how I have changed from this experience! In the start of this project I was definitely stressed out. I was scared because I am usually not the best at public speaking, that’s not saying I can’t do it, just saying that it takes me a while to get myself ready for the moment. 

My Goals 

Going into this project I had set myself a realistic achievable goal. I knew it was important that this goal was really good, becasue I would be basing most of my project around it in a way. To find a goal that met these standards I went to my VMV to see what my priorities for the year were. The two categories that stood out were: Collaboration, and communication. Im sure you can guess why these two were good for a debate unit. In specific my goal was to “try and cross off at least two ideas or resolutions each from these two boxes”. This went very well. I proficiently completed all of the goals inside these two boxes except “I should work on using digital tools or visuals to create a presentation that enhances or clarifies the topic or message (Keynote, iMovie)” the only reason I didn’t complete this goal is because their wasn’t really a opportunity to complete it throughout this project. I am very happy with meeting this goal becasue it really showed me that if I keep a goal in the back of my head throuought a project, I can slowly chip away at it, and eventually complete it! 

The Learning 

During the actual learning portion of the project,  there were two main pieces, Get Rhetoric Ready, and Know It All. Ms. Madsen ran Get Rhetoric Ready while Mr. Edel ran Know it all. The Know it all portion of the project was content and research  based. we learnt all about how to research and make sure our notes were true and accurate. The Get Rhetoric Ready portion was based on learning how to public speak a little more, making sure our speaking was good and clear enough. At one point Ms. Madsen even had the class put corks in our mouths! Having the class split up and working on different parts of our debate preparation every day definitely worked well. Being  able to focus on different things was good especially for a project like this.

The Night of the Exhibition 

The actual exhibition went just as expected, kinda. Normally before the exhibition we are frantically taping and gluing and painting to set up the room. However this exhibition we all sat and did work, last minute preparations with the team and making sure everyone was on top of everything. My team was the second debate of the night. The way it was structured was the two teams would gather near the front to hear if they were arguing for the negative or posotive of the topic, and in the the later rounds what our topic even was. That’s Crazy!!!!! I was put on crossfire duty with Esther. This in my opinion was the hardest role for a few reasons, 1. We couldn’t prepare ahead of time,  2. We didn’t really know how to do Crossfire, and 3. It really pushed our ability to think on the spot. Long story short, our first debate went ok, we won, our second debate went super well, we won, and our third debate was super shaky, but we still won somehow. Piece that all together and you have your PLP Debate Tournament 2025 winners! Team Orange! Our team had great chemistry that set us up super well for this tournament and we are all glad the with the result.

Summary 

Overall this project was a great opportunity for me to grow as a individual as well as a team player. I had fun learning during this project which is a rare thing when doing something challenging. If I were to try and do this project again, I would have loved to have a strategy during the actuall debate on how to corner our opponent. In terms of the actual work I was quite happy with how my reaserch went, however for next time I would love to go into more deep dives into specific topics that could help us during the debate. Thank you for reading, until next post!

What is this Project?

This is our Winter exhibition project, The Great Debaters. During this project we are going to be learning how to debate and why it is a important keystone for every human to be able to debate. As Ms.Madsen has said almost every day since we started this project, “you are all going to become Intellectual Giants!”

What are my goals for this Project?

Here is my VMV. We know this. We ave seen this photo like 10 times this year already. 

When we look at my VMV we can see that I have a lot of goals or values in communication and Collaboration and I think that this project is a great opportunity to practice and maybe meet some of these goals.  

I think that a realistic goal for me is to try and cross off at least two ideas or resolutions each from these two boxes. Whether that means i have to write down the goals somewhere I can see them or just be aware of them for this project it doesn’t really matter. If I were to pick one goal from either  of these boxes it would be, the last one on the Collaboration box, “I can suggest ways to adjust the groups process to benefit the project quality.” Whether that means asking the group to try something new, or even just asking the group to clarify certain things during the project to make the result (the debate) go smoother.

Overall

This project is a project I remember my brother doing a few years ago and because of that, I am quite excited to see where this goes. This project has the potential to teach me a lot about myself and even my class. I can’t wait for this project to keep progressing and I look forward to where it will take me!

During the Cold War everyone from Western Society was scared of two things in general, 1. Communism, 2. Bombs. But the big word everyone should take away from that first sentence is Scared. Fear ran the world at this point in history, and there is no other way around that fact.

Today I am going to be talking about our latest project on the Cold War, Fallout. This post might look a little bit different, but that’s only because I am trying a new writing strategy to make my work more clear and easy to understand. So without further ado, lets get into it!

What was the Learning Focus of this Project?

As you know by now, during this project we focused on the Cold War, but what were the key parts of the Cold War we looked at? Well I would say the first and probably biggest piece of this project was learning about fear. I already touched on the idea of fear in the begging of this post, but I will expand on that now. Fear is defined as: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Now if we apply this to the Cold War, we can see how Fear was present. The Cold War was essentially a Mexican Standoff between USSR and the US, except if one of them flinched their country could and most likely would be nuked, which as we learned from the last project is not a very nice experience.

The second part of this project was learning about power. In PLP we have learned about power a couple times throughout all of our projects. (link to previous post about power) Power is defined as the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events.  

   When we apply this definition to the Cold War we can see once again that this idea of power was very present. A few examples of power being shown is NATO and the Warsaw Pact. NATO was essentially a group of countries  that thought communism was bad and would corrupt the world, and the Warsaw Pact was another group of European countries that were essentially  forced to join by the USSR so that their country wasn’t destroyed. The Warsaw pact is a great example of power being shown over another person or country, or in this case group of countries. The Influence that the USSR had during the Cold War and even WWII was only matched by the US’s power. 

How did we learn about the Cold War?

In this project we had three major mediums for learning, Socratic Seminars, Lectures in class, and the book Fallout by Todd Strasser. Now out of these three forms of learning only one is new, Socratic Seminars, something that i’m sure all of us in PLP will either prove to love or hate. The whole idea around a Socratic Seminar is that half the class at a time can have a meaningful conversation about a specific topic, in this case the Cold War. We had three Socratic seminars over the span of this project, and personally  lets just say that I have quite a bit of room to grow in them. Its not that I don’t have ideas to contribute or hadn’t prepared enough, more that I couldn’t  find a clean entrance into the conversation often becasue people in the class had selfishly led the conversation onto another topic that they had personally researched that the class wasn’t meant to be discussing.

The other forms of learning for this project was pretty standard for a PLP project and we knew how to operate around them quite easily. I took some notes on all the lectures we got, here is a photo of the page below.

Did I meet my Goals this Project

If we look at my goals for this school year we can see that I wanted to balance my work load with extra curricular activities. This project had quite a bit of home learning ranging  from reading a whole book, to preparing notes for the Socratic Seminars we had quite a bit of personal responsibility. 

I feel that I balanced myself very well this project, specifically getting the help I need from teachers and handing work in on time. If I were to give myself a grade based on these two focuses I would probably give myself a high proficient, like a 88-92%. 

Overall 

What surprised me most about this project was how interesting fear actually is. I used to think of it as something bad, but now I see how it shows who we are when we’re under stress.  This project helped me grow as a learner by showing me that my best ideas come when I’m actually curious about something and when I let myself be creative instead of overthinking it. If I could do something differently I’d plan out when I was going to read the chunks of the book,  and when I would do my work after school rather than leaving it to the last minute.

My current understanding of anthropology is that anthropology is a degree your can get in university. In this degree you study observation and essentially not jumping to conclusions. You have to look at specific details to understand other peoples mindsets and thoughts, to then understand a topic you didn’t understand before.

In our Launch class today we explored exactly this. We worked in groups and were given photos of strange, unfamiliar objects. We were asked to imagine we’d just arrived in a new place and had no idea about its culture, inhabitants, or norms. Then we had to talk about what we saw using phrases like It looks like… or  I think… instead of  I know or obviously. That shift in language made a big difference: it forced me to slow down, ask questions, and recognize how much of my “knowing” might actually be assumptions.

My Revised Learning Intention

I aim to become an anthropological thinker by: 1. Observing carefully and patiently. 2. Using  I think… or  it looks like… statements instead of definitive  I know… statements.         3. Keeping an open mindset: being ready to change my view when the evidence calls for it.

Category: Content & Understanding

Building on my earlier work (where I studied the history of residential schools), I will now explore a specific contemporary Indigenous-led topic through an anthropological lens. I won’t stop at what happened  I’ll ask how and why: what beliefs, practices, cultural structures are present? How do past events link to present realities? What can I observe that gives insight into lived experience?

Category: Personal Growth & Reflection

I will challenge myself to recognize when I’m stuck in my own viewpoint. When I catch myself saying I already know or that’s obvious, i can pause and ask: what else might be true? What’s missing? I’ll listen to more voices, consider unfamiliar perspectives, and embrace uncertainty as a space for learning. I’ll pay attention to moments when my assumptions are challenged  those will be signs of growth.

Linking to My Prior Project & How This Builds

Our prior project focused on residential schools. I learned about the history, the effects, the injustices, how colonialism shaped lives. That was necessary and meaningful. But the next step is, how do we move forward from that? What cultural responses, adaptations, traditions, ways of knowing emerge in the present?

So here’s how my intention builds,

• Early phase: Learn what happened. Gain awareness. Understand the facts and context of residential schools.
• Now : Learn how things are now. Use anthropological thinking to explore the present, ask deep questions, observe carefully. Link past to present. Understand more than what, but, how, why, and what next
• Forward momentum: The history we studied becomes a foundation. It doesn’t end there. It becomes a lens through which we can approach new questions with empathy, curiosity, and respect for complexity.

Final Thoughts

I’m genuinely excited for this upcoming project. Moving beyond just learning about Indigenous ways into thinking like an anthropologist feels like a big step. This isn’t just academic, it’s personal. It’s about how I see the world, how I ask questions, and how I listen. I’m ready to slow down, to observe, to wonder, and to let the unfamiliar teach me something.

For this new project I am going to take my lens (how trauma effected people live the rest of their lives)  to see how trauma was present in the Cold War and how that was present and challenging. I haven’t learned much about the Cold War before but I think that trauma will be interesting to focus on because of how much the world changed during this time, for good and for bad. 

What is interesting about this project to me is that we get to choose our medium which we communicate our final message. I think in all my time in PLP we have only ever done something like this once before, and even then there were some restrictions. For right now I don’t have an idea of what I want to do, I just know I want to take advantage of this opportunity. The final presentation for this project is going to be a presentation night where parents and who ever else can come and see our Explainer Video (from last project, Link to that : LINK ) and our final product from this project. 

We talked a little about my intentions last post, but it wont hurt to go over them again. 1. Quality in my work means putting effort into everything I do so that it meets a high standard. I take time to check over my work, make improvements, and make sure it clearly shows what I’ve learned. Instead of rushing to finish, I focus on doing things carefully and neatly, paying attention to details. This helps me create work I’m proud of and shows that I care about learning and doing my best. Understanding my work means truly knowing what I’m doing and why. I don’t just want to finish an assignment—I want to understand the ideas behind it so I can explain them in my own words.

2. Making sure my work is authentic means that it’s my own thinking and effort, not copied or done by someone else. It reflects my real understanding and creativity. When I make my work authentic, it feels more meaningful and helps me grow as a learner.. If you want more details into these two points and even some examples you can check out my last two posts. For this project I am keeping my intentions the same because I feel I need more time to practice them before I shift them into new goals.

Overall for this project I am excited to learn about a new significant event in the worlds history while practicing habits that will make me a better student. I look forward to where this project will take me!

Looking back at our first project in the BCFP 12 course, there were a few key take always for me. 1: This project taught me how to be more open to learn about things that are either out of my wheelhouse, or uncomfortable to talk about. 2: This project opened the door for me to start learning about more indigenous history, and maybe even learning about it on my own time. 3: it taught me how it effected the community we live in, the community that I have lived in for all my life. These three keystones were essential to the growth I had this project. 

During this project we learned about survivors of residential schools personal experiences at the schools, and then their lives if they survived afterwords. This was extremely impactful to me to hear some examples of the awful things that happened at these evil schools, and then how they struggled to function as adults later in life. We learned how more often than not the kids of the survivors had generational trauma and often fell into Alcoholism and Drug Abuse problems. It was crazy for me to hear all of this knowing how big of a deal addiction can be to people. I realized that these schools didn’t just destroy the child like they intended, they destroyed generations of families.

Overall looking back at the learning and growth from this project I have realized that in most cases indigenous people didn’t just lose they’re culture at residential schools, they lost themselves. These schools had no mercy. They broke and broke and beat and broke and hurt children with no mercy. They didn’t care because they didn’t see indigenous people as human. From then we as a community have started to grow. The Church has apologized, along with the Canadian Government. There is support out there now for survivors and children of survivors. However this is all still just a start. We can all do our part by even just being aware of the atrocities that happened at Residential Schools and understanding that this can never happen again.

🎬 My Video (Final Product for this Project)

🧭 Introduction

Wow! The first project of the year is already done, I can’t believe it. In this post, I’ll go over what we learned, how I grew, and my main takeaways.

As you might remember, I’ve already made a post this year about my learning intentions. Here’s the link to that post ← (add your actual link here). Looking back, I can see that I’ve started in the right direction with this project. My two big intentions this year were:

1. Creating quality work, and
2. Understanding what I do and keeping it authentic.

💣 Learning About the Atomic Bomb

At the beginning of the project, we explored why the atomic bomb was dropped, what happened when it was dropped, and the ethics behind it. One of our main learning sources was the book Hiroshima by John Hersey. It followed the lives of five survivors and showed how their worlds changed forever. Reading about their feelings and trauma really helped me understand the human impact of this event.

🧠 My Project Focus

Our first assignment was our project pitch, something we in PLP are used to doing. We were told to focus on the impact of the bomb and how it affects us today. I decided to study the survivors and how they lived afterward while dealing with trauma, depression, and PTSD.

To get another perspective, I spoke with an expert in trauma, Dr. Tatiana Jensen, which helped me connect the emotional effects of the bombing to modern examples of trauma caused by war.

🎥 Final Product: Explainer Video

Our final product was a simple explainer video that educated the public about the Manhattan Project, Hiroshima, and how these events shaped the world, all while connecting to our personal “angle.”

Before creating the video, I made a game plan with three key steps:

1. Finish my literature notes,
2. Complete a proficient storyboard, and
3. Write a strong script.

Screenshot

It might not sound like much, but doing all this in two weeks while balancing seven other classes was a challenge!

⚛️ Understanding the Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was originally created so the United States could better understand uranium and fission. A physicist named J. Robert Oppenheimer led a team of about 6,000 scientists working under the U.S. government to develop a bomb before the Nazis could.

That bomb became the atomic bomb, the most feared weapon ever created. When it was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, it destroyed the Peace Arch area and killed around 140,000 people instantly, with many more dying later from radiation.

Years after, Oppenheimer and his team expressed guilt for what their discovery had caused, showing how science can both save and destroy.

💭 Reflection

Overall, this project taught me a lot, both individually and as a class. I’ve actually been to Hiroshima before, so I already had some background knowledge, but this deepened my understanding.

The atomic bomb changed the world forever, in both good and bad ways. The discovery of atomic energy has killed and saved thousands of lives over the past 80 years. I can only hope that humanity continues to use this power responsibly and never for harm again.

First post of Grade 11! I can’t believe we are already here. Today I will be going over my intentions and goals for our first project of the year! This project is about the Atomic bomb and when Hiroshima, Japan was hit by it during WWII. This topic has a personal connection to me, because my family and I have been to the Peace Arch and the Hiroshima Museum in Japan. 

In this project we will be using a lot of Zetlkasten and Smart Brevity note taking, and we have already had a little bit of practice. As I mentioned before, I have a bit of previous knowledge in this topic, but something that I didn’t know about and wanted to learn more about, was why the US dropped that Atom bomb. So, that is what I decided to do some research on it and made a Zetlkasten note on it. 

Here are some photos of my note:

What I’ve learned so far to answer the Driving Question, How did the development of the atomic bomb alter the world we live in today? Is that the Atomic Bomb opened up a corner of science that has the potential to destroy the world. As Albert Eisenstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. I think that quote is extremely true and wise. Even better, it answers the driving question. And yes, to whichever teacher is reading this post, I just used a quote, mic drop. 

My intentions for this project I have decided, is that I want my work to have quality this year. This year is Grade 11, the biggest year in high school, the year that Universities look at. With this in mind, I want my work to represent me and my priorities, and why not start now. The second intention I have is that I want to understand everything I write or communicate this year. Sometimes we take words from websites or even AI, and I find that me and my peers don’t even know what they mean. There are so many problems with it that, but the biggest one I would say is that how are we expecting our teachers or peers to understand what we are writing/saying if even we don’t? 

I am excited to see what this project and year has to offer, I will be back soon with a end of project post!