As the school year draws to a close, there was just enough time for one last great project: the Annual PLP Spring Exhibition, Bluesky. Bluesky is a very unique learning experience as it allows each student to show off everything they’ve learned in the past year in the form of a single project. The exhibition itself is similar to the Star Wars exhibition which we did in December, however, Bluesky gets its name from the fact that this project provides countless opportunities. The only restriction and limit is your imagination and the blue sky above! For this project, us, meaning the grade 8s needed to invent or create a product that would help a non PLP peer. This was to not only help us learn about other peers outside of PLP, but to also teach us to serve others which is something my parents highly believe in.

Bluesky, like many projects follows the L.A.U.N.C.H. Cycle. Just as a reminder the L.A.U.N.C.H. Cycle is a cycle in which you get to learn and from it, produce your best work or product. If you wish to learn more about the cycle, try clicking on this link or taking a quick look at the video below.

Bluesky begins with looking, listening and learning. This is when you look around and pay close attention to problems people have. To better explain this post, project and process (that was a whole lot’a Ps right there🙃), I have broken down the project into the six stages of the L.A.U.N.C.H. Cycle. To show the process of my project and to shorten the amount of reading (cause c’mon, who really likes to read paragraphs about my school life) I’ve created a designer’s journal which contains all the steps in making my product: Tricky Tutus.

While the project was quite tricky and on a time crunch, the actual exhibition was a blast. To prepare for this, I decided to display my tutu on a mannequin and create a slideshow rather then a poster board. This was just because I created a poster board last exhibition and wanted to try something new. I’ve attached the video of my slideshow which contains most of my research and knowledge I ended up needing for the project. It also shows my prototypes and an overview of my interview with my client.⤵️

Friends made the stress worth it

Once the open house got going, people were flooding into the room. Both the grade 8s, 9s and 10s were split into groups depending on their project. I was grouped with grade 8s Paisley and Fraser, grade 9s Luca and Kai and grade 10s Mimi, Robbie and Sydney. The 8 of us made up the mental health group and we were quite excited to share different ideas on how to decorate the room and what foods to bring. We decided on a beach theme as people go on vacations to relax and get their minds off of stress and ordinary lives. We also organized a little activity for visitors to do. Science our theme was to be stress free, my group and I had set up a make your own stress ball station. This allowed guests to not only learn about how to relieve yourself from stress but it also gave them something they could take home with them and benefit from. The people loved the vibes of the room and the snacks and it was a constant flow of people right to the end. Not only was the exhibition a fun learning experience, it was also a great time to share with friends.

Make your own stress ball activity!

Refreshments and snacks found here!

The beach!

Clean up took forever!

While the exhibition itself was fun, cleaning up, as usual, wasn’t. As the most decorative group, we had the most to set up and clean up. Each group was dismissed separately and of course, ours having the most decor was last. Although I was at school until almost 9pm, it was kind of worth it to see the room all transformed. It truly was a great experience. And luckily it was a great experience as I have about 3 more Blueskys to go! What I would improve on for next time would be to maybe better rehearse what I would say to my audience as the first few times were a little rough, however, my speech got better as the night went on, and lucky too as that’s when my parents showed up! I would also better plan my time management so I don’t end up stressing last minute over my prototype. Maybe borrowing Lucy’s product would help with that! Overall though, it was a fun and memorable night. Until Next time!

Nik in a tutu- a humorous sight.

Shoving our faces with food before the exhibition!

Lovely Lauren in a gorgeous tutu!

Luca showing off his mad ballet skills!

Cheers to the end of the school year and yet another blog post😁😏! This project that I’m about to describe was quite different from the past projects I’ve written about. Sure it involved lots of teamwork and thinking, however, this project was unique as it involved theatre. Some of you may have guessed it by now, but there comes a time in every high school student’s life where they study Shakespeare, and as many of you have guessed, this post is about our Shakespeare unit: Colonizing in  a Tempest.

For those of you who don’t know, the Tempest is one of William Shakespeare’s later plays. The Tempest is a comedy meaning that none of the characters actually die, however, unfortunately for me, it’s also a love story (ewwwww gross!😝). The play features a variety of characters including a magician named Prospero, his daughter Miranda, their servant Caliban, a spirit and more! I’ve attached a summary of the play below. Take a peek!⤵️

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/summary/

Now, rather then putting on just any old play, we were put into groups to create a tableau. Tableaux were a popular theatrical performance around Shakespeare’s time period. They were performed in a theatre setting such as a stage and acted out by live people and consists of actors and costumes. The difference from a play is that tableaux are still images meaning they have close to no movement and speech. For us though, we were allowed to include a narration performed by a cast member between scenes. The narrator would let the audience know who is playing who and what they will see in he next scene. We were also allowed the privilege of using a moving background to our advantage. This would further help us tell the story as the background would help the audience get a visual of the scenery. To do this, we were divided into groups, each group given a different act to perform. My group included Izzy, Emerson and Ben and we were given act 1 which, is super exciting as we got to be the opening of the whole performance!

All PLP students should know by now that projects in PLP are never easy and there usually isn’t really an easy route. It was no different for us, rather then just performing the play in a tableau version, we also had to retell the play as if it took place in NewFrance. While the overall storyline and characters were allowed to be kept the same, each character and scene had to be related to an event that happened in the history of New France.

The history of New France starts like this. As most people know, the French and English could never get along. It was always constant war. Knowing that, let’s begin our history class on New France… During our last Humanities unit on The New World, we learned that many countries voyaged to different places for a veriaty of reasons. For the French, it was to discover new lands. Our lesson begins with the French sailors discovering what is now modern day Quebec. The French settled and began to do some friendly trading with the Natives. Both races were able to get products that wouldn’t be available to them otherwise. The Aboriginal traded beaver pelts for guns and other European weapons. And the furs traded were shipped back to the European’s home country to be made into stylish hats. This was known as the fur trade. During this time, two major companies were established: the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and the Northwest Company (NC). Both had many trading posts across North America where both Europeans and Natives could trade goods. Below is a chart of the differences and similarities between the companies.

As the French settled, a class system was slowly formed. The same class system was used during the time of New France. The system included kings, bishops and more. To show this, we created a chart in class⤵️.

Eventually, the English found out about New France and wanted it for themselves. They began by attacking Louisberg which at the time, was a fort in Acadia (modern day Nova Scotia). The fort was battled over many times, however, the English eventually took possession of it and deported all the Acadians. The people were forced to leave or would be killed. Even worse, the British destroyed their homes so even if the Acadians happened to escape, they would have nothing to come back to. This process took way longer then expected and eventually, the English gave up and let the Acadians be.

The Seven Years War then took place in 1756-1763. This was the final and deciding war between New France and England. The first three of these wars ended with no clear winner. However in 1759, the British defeat the French on the Plains of Abraham, ending New France. However, this also resulted in both the English and French war leaders dead. Below is a picture of the armies preparing to fight. Notice the British climbing the cliff to reach the battlefield.

After studying all this history, it was time to perform. As a group, we created the backgrounds and decided on casting and poses. I’ve attached the video below. Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

https://youtu.be/oWCMY6vHVaM

Welcome back to yet another post from my blog! This post is actually based off of our bacteria unit that took place months ago in second term, however, due to the year end PLP banquet, I was asked to write a  short post for my fermented foods project.

Since most of my project as well as my explanations are in my video (click below to watch!⤵️), I will do a brief explanation and, to not bore you to death, I’ll keep it short and to the point. So fermented foods are when you add what is called good bacteria to your food and let it sit in a certain degree of temperature for a certain period of time. Traditionally, food was just left to sit out, however, this process is now done in factories and the bacteria is added rather then made naturally as the food is left to sit. Fermentation tends to give food a more sour flavour which is why products such as sour cream, sour dough bread, yogurt, etc. have a unique taste.

For this project, each of us were given a food to research on and eventually share with the class both our project and the food itself. This would take form in a festival like fashion where we would each have our own station. I was assigned sour cream and to create my presentation, I used Explain Everything to create a video to share. I’ve attached the video below for you to watch and hopefully, it will give you a better understanding about fermented foods and how they’re made.

I hoped you enjoyed this post and the video! Thanks for reading and watching!

Another year has come and gone, and I’m no longer going to be the “babies” of high school! The year has been hectic, exciting and stressful all at once. It reminds me of a crazy time machine when I look back at how far I’ve come and grown. Let me take you back to when I first started high school as I retell my amazing adventure: Flow Through School.

For those of you who don’t know, a TPOL stands for Transitional Presentation of Learning. As I transition from grade to grade, I’ll end up having to write one of these so they’ll become quite common on my blog. Anyways, my last presentation of this sort was my MPOL which I presented earlier this year. These presentations are to show parents and teachers what we’ve learned the past year and how we’ve grown. So sit back and relax as I basically tell you all about my grade 8 year.

Starting PLP, I had no friends I were familiar with, no idea how this year would go and was in major shock at the level of expectation our Humanities teacher had set upon us. I was nervous and that affected the quality of my work. I want to take some time to revisit this little cycle graph I had made for myself near the beginning of the school year.

If someone were to ask me how I would describe my grade 8 year, this chart is a great representation of what I’d say. Some of my friends recall me describing my life as a “Happy River” and by happy river, I actually mean this graph. I don’t necessarily live in a river, I just like to think of my life as a river. Most rivers have smooth parts, rough areas and eventually a waterfall. Each stage of a river represents a time in my life most of which have to do with school. That is why my blog is called Flow Through School! Anyways, at the beginning of this chart, near the top, it talks about departing on a new journey. Well that’s exactly what I did when I started high school. It was a new journey with new friends and teachers. Everything that happened in Elementary just didn’t matter anymore. This was a new clean and fresh start and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. I want to take a minute to revisit my early pieces of work that I did at the start of grade 8. In my MPOL, I mentioned my “Selfie Project “ in Maker. As I look back at this piece of work, I see what I thought was hard work but now I see it as growth. It wasn’t my best work and I had no idea what I was capable of doing if it weren’t for my amazing friends and teachers who pushed me to do better.

Another piece of work that I thought at the time was absolutely amazing and top quality was my business ad for Oregon. This is when my group (Gabby, Fraser, Nik and I) interview a local business during our trip to the Oregon coast. After interviewing MarineDescovery Tours, each of us group members had to create an ad for their business which would later be emailed to them. Again, I thought this was all I was capable of and that I had pushed myself to my full potential. However, as the year went on, I slowly improved my skills and learned much more…

My next great and amazing project was the Infographics which we all created in small groups of four. Mine included Taylor, Jordyn, Jackson and I. This project not only taught me many new technology skills on my iPad including being able to curve letters and make shapes, but this project also taught me patience with others which I now contribute to other group projects.

DI was a huge learning experience in which I learned how to really step up as a leader and take charge and do what you know is right. The whole DI journey was a chaotic mess but I stepped up as a leader and stood up for myself when I knew that what a certain group member was doing was wrong. We didn’t necessarily do well in the Regionals tournament, but hey! That was my first ever DI. However, my group and I stepped up our game for the Provincial tournament and did a lot better. What I learned was that you can’t always rely on others. Sometimes you have to step up and do what’s right even when people don’t always agree with you.

As Bluesky draws closer and closer, I want to show you my growth from my first PLP exhibition (Star Wars) to Bluesky. I think, this of all my projects is the greatest example of my growing as both a student and a person. From my past projects including DI, Worldview Infographics, Oregon Ads, Launch Sports, Quilts and more, Bluesky was a chance for me to apply all my learning from the entire year and create an amazing invention and presentation. Going back to the Star Wars exhibition, I have to say that I was and still am proud of the work that I put into it. However, I was much distracted with other activities such as basketball, soccer and dance. This, unfortunately effected my work and ended up actually lowering my grade in second term. So, I promised myself, that for this exhibition, I’d try harder and stay more committed to providing my absolute best work. Like Star Wars though,  preparing for this exhibition wasn’t a smooth river ride either. This is where I will once again draw your attention to my River Chart. I’d never done a Bluesky before, meaning this was a new journey. I had a solid idea of what I wanted to create and do. When I pitched this idea to my parents, they may have not meant it, but I interpreted it as a “it’s impossible! Never been done and never will be!” Kind of situation and later found myself crying and having a melt down much like the one I had during DI Regionals. This is where I hit my rough turns and harsh water. I took what my parents first impression was to heart and that lead me to my downfall or waterfall. But, according to my river chart, something always amazing comes from a waterfall. After coming back from Oregon, everybody was quite familiar with how everybody thought, acted as well as their strengths and weakness. We’d all had built something special that all of us student are part of. Since we see each other everyday and work with each other so much, we had unknowingly established a PLP family. That same family of 20 amazing, loving people whom I get to see everyday helped me get out of my waterfall. Being part of this amazing group is something so special that not every student gets to experience. I learned that there are people in my class who love me no matter what and care about me. They’ll be with me through my happy times and when I’m down, they’ll always be there, believing in me and helping me get back up on my feet again. However, it’s up to you to make that happen. I was warned that, joining PLP meant tears shed, stressed heads and melt downs, but depending on how you wish to act, the situation can get a whole lot better. What I never realized at the beginning of the year when Ms. Willemse and Mr. Hughs showed us the Ice Burg Cycle was that to get to the peak and out of your troubles, to get to where you want to be, you need to show DETERMINATION, EFFORT and more often then not, PERSEVERANCE. Or as some people say, work for it and show effort, and the results will come. That’s what I feel is important in every student, and that’s what PLP has taught me.

As I move into my second year of high school, I want to not only apply all my new skills to future projects, but also to help guide new PLPers. Again, I now start at the beginning of a new journey, unsure of what’s ahead of me. I have learned to trust my instinct to do what’s right. And that’s what I’m going to do. As my grade 8 year comes to a close, and my next step of my life opens in front of me, I want to change the way I handle stress. All through the year I was the one who took charge, made tough decisions and had melt downs over projects. And if there was one thing I’ll take away and remember from this year, it’s to sit back, relax and enjoy the river ride. I promised myself that I would loosen up and let my parents, teachers and most importantly God guide me out of my waterfalls . I’m ready. This is the end of grade 8, but the start of a new adventure.