Imagine having an identical twin. And I don’t mean you just look alike. Imagine having a twin who is identical to you even right down to your DNA. Now THAT is insane! That “twin” is called a clone. Although it would be extremely difficult to clone a personne or animal, clones do share the exact same DNA as the mother it came from.

To test this out, the PLP 9 Class cloned plants. Not exactly the most interesting thing to clone, but you still get the idea. Before starting, we were introduced to many different ways of cloning a plant. The method you choose varies from the type of plant you wish to clone! To start off the unit, each of us were paired off to clone Dandelions. Again, not the most exciting thing, but, they do the job! To clone these, my partner (Lucy) and I used the Cutting Method. This meant that, after harvesting the plant, we cut off a piece from the root and planted it in soil. We demonstrated the curricular competency of questioning and predicting as we had to predict the outcome and do a little research about the best way to clone these plants. We did the same for the other clones we made too. Unfortunately, none of them  grew.

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Part of the unit was also learning about the process the plant goes through as its cells grow. This is called Mitosis. To further our knowledge, we took a sample of onion and put it under a microscope to see the cells in action!

Finally, Lucy and I got to choose a plant we’d like to clone. The two of us chose daisies and used the SPLITTING METHOD which is when the mother plant is split into smaller plants. We planned to do this during our research stage as that was the cloning method the two of us saw fit for the job. Then, we conducted the process. Above, you can see that I’ve compared photos of the onion plant we previously looked at and our daisy clone. We were able to find the stages of mitosis taking place in the plant’s root and could see the cells dividing.

After another successful unit, of course we revisited our Project Mindmap and added in everything we learned. I evaluated what worked and didn’t work during our cloning process and summarized it all in this blog post!

Well hello there, lovely people! Welcome back to another exciting insight to the world of a PLP Student. Before anyone freaks out, no, this post is not going to be written in French. I just thought, the French title is quite fitting for this post’s topic: The French Canadian Voyageurs During the fur trade.

Lets cut to the chase. A company by the name of Historica creates these short 1 Minute videos called Heritage Minutes. They take the audience back intime and retells a very important story that impacted who we are as Canadians today. The goal of this project was to create our own unique Heritage Minutes based off of a story from the category of interest we were given. We were put into groups of four to choose and brainstorm stories, events and ideas. I was placed in a group with Emerson, Taylor and Luciano. The four of us were given the topic “Fur Trade”.

I mean, when you think of the Fur Trade, probably more facts than an actual story come to mind. The challenge for us was how could we find a story to tell within all those facts? After quite a bit of brainstorming and playing around with ideas, the four of us decided to narrow down the facts to one of the main events of the Fur Trade: the voyagers who came at the time to trade furs! The other challenge we ran into was that our story had to take place in the 1800s to early 1900s (world war 1). This was difficult because most of the Fur Trade happened in the 16-1700s along with the voyagers. This lead us back to researching for info that happened in the 1800s. Luckily, there were still voyagers by then! The French men from Quebec! Perfect!

The purpose of this was to discover and learn about the different aspects and events leading to the confederation of our country, Canada. Each group’s topic had an important significance to the leading climax of our country uniting. The importance of the voyagers was that the Fur Trade brought in many people from around the world such as the English, French and Spanish. In the 1800s, the French Canadians came along to join the fun too! They paddled for days to reach the trading post where they would exchange goods and begin the long journey home. Sounds like a fairly hard story to re-enact in 60 seconds, don’t you think?

By now, you might be familiar with how we plan stories around here. Always beginning with an idea, then creating some kind of plot diagram. My group wrote out the story and the teacher gave us feedback. Pretty easy and basic. Then comes the storyboard and actual planning on location and costumes. Since every group member had to make at least one appearance on screen, this created a small problem for us. You see, the Fur Trade Voyageurs were all men. They paddled through remote areas and never came across many people, especially women or girls. I guess you could say they were pretty anti social. Therefore, we had to tweak the story a bit to fit Taylor and I into it.

We eventually decided that Emerson and Luciano would be French Canadian Voyageurs going on their journey to the trading post. This worked in our favour as Luciano is a god at French. Taylor and I would be two French Canadian girls who they meet along the way.

The filming process was, well, long and for me, it was freezing cold. We had borrowed a neighbour’s canoe and were out in the Cove filming scenes of the boys paddling. Emerson’s dad let us use his Go Pro to film and the water was super cold. Regardless of the rain and cold water, the filming part is always my favourite. I always think of it as a good experience on working as a team and being able to direct and follow directions from others.

Now, let’s take a second to connect this process to a rather important cycle and idea we learned last year. It’s called the L.A.U.N.C.H. Cycle. Feel free to click the link to review it, however, a brief overview is that the LAUNCH Cycle is a process of creative thinking and allows people and learners such as myself to accomplish projects and goals. It starts with Look, Listen & Learn (the L in LAUNCH). In this stage, my group and I researched about our story and topic. Then we Asked Questions to find out more and Understand the story before Navigating Ideas and narrowing down our brainstorm. From there we Created the product (the Heritage Minute) and made multiple drafts. Each Draft, we Highlighted and Fixed flaws to make the film better. And finally, once finished, sent our work to Historica so that they could see how their work inspired us.

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

Below is our final video which we sent to the Historica company in the form of email.

Shortly after, we heard back from Ryan Barnett and Joanne Archibald who gave us some awesome feedback!

 Thank you so much to both of you for viewing our final videos and giving us feedback! For the rest of you, I hope you enjoy watching it and reading my blog, Flow Through School: My Journey Through The Process.

Grade 9 can be an exciting year for many. No, I’m not talking about the overloads of homework we start to get, but the fact that it’s the year many people, such as myself, begin to seek out and apply for their first job! For many people, the thought of having a job also brings along the idea of having lots or extra money to spend, but, a job can be dangerous and can result in situations you’ll probably want to try and avoid.

Now that DI is done, we’ve shifted gears in our Maker class a bit. This unit of Work Safety brings us into a very different theme of topic. This is a very serious topic to discuss as it’s meant to keep us young workers safe as we begin our search for our first jobs.

This photo is from the LRD Initiaion Process

We began the unit by watching a few videos about the orientation young workers go through before starting the job. This, I learned, is to ensure that you feel confident and safe at work and to make sure all initiates know what they’re doing and what is expected.

This unit has made me aware of all the precautions someone, such as myself should be aware of while working on a job as a young employee. It turns out that young workers or initiates are the most likely to be endangered while working. This is mainly because others take advantage of our age and the fact that we are new to the industry. To be honest, many teenagers would do anything to get extra pay so it isn’t that surprising that our age group is most  To show a bit of what I learned this past unit, I created an annotated drawing of what I imagine goes on in someone’s brain. I like to imagine a person’s brain like a giant machine or factory and each item or box is something important, such as an important aspect or memory. Therefore, you’ll notice in the photo below that a very important point about work Safety is written on a box in the “Brain Factory”.

Before beginning this unit, I thought that most dangers come from sharp and obvious dangers such as saws, knives, broken glass, used needles, etc. Turns, out, chemicals and even natural causes such as harsh temperatures and bugs can harm as easily as any sharp object. Some can even be lethal and cause death if not treated properly.

Every worker has the right to refuse work if they feel unsafe or uncomfortable doing the task. While there are certain procedures if this situation were to occur, no employee should feel unsafe while on the job.

Although this is a no brainer, safety equipment and appropriate clothes should be worn at all times. This helps prevent diseases that could be passed around by bugs such as mosquitoes and tics as well as  important organs and body parts. While our bodies can get rid of chemicals or poisons overtime, a constant exposure to these circumstances can lead to a build up of these harmful products and bugs. Of course, all incidents that happen on the job should be reported to either a supervisor, boss or employer.

The most important thing I learned from this unit was to never be afraid of speaking up for yourself and refusing to do something that makes you feel unsafe. It’s important that I protect myself from dangers of any kind.

Thanks for reading!

Your Blogging Friend Kiera