Lake Louise With Friends!

Once again, it’s time to hit the road! An early morning start awaited the students of the PLP 9 class as they loaded their gear into the trusty Seycove Bus and buckled their seatbelts, plugged in their headphones and departed on another life changing memorable journey. Before departing to Alberta, we had previously studied identity. This trip would give us many good answers to our driving questions, How Does Land Impact Identity? Last year we visited the Beautiful Oregon Coast (click the link to read more!) and this year, it was a road trip through the mountains and back in time to when the Canadian Railroad was being built!

Filming Our Ghost Town Movie!

First stop, the Ghost Town in Three Valley Gap! What? Ghosts? Yup you heard me, ghosts! But don’t worry, I’m not talking about real freaky ghosts you’d expect to see on Halloween. I’m talking more of the crazy PLP kids running around the peaceful deserted town with iPads, white sheets and horse heads kind of ghosts. I know, probably just as creepy to other tourists walking around the historic site. This ghost town, nestled next to the Chateau in Three Valley Gap was never actually a real town. There were never families and people walking about who lived there. This “town” was made up of multiple rescued buildings from the pioneer days in the 1800s and also featured many cars from different time periods. Our task here was to create a movie using the Ghost Town as our movie set. The film could be about anything! In this project, I worked with Gabby, Luciano and Amelia to bring to life a tragic yet very animated film about a group of friends. In this task, we decided to play to our strengths and base our characters off of our personalities. If you know me, you may have already guessed that I played a little happy girl with a huge cheesy smile on her face. Easy right? Haha no! There was a small catch, as this movie was being filmed in a pioneer ghost town setting, the film had to be era appropriate and therefore would have to be a black and white silent film. No talking and no sound effects. Just music. If you’d like to watch our film and see how it turned out, check out the video below!

https://youtu.be/MPxmLIhNsAI

The next morning was another early start (infact every morning was an early rise and shine!) and once packed, left for the spiral tunnels. Another stop along our journey through the construction of the railroad. Along the way we stopped at a wolf sanctuary center called Northerlights. Who knew wolves were so playful and cute! There, we interviewed wolf experts and learned about the importance of key stone species (such as the wolves). These are species of animals that, if taken away, can greatly impact others. For example, a national park once decided it was a good idea to kill all wolves in the area to protect prey animals from harm. Little did they know that with the wolves gone, the population of elk, deer, squirrels and other prey began to grow to the extreme! The park was soon filled with prey animals! Well, lesson learned, all animals are there for a reason and removing a key stone species can cause a huge impact!

That same day, our class also visited the very famous world renown Lake Louise. For those of you who don’t know, Lake Louise is a very famous lake found  in the Banff area of Alberta. It’s natural beauty such as the lake’s unique mountains draw many people from all over the world to visit. There were many photographers and people from all around the world trying to capture every memorable moment of their visit to the lake. During this time, I thought it a good opportunity to interview a few of the tourists about where they were from and what drew them to this location as I thought it would be a good aspect to my Identity Video. Everyone from our class left the lake with many pictures. Definitely a highlight of the trip.

Talking about natural beauty and tourism, another highlight of the Alberta trip was Banff. Very much like Whistler, Banff is a small resort town in the mountains  that mainly relies on tourists to keep businesses running. Souvenir shops lined the streets of this small town and people were everywhere!

Now, who could go to Alberta and not see Dinosaurs? Drumheller was a very unique and historical place. Although the land is currently flat and dry, evidence shows that millions of years ago, greenery and rivers use to be there. The museum was incredible and showcased many displays of different dinosaurs and their different habitats. We also got to do a small workshop where each of us created a different cast of a fossil. A cool fact I learned during my visit was that the Albertasaurus (yes it has he word Alberta in it because it was the most common dinosaur found in Alberta) was actually more dangerous than the all mighty T-Rex! Infact, the T-Rex species wasn’t around for long before all dinosaurs got wiped out! Along with the workshop, each of us had to create a short video about one of the artifacts in the museum. I immediately chose the large ammonite that was fossilized in a gem stone called ammolite therefore giving the fossil a gorgeous gem like texture and colour! To see my video, click below!

R2-D2 was at Beakerhead!

Another important aspect of the trip, although not the most exciting at times was Beakerhead. This is a unique Arts and Science Festival. Engineers and artists use both art and science to create or invent a machine or sculpture like object. If your still confused about what it is, Beakerhead is best described as Destination Imagination or D.I. on steroids as in it’s basically D.I. for adults. For each “Beaker” we visited, all students were required to think about the importance and science behind each of them. The exciting part of this event was actually Beakernight. This was the main celebratory night featuring many live shows and demonstrations! It was very exciting to watch all the inventors demo their inventions or their knowledge through experiments. As the night came to a close and our toes began to freeze, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel.

Our final stop that although kinda creepy and weird in ways, was the Enchanted Forest. I know, sounds like a very happy fairy tale child fantasy location, but in reality, the place was rather creepy. Basically, the story behind the Enchanted Forest was that a lady loved to hand create these pretty scary looking concrete statues of fairy tale creatures such as the three little pigs, little miss Muffet, the cow that jumped over the moon, Snow White and more! Because these creatures were made by hand without the use of any moulds, well, I guess it’s safe to say that that’s what made the place creepy. Many of the statues had deformed faces or missing limbs or terribly chipped paint. Here, we had to create another group video. Like the Ghost Town project, this video would have to tell a story. I worked with Fraser, Jackson and Amelia to bring to life a crazy yet creative story we call The Rodeo Steed and Pink Piggy. Our take on the classic Romeo and Juliet Fairy Tale. To watch our movie, click the video below!

Wow! What a trip! There were so many amazing memories, highlights and moments, it was so hard to choose just a few to mention in this post! For that reason, I’ve created a video briefly showing the highlights of each day during our trip. I hope you enjoyed this post ans stay tuned for more awesome learning, discoveries, projects and more inside looks at my life, Flow Through School. My Journey Through the Process! Until next time!

It’s time to hit the road! As you may remember, around this time last year, our class visited the Oregon coast and made many memories. This year, it was time to step it up a notch and go to Alberta! So for those of you thinking “why Alberta? It’s so cold and flat!” Well I have to agree with you. While we were there, the weather was kinda like Vancouver in the middle of Winter. It was cold, rainy and it even snowed! But not only did we get to stay in some pretty snazzy hotels (now that’s a huge step up from the Oregon yurts 😉) but the main reason why we visited Alberta was to help answer our driving question for this unit « How Does Land Impact Our Identity? » And that’s, exactly what this post is about!

Ok let’s get real here, Identity isn’t something most people talk about, and wouldn’t it be weird to just go up to some stranger and ask to interview them about their identity? Well…haha that’s exactly what our teachers made us do! There definitely is more to it though. But to begin, let’s go back to the basics. What is identity? Well identity in short is how we see ourselves or how the world sees us. You may recall from last year us studying about Worldview. Well the difference between that and identity is that Worldview is how we as individuals see the world and things around us and identity is how we see ourselves or how others such as friends, peers and family see us. Pretty simple! Well the big task came when my teacher told us that we had to create a full on 5 minute video documentary about identity and how the land around us can impact it. Now this is when our trip to Alberta starts to connect with our driving question. You see while in Alberta, we had to use multiple resources to answer this question, and going back to asking random people about identity was one of the available resources. Besides interviews, we also visited many sites such as Lake Louise and the Rocky Mountains to experience first hand on how the beauty and nature around us can change a person and their perspective in life. I’m sure each of us who went to Alberta learned something new that way. Just by observing. We then took the knowledge and footage we took home from the trip and created our identity Video to hopefully help you understand How Land Can Impact Our Identity!

And we’re back for another school year full of activities, stress and homework. Where oh where has my Summer gone? It’s true what they say, time flies when ones having fun! With summer heading back into hibernation for another year, it’s time to get back into the crazy school routine.

For our first opening unit of the year, we are currently studying different identities. Identities are what make each of us unique. Many things around us are factors of what help make up our identity! One of the huge factors that create our identity is the land around us. For this portion of the unit, our class specifically looked at the identities of a Deep Cove citizen. To show this, we were put into groups to create a short video on what makes Deep Cove special and how it can form ones identity. Aedan, Luciano and I created a short and sweet video of the identities of someone in Deep Cove. Keep in mind when watching it that we had only about 20 minutes to create it. Besides that factor, I hope you enjoy!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JbgEBd1amZQ

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.

Welcome back to my blog! In this unit we explored how the New World was formed. To begin, we had a short lesson on Beringia and how it helped form what we know as the New World. Beringia was an ancient land bridge from Siberia to Alaska that existed about 20,000 years ago which for us is a long long time ago! So of course, this land bridge no longer exists. Beringia helped form the New World as it created a passage for both animals and people to access a land full of more resources, hence forth known as the human migration from Asia to America.

As time went on, the Norse, Portuguese and Chinese voyaged in search of land and goods. The Norse occupied mainly smaller coastal areas on the Southwestern coast of Greenland. However, settlements in Greenland later declined due to the cooling of climate, threat to agriculture, the trade of the ivory market and finally, many people became victims of one of history’s most deadly deceases, the Black Death! The Portuguese and Chinese, on the other hand, eventually stopped their explorations in the 15th century as both countries had what they needed. The Portuguese, had multiple resources and began to explore the coasts of Africa, and the Chinese had a strong Navy and much wealth.

These people were not the only ones to explore, the Europeans were big on exploration at the time. Their motivation or “means to explore“ was to fill in the blanks of their mental map and to discover the world beyond their home. This was mostly caused by the European’s growing curiosity. At the time, their knowledge of the outside world came from books which were based off of either religion or illogical guesses. Most of that information turned out to be nothing but nonsense.

Shortly after these few classes of introduction, we were assigned an explorer. This was meant to help us learn how he persuaded people to fund his voyage as we would be doing the same at the end of the unit. The explorer I chose was John Cabot, which I later discovered had less than a paragraph written about him on Wikipedia😬! To begin, we read about different things that could have motivated our explorer to go on his voyage. For some, it was the desire to gain wealth, expand their trade or gold supply or even to expand the understanding of Christianity. Which even today is believed to be an act greatly praised by God. We then were asked to write a short paragraph about someone that was motivated to do something. It could have been anyone, but I chose Bethany Hamilton. I mentioned Bethany in one of my previous posts but always seem to come back to her inspirational story as it is very powerful. To learn more about Bethany Hamilton, view my paragraph by click on the image below⤵️ or by simply clicking on the link in her name.

Let’s fast forward this lesson a bit. As time went on, everyone seemed to want a piece of this “New World.” While everything about the Americas was new to the Europeans, from the plants, to animals, to food, this land was however NOT unfamiliar to the aboriginal natives. These people were there long before the Europeans arrived. For a while, the two nationalities were peaceful with each other. Each group trading with each other. The name “Canada” actually comes from an Aboriginal word, “Kanata” which means “village”. The word was, however mistaken by the Europeans for the name of the area and therefore, the land was named Canada.

Talking about trades, the next part of our studies was the Middle Passage. This was the sea route people took to trade slaves from Africa. What was cool about this lesson was that we were reading about it from different points of view. Depending on who you were reading from, the Middle Passage, although filthy and terrible as it was, was presented to us while keeping each person’s individual goals in mind. From the ships captain, he described the job as gross, tiring and frustrating as the slaves kept dying which meant less money for himself. From a slave’s point of view, it described how life would be better dead than alive.

As we shifted gears more towards our final project, we studied comics to prepare for when we would have to create our own comic to help with our final presentation. We were divided into groups. Each group would read a different genre of comic each week and complete a column for each genre. This gave us an idea of how comics are designed such as their use of shading, pictures, bleeds and so on. Click the link below to view our chart!⤵️

Comic Book Comparison Chart-1p9dfro

I wrote my comic based on what I knew about explorer John Cabot. The comic was set in the time estimated when he voyaged as well as keeping in mind the general story on what happened during the voyage. I used the knowledge I had learned on comic layouts and design to create my comic. I then had to add myself into the story, so since girls rarely were on boats as part of the crew at the time, I made myself a stowaway. For more of my story, click on the picture below!⤵️

Adventure Of A Lifetime

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

Finally, it was time to present the big presentation. As I mentioned before, we had to persuade the Queen to fund us for a voyage. I created a PowerPoint and a script that I would read. I also used examples from my past voyage (my comic) to help both visually and persuasively. The following video is of my presentation.

As I wrap this post up and begin preparing for my next, I kind of thought about how people wanted to expand their knowledge which then made curiosity and voyaging part of their worldview! I also thought about how just as the people wanted to expand, I want to try to expand and grow my mindset! That has been one of my many goals this school year. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for reading!

Now that DI is done, we have started a new unit featuring the L.A.U.N.C.H. Cycle. This is a creative process where you brainstorm ideas, ask questions, create a prototype and then test it! This cycle, whether by a different name or a slightly different variation, has been used for pretty much every famous invention. The process uses the acronym L.A.U.N.C.H which makes the cycle easier to remember.

L – Listen, Look, Learn

The cycle begins with the usual brainstorming and learning new ideas and observations.

A – Ask Questions

After you’ve brainstormed, it’s time to get curious and ask questions! Questions could take form as surveys or graphs which aid you with the creation of your prototype.

U – Understand Ideas

Now that you have an idea of what people want or prefer, understand what they want and use the information towards your invention.

N – Navigate Ideas

Turn your ideas and brainstorm towards one main idea that you wish to try! Start to narrow down your ideas and come up with one great prototype.

C – Create a Prototype

Now that you have some final ideas, it’s time to create! Or as Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus would say, take chances, make mistakes and get messy!

H – Highlight and Fix

After testing your prototype, it’s time to fix anything or make changes. Once this is done, the cycle repeats!

This video I’ve attached below further explains the cycle in more detail. ⤵️

For this L.A.U.N.C.H. project, we were put into groups to create a sport using at least four of the following materials:

– A ball

– Five cups

– Two Rackets

– A roll of Ducht Tape

– Balloons

– Some string

With four or more of these materials, my group, Aedan, Fraser, Paisley and I had to create a sport that we would share with the class. To begin this, we brainstormed ideas and did a bit of research on what makes a sport exciting or boring. From this, we did a survey with the entire class to ask questions to get an idea of what our audience wants and prefer. From there, we played with some of the materials to get ideas on what we could do with them. It was then time to gather some main ideas and create a prototype. We decided to use the cups as they were the perfect size to hold the ball. The racket came in handy too to hit the ball longer distances and the ducht tape was great to outline the court. Because we caught the ball with the cup, we decided to name the sport ice cream ball.

Ice cream ball consists of three players per team (not including subs) two of which have cups and one with a racket. This video below has all the rules and explains how to play our sport!⤵️

Now that the actual sport was created, it was time to try it out. Each group had to teach another group how to play the sport. We had a great time sharing, playing and getting to try out new sports. Some of which were really cool!

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Ice cream ball is a fun yet simple sport that you can try with some friends! Give it a try! You’ll love it!

Did you know that light travels in straight lines? Or that it can both refract and reflect depending on the lens or mirror? Light is incredible and can appear to be in many forms. Light is both a partical and a wave. To show this our class did a mirrors lab with partners. Jordyn and I used a ray box and baffle to shine light onto a variety of mirrors such as convex, concave, normal mirrors and even tin foil! Like particles, light bounces off of things and that’s exactly what we proved with the mirrors when the light bounced and reflected off of them! Have you ever been to a wave pool? Well, waves in a wave pool bounce off of the walls surrounding the pool as they form. That is just like light! When we used mirrors to see the light reflect, the particles and waves were really bouncing off of the mirror and because both waves and particles can bounce off of things, that means that light must be made of both waves and particles!

The second lab that we did was to show how light can refract and go through an obese tu such as a lexan block. For this lab, I was grouped with Ben, and the two of us completed the lab sheet together using similar materials and methods as the first lab. To view our lab sheet, click the pictures below! ⤵️

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Physicist Ibn al-Haytham, studied a dark chamber he called a « Albeit Almuzlim » which, in English is translated to camera. He was a Muslim Scholar during the Golden Age. He made significant advances in optics, math and astronomy.  Ibn al-Haytham observed how when light travels through a small hole and in straight lines, it can project an image. This was the beginning of the camera.

Cameras today can capture both real and virtual images. The benefit of a camera and how it can capture images has influenced our understanding on how light can project an image.

As you probably already know, light plays a huge role in our world today. Most of us use it everyday in multiple different ways and forms. Our largest and most important source of light today would be the sun. It gives us both heat and light. Without it, our world would be lifeless. Nothing more than an ice coated rock. Besides just giving light to Earth, the sun generates weather patterns, stirs our atmosphere and gives plants energy. Other, man made lights, do this too. Infact, light has many roles most of which are to help us people for example, lighting up our rooms so we can see at night! Some people might even call light as part of their worldview. 

Light plays a huge role in my worldview. I’m dependent on it so I can see. And not just so I can see in the dark, but in general. See, pupils absorb light (hmmm…maybe that’s why they’re black?) most of which comes from the sun. This allows us to see and form an image kind of like a camera! Well, no light? No image!

After thinking all about how much humans depend on light, it’s time to think about why we are so drawn to it. Is it because it’s bright? Or that it’s fascinating? It turns out that we aren’t actually attracted to the brightness of the light but the changes such as in appearance and movement. Some people nowadays just feel more attracted to light simply because of how it can give warmth and the fact that they can see around it. Some people just feel safer around light and seeing as we humans are all animals, animals have a natural instinct to go towards safety. But studies show that humans are attracted to light when it contrasts with something. People say that when light contrasts, it gives us some sort of visual cue. Perhaps that’s why business ads use contrasting colours to catch attention! Anyways, movements are a sign that something has happened and therefore we are mostly drawn to light, just as we are to ads, out of pure curiosity.

Well, light sure does play a huge role in our everyday lives. Us humans have studied it and have been drawn to it for thousands of years! Light is incredible and can be used in different ways and take place in different forms. It can be a wave, a particle and it can refract and reflect.

I hope you enjoyed my Refracted Reflections post and feel free to leave a comment and check my blog for future posts!