Category: Science

mmmmmmmmm…POL

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Wow, it’s already 2018! It seems like only yesterday I was in grade 8 (I still think I am sometimes). Since I walked back through the school doors in September, I have been building, learning, creating, and having fun in PLP. Now that I have done all this amazing learning, you might want to know what I have done so far and what I plan to learn next.

So what have I done so far? I have gone to Calgary, made a monster (Frankenstuffy), learned about hot air, crafted some cards, made some revaluations and “star”-ted some “wars”.

Since the focuse of this post is not to dwell in the past it’s to think ahead and show how I can improve my learning, I won’t go into to much detail –     I have other blog posts for that.

So what now? I’ve learnt a lot but I still have a lot more to learn. I am here to show off what I learned and ask some questions to help improve my learning for the year to come.

Let’s start off with Frankenstuffy. I think this project showed a lot of how I learn and what my strengths and weaknesses are. Let’s start off with my strengths. I felt that during this project I was very invested into it. I was wondering why I felt more excited to do this project than most other ones. I figured it was the amount of creative expression I could have on the project. For example with my Revolution metaphor machine project, it had to be about one pre chosen revolution, so I had less influence on the outcome. With other projects such as D.I where I have full creative expression, I found myself more motivated and happy to undertake a new project.

This leads me into one of my weaknesses: motivation when the goring gets tough. I find that when something goes wrong or the project is not as interesting, it is lot harder to complete it. Some things that I think I could do to improve how well I keep on task and motivated is set aside one hour every day after school for homework and chores just to make sure that evryday I at least get one hour of homework done if I have any.

Another one of my weaknesses is not asking for help. I know that I’m having trouble with something but I don’t ask I think this is becuse I feel  that if someone helps or spell checks it takes away from my contribution to the project. One way that i think would make me feel more inclined to ask other people for help on my project would be to be near peaple who want to help. So then I’m in an inviroment that encourages help not in the basement alone.

 

 

Now that I’ve talke about how I learn I want to ask you for some help. I have a question for you and it’s about my learning and how I can improve for the year to come. The question is, Out of my weaknesses witch one is the most important to overcome.

Thank you for teaching me how to learn.

 

 

 

Russian Revaluation

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So we finished our metaphor mashine unit. You might be thinking “What is a metaphor mashine?”. A metaphor mashine is a Rube Goldberg a shine that has an event of action of meaning represented by the section of the Rube Goldberg mashine. So our metaphor mashine was about revolutions and spasificly we learned about crane Brintons revaluationary revalution theroy. His theory was that you could see revaluations befor thay stoped and so there would be no chaos.

Crane briont wrote a book called the anatomy of a revaluation. This book compared revaluations to desises. He said that revaluations had a few stages one where the revaluation started. This stage was when there was something Rong that needed to be changed. The second was where the revaluation started to happen and the final was where the revaluation ended in ithere peace or war.

 

 

so now that you know the history of this project you might want to hear what we actually did.

We were a asignd the Russian revaluation. The Russian revaluations included the start of WW1 and the rise of the Soviet Union. Another part of this project was that we had to give our mashine a steam punk design for the English portion and it also had to include circuits for the math portion.

Now that you know the history of this assignment here’s the history that we researched.

Now that you’ve seen our video I’ll give a play by play of what happens. The first step of the revolution was Bloody Sunday, so to represent this we had dominos falling down. We chose dominos to show Bloody Sunday, because the dominos are a metaphor for all the people who fell as they died protesting.

The second step in the revolution was World War One. A metaphor for the beginning of World War One, was a book falling. This symbolizes the quick snap that surprised many when World War One started.The book lands on a wire completing a circuit.

This triggers a pulley, which is a metaphor for the soviets rising to power. The pulley also raises a red flag symbolizing the rise of Vladimir Lenin, which is a red flag for the rest of Russia.

When the flag goes up it knocks a ball down a ramp. This is a metaphor for
the provisional government falling down, and how russia is going down hill.

The ball rolls down and hits a cup full of confetti, and knocks it into a fan. This is to represent all the people who died in the Russian civil war. The confetti is people and the fan is well, bad news.

Though the fan does blow open a flag, representing the beginning of the Soviet Union.

So thats the end of my revolution project, I hope you learned something new about the Russian revolution!

Frankenstein Frankenstuffy*

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So recently I finished one of the biggest projects in PLP other than D.I. This project was called Frankenstuffy. It was about how animals adapt to an environment and about the matter cycles (ex:Water cycle). It was also about one question – who is in control, people or the environment?

 

Our first step in this project was to read the Martian which is a book written in epistolary style like a diary. While we were reading it we had to fill out these sheets about our knowledge of the story. During this book I felt the the people were in control becuse the people survived and beat the environment.

                     

Our second step in this project was to create a a 6 part epistolary story about an animal and how it adapts to a change in the environment. So for example if there is a flood it would grow wings. I chose a moose for my story, my story took place in the Saint Lawrence lowlands. The change in the environment was a flood and my moose grew goose wings to adapt.


 

 

 

 

 

After we finished making the story we had to turn it into a script for a four to five minute video. The script that I made was around 1000 words when my 6 part story was around 3000.

When we finished the script we had to create a storyboard for each seen. The storyboard had to include what audio what camera transitions and what action. We also had to do a drawing for each one.

Finally when the storybord was all done we could start filming our video. For my video I went to the trails near my house and took pictures of all the cool screeners for my background. Then I took pictures of my stuffy and green screened them over my backgrounds. Finaly I did my voice over and editing and my video was done.

During this project I felt my video creating and editing skills inproved a lot just from trial and error. I also felt my brainstorming and story writing skills inproved. Also I felt I know a lot more now about the matter cycles.

 

 

Beakers-head

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Recently I went with my class went on a fun and interesting trip to Calgary for a city-wide science art and engineering fair of sorts it was called beaker head.  That was only one of the stops on this busy trip. Our itinerary was full. Here are a few daily highlights.  I would love to link that awesome itinerary here but I have tried 3 times and it causes my page to freeze. Trust me. It was cool.

 

Day 1. We stopped at Craigellachie. This is the place that I chose for making my short film. One of our tasks was to tell the story of a place with a 3 minute video. This is where the last spike of the trans Canada railway was placed.  Many hardships and delays were overcome in the building of the railway that linked Canada from East to West for the first time.

Four second stop was Three Valley Gap Ghost Town.  This is a collection of buildings brought to the site from ghost towns around the province to create a full ghost town that we could tour.

 

Day 2.  Wolves!  There were 6 wolves in the sanctuary.  We learned how important they are to the ecosystem and food chain.  Unbelievably, we even got to pet them.  Later, at the Banff Park Museum I found the taxidermy animals were less exciting after seeing live wild animals.

Day 3.  We found ourselves trapped in a room.  Actually this was an escape room where a team has to solve puzzles to get out of the room within an hour.  Two hours and 17 puzzles later we were still trapped.  Good thing we aren’t detectives.

That afternoon we visited the Glenbow museum packed with Canadian history.  The best part was we had the whole museum to ourselves.

 

Day 4.  More museums!  This time about dinosaurs.  It was a long drive to the badlands where we explored dry, barren landscapes.  There were a lot of cool dinosaur fossils.

During that day we had to make a 1 minute second video on a dinosaur that we found there.

Day 5.  Beaker Head.  We toured the city and checked out art installations that were a part of the city.  That night we saw Serpent Mother, which was a fire-breathing animatronic snake which made quite the spectacle at night.

Day 6.  This was technically the start of the trip back but was also one of the most action-packed days.  We went to the Calgary Tower, Cave and Basin national historic site, Lake Miniwaka, and the Banff Hot springs.  My favourite part of that was the stellar tour guide of the Cave and Basin who gave us the history in a fun and entertaining manner.

Day 7.  This was a day of walking on ice and nature’s beauty. It was spectacular to walk on a glacier at the Columbia Icefield and drink glacier water full of minerals.  Then on to the Glacier walk which was a glass bridge 30 meters out from the cliff and 300 feet above the riverbed that was carved by the glacial runoff.

Day 8.  This was our final day and a long haul home.  8 hours and 15 minutes of driving.  On a school bus. Full of sick kids.  We stopped at the Enchanted Forest where we made a 1 minute video of a fictional story including  props we found in the forest.  I would have liked to have more time to explore but my time was occupied on the project.

Overall I thought this trip was a very good experience.  It is different travelling while doing work like, creating videos, compared to when travelling purely as a tourist or for fun.  It’s hard to see everything and get the job done.

 

The Second Installment of the SCLs/tPOLs

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The school year is coming to a close, so most people are happy for the summer break to be here and have some more free time to do personal activities. This final blog post for the year will be a reflection on the year’s learning and will be explaining why I’m ready to go into grade nine.

One thing this year that I think that I have improved on the most is my cooperation skills. Over the year my part in group projects has become more prominent by helping others get work done or doing a bit extra if need be. One of the goals that I set in my last SLC was to make sure everyone in the group had an equal role and I feel that I have accomplished that and I am quite happy about that goal.

 

One goal from my last SLC that I did not accomplish, was the enrichment of work documentation. I think I failed this one because I was normally too distracted on the work being done to remember to document it. I think this was because I normally felt a bit rushed, so I focused on the work and not so much on the documentation.  If I had scheduled better I think that I would be able to manage all my activities, and I  could balance work and therefore giving me more time for documentation.  I hope to apply these skills for next year.

One assignment that I had a lot of fun with was my science and light project at the end of the year. I feel I enjoyed the project a lot because of the open-ended nature of it, and how I could pick something related to light and just learn about it. For my learning style I think that was better for me than just doing a work sheet and handing it in.  Having choice dramatically increases the enjoyment and actual learning that I get out of a project.

In conclusion I know that I am ready for grade 9 because of my willingness to improve old skills and develop new ones.  I have had encouraging feedback from my teachers which also makes me believe I am ready for grade 9.