Hello.
For this unit’s main project, we were tasked with making a video about the land impacts our identities and explain this with examples from places on our trip.
We were supposed to have another draft but I didn’t get that done so Ms. Maxwelljust gave me a few tips to make the video.
Here’s my final draft of my video.
https://youtu.be/k38_9mXWsyA
See you soon,
Luciano
Hello there, this is my first grade 9 post. Enjoy.
The first thing we did was to think the question below.
Driving Question: How does land impact our identity?
The diverse geography of the Lower mainland allows so many outdoor activities. This makes for a great number of Lower Mainland residents to be really active. It’s a different lifestyle where you can be outside all year contrary to Inner Canada or Alberta (were I used to live) where for a few months it’s to cold to be outside for too long.
The main project of this part of the unit was to make a video about how land impacts our identity.
We made a video about Deep Cove and identity. By the way, I star in it. In my group were Aedan and Kiera.
https://youtu.be/JbgEBd1amZQ
When you think of “identity” you usually don’t think about how the land around you will impact identity. In this project we realized how important the geography of where you live is in your life and identity.
BYE BYE Now.
Worldview:
With the theme of learning in Grade 8 being Worldview, several of our projects have been about studying our own and other culture’s worldview. It has helped me realize that depending on the group your in, you have to adapt to the environment and try to use everybody’s strengths. Mostly at the end of the year I would try to apply this in group projects. One of the projects in my drama class, where we had to make an advertisement, I applied this knowledge if different people have different strengths. I was the only PLP kid in this group and had the best skills and resources to edit our video so I was mainly assigned to this job. One of my group mates who was quite confident, we tried to put in the most scenes of our video and have him record several lines. Another group member, who left us not even halfway through project but had several ideas when we were brainstorming lead us in that aspect of the project.
Storytelling:
To go along with our focus on still images, we focused a big part of our time on storytelling. Perhaps for me the main project reflecting this was our Middle Ages Unit where we had to create a story about a hero. I find that I don’t like writing stories down on a paper like a book. The use of still images so as to make a quilt or making a tableau, has helped me in interesting me in the projects.
Still Images:
Since our fist project of the year we’ve used still images, we created poster ads for local businesses. I learned how different colours make people feel different emotions and associate them with certain industries.
While working on our worldview/religion unit I learned how to put two or more images together for a different meaning. This process is called juxtaposition on which our class had a contest to make something up.
I learned how powerful still images can be for storytelling or advertising. I think I would be ready to take the next step in Grade 9 where we would focus on videos and moviemaking.
Presentations:
We’ve been working on our presentation skills throughout the year from D.I. and Our explorer presentation to Colonizing in a Tempest and the Exhibitions. I believe that most of my presentations have turned out successful although I had a few scrambles like my explorer presentation were I panicked. I have learned that I sometimes find it easier to wing a presentation but a few times like my explorer one a script or even a small notecard with bullet points makes a big difference.
Well that’s the end of it.
See you next post folks.
Hello again. This post is a bit late, so sorry about that but let’s get on with it. For this Unit we worked and learned about the Renaissance.
We pretty much studied three things that made the Renaissance really important in human history.
The first main part of the unit was focused on how the Renaissance changed ideas, ideals, and principles.
We studied how thinkers were starting to view how far humanity could go if it put its brainpower to it. They were becoming humanists. Humanists were spokesmen for humanism. Humanism is giving humanity top priority before gods or supernatural powers. It centred life around humanity. Ancient Greek philosophers had many of the same ideals. The Renaissane philosophers started studying and praising the Ancient Greek and taking many of their ideas. Many humanists or rebel priests started preaching that the Catholic church was wronging everybody. Back in the day pretty much the whole of Western Europe was Catholic. This where Protestant churches started emerging. The people were getting tired of the Catholic Church especially with more people preaching against them.
The artists were changing. The most famous paintings and statues came from the Renaissance. During this time it became a proffesion with a demand coming from rich families like the Medici or royal families. The elite were taking interest in art, it made them look more educated and rich. Some like the Medici started art schools. Many artist, like Leonardo da Vinci, were to only artist, they were also engineers architects, painters, sculptors, scientists and mathematicians. Some mixed all their talents into on job. Some Kings even would have the artist as their protégé. King Henry of France invited da Vinci to live with him for the rest of his life. Art was also changing. Art from the medieval times was pretty much mostly about religion. It was really two dimensional and didn’t ave much detail. The Renaissance changed that. Art was now about anything and not only the Church and the King. The details of paintings and sculptures was also changing. Paintings were more 3D and the detail was much improved.
Scientists and mathematicians the way we look at life, even if it went against the Church’s teachings. Galileo invented the telescope so we were suddenly able to look at lot further into the sky and we realized many things like some scientists/mathematicians/astronomers were starting to realize that the Sun was actually the centre of the Solar system and not the Earth. The Earth revolved around the sun not the other way around. Many astronomers like Copernicus who mentioned this turning point in astronomy were deeply criticized but the Church who had the people manipulated. Some astronomers were being apprehended and executed. These realization had people starting to doubt the Church.
The printing press is definitely a candidate to most important inventions of humanity along with wheels, spears, cars, boats, and planes. It started spreading across Europe just like the knowledge it brought with it. Before the press people had to hand write books and the only people who were literate were super rich or they were monks. The printing press allowed books to be mass produced. With one press several books could be made every day but it took weeks or even months to hand write books. The value of books went down and now nearly everyone could buy books and not only the rich or just the Church. People everywhere were becoming literate. Knowledge was spreading and schools were becoming more available.
With people who could now read the Church was having a harder time convincing them of thing that weren’t true. With thinkers proving that many of the Church’s teachings were all made up. People could start counting their money and learn more about financial status. The Church that had been taking advantage of people’s illiteracy and some times pretty much stealing their money and possessions couldn’t do that easily any more.
Many ideals and principles have been passed down from the Renaissance into our daily lives of the Western world. We focus more nowadays on ourselves and the people around us than a God or higher power. We believe that we can do many things and we have gone, quite far as to inventing car, planes, being able to explore space, building super tall skyscrapers and making computers. With new jobs emerging in the Renaissance, there are no thousands of jobs you can do. While before the Renaissance there was just a few options. Priest, servant or farmer, and if you got lucky you’d be born into a wealthy family.
Our main project for this unit was an individual one. We had to make a tritych.
Below is my first draft of my tritptych. The feedback that was given to me for this draft was that I had good ideas but it would be better if they could be more connected and intertwined.
Below is my final draft of my triptych.
The panel on the left (Changing ideas) represents doctors sytarted to dig into bodies and discovering things about bodies. I used a dead deer because a dead person didn’t seem right to put into my triptych, it could’ve been quite disturbing for some people. The middle panel (Impact of ideas) represents the initial Roman Catholic Church dividing into many different churches including all the Protestant churches that arose in the Renaissance. The right panel (Spreading ideas) is a woman reading a book with a stack of more books around her. The printing press behind her allowed to make books a lot cheaper and lot faster than handwriting all of them. The number of existing books skyrocketed in the Renaissance when the press was invented. The spread of knowledge led to a more educated public.
There were several interesting things this unit but it wasn’t my favourite for sure. While studying the impact of ideas part of the unit I really saw the connections between this time period and today’s Western culture. This period really has given many principles to today’s society.
Well that just about wraps it up folks. Until next one.
Hello again. Lately we’ve been pounded with blog post assignments. This past unit in Humanities we’ve been learning about the Age of Exploration, so about all the European explorers coming to America.
Now when we think of the American explorers, we think of European explorers like Christopher Columbus or John Cabot. But the truth is that First Nations have been living in America (the continent) for tens of thousands of years in a very similar way throughout time.
We went through several guided notes including one about Beringia, a theory of how the First Nations got to America s at such an early time, before boats were invented. I personally think that First Nations were the first ones in America (continent) but since the European colonizers managed to kill most of the First Nations, they got to decide how they would want history written down.
Since part of our main project was to create a comic book, we had to study some comic books. We studied four types: Tintin, New Age, Superheroes, and Anti-hero. In the groups we had, we would read one type each week and at the end of the week we had a group discussion. At the same time we also filled out a comic comparison chart noting down things we saw under different columns.
My personal favourite was Tintin, it’s bright and vibrant colours are more appealing to me. Also it’s panels are more organized and similar. The other comics had lots of action but they were really dark in humour and in colour. 
Tintin has always been one of my favourite comics except for Astérix and Obélix.
Our main project of the Unit was to make a comic book and a presentation about an explorer form the time and a fictional character we created that was supposed to accompany the famous explorer to his quest and come back.
My group got Spain for explorers we could pick. I decided on Hernán Cortés. We then had to do some research on our explorer.
He was one of the most famous conquistadors ever, he conquered Mexico. He did it in 2 years. From 1519-1521. He was able to wipe out the whole Aztec civilization in 2 years. When he first arrived with his men, the Aztecs wouldn’t let him into their capital. Eventually they mistook him for a returning god and started giving him luxurious gifts and letting him stay at the palace. He would also give their leader Moctezuma gifts but he got paranoid and captured Moctezuma and put him in house arrest.
He had other problems like they guy who initially asked him to go on the conquest, had decided for him not to go and he still did. This guy’s name was Velazquez, the Governor of New Spain. Velasquez was angry about the betrayal and decided to send troops to apprehend Cortes. Cortes was forced to go the coast to defend himself. He left his second-in-command in the Aztec capital with some troops. Many Aztecs had already died of diseases Cortes and his men had brought. But one day, an Aztec festival was taking place and the Spanish men ambushed the unarmed Aztecs and massacred them, few escaped and the ones that did had a high chance of dying of a disease. In the chaos Moctezuma was killed and the Empire fell into the hands of the Spanish.
I decided to name my fictional character Carlos Torres. He was Cortés’ servant in my story. The point of the comic was to pretend like we were that fictional character and on our return of the expedition make a comic book of what happened requested by the royal family.
My comic starts off with Cortés having nightmares of his expedition. My characcter comes in to Cortés’ room when he hears him screaming and then it goes into a flashback of what happened in Mexico. Then at the end, it goes back to Cortés’ room and my character tries to calm him down.
After the comic book request of the royal family, my character is looking for financial backing for an expedition of his own. What better time to do it then when at the royal court in front of the King and Queen of Spain. The presentation had to include a few reasons on why the royal family should sponsor the trip, the success and fame it could bring to them, things my character would do differently than my explorer Cortés, where my character was planning to explore, and what finally what he needed for the expedition.
Below is a video of my presentation.
https://youtu.be/Fhb0kdPJD1A
If you saw the video, you can tell that I was extremely nervous (you’re probably laughing at me). I’m not too sure why because I’m usually good with that type of thing but I kind of broke down.
I learned about Mexico’s history and Hernán Cortés. Throughout the unit we learned about possible ways the First Nations got to North America and about different types of boats different places used. In the middle of the unit we learned about the Middle Passage otherwise known as the slave trade. After that we learned why European countries wanted to expand their territories and their needs.
Anyways that just about wraps it up. See you in the next post.
Hello dear readers. I’m back with another make blog post. This post will be particularly short as we only worked on the past project for two weeks. The project was to team up with a few peers to create a new sport through with guidance of the Launch Cycle.
Now you may ask yourselves what is the Launch cycle. You can watch the video below to help you understand what it is, but I’ll be explaining it as well as what we did to make our sport.
My group members were Anika, Caleb, and Lucy.
The L: Look, listen, and learn
At the start, we started reading about the challenge we were given, how to follow the LAUNCH process and looking at our time and material limits.
The A: Ask tons of questions
Our teacher gave us a booklet to fill out to guide us through the launch process. At the questions part, we started making surveys for our classmates to see if they were athletic, competitive, to see if they liked individual sports or team sports, and things like that. This step was extremely helpful in making a sport. We needed to know what would be successful among our class.
The U: Understand the problem
During this step, we were given the materials to look at them and start thinking about possible ideas. We needed to know what we were dealing with and taking in mind the information we got from our surveys.
The N: Navigate ideas
Our group had come up with many ideas for a sport, but we had to narrow them down. We started taking out ideas that didn’t seem like that much fun, or were too extreme and unlikely that people would succeed in them let alone try them.
The C: Create a prototype
I wasn’t at school when my group went through the majority of this step, but I was there when we were brainstorming ideas and tried to kind of play our game. However when my group made an intructional video of our sport and named it. Below is the link for our intructional video.
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The H: Highlight and fix
While trying out our game, we only had our four group members, and two volunteers from another group. We quickly realized that it wouldn’t have much success if we didn’t have more players. We decided that we needed at least four players per side + the goaltenders (so five aside). When we actually tried it, we had like ten players aside and it was a great as everyone was involved and running around.
LAUNCH:
Finally after all had been done we went out to the school’s parking lot and played our game with our classmates. It ended up 2-2 after the game. Most people said that it was like a mix of handball and basketball.
Click on the link below to watch a time lapse of my group’s game.
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Reflection:
After the two weeks I found the project quite fun and helpful for our next project (soon be making another blog post). The activity we did to follow the Launch Cycle I found was pretty fun and it kept me involved the whole project as well as everybody else in our group. An activity like creating a sport was interesting for me and I would do it again with no problem.
I’m back but this time it’s a science post. As you can probably tell from the title, this past unit we worked on light, mirrors, and lenses. We worked through two labs and learned a bit of history along with it.
Mirrors:
We started off the unit of light with a mirror’s lab. We learned about the different types of mirrors and their uses. Concave mirrors are used to concentrate light and create heat to produce power.
Lenses:
Islamic Golden age:
I want to start off by saying that I think Provincials for D.I. went a lot better than regionals in terms of an environment and fun. But for the presentation I’d say it was pretty similar.
If you haven’t read my previous D.I. Blog post refer to the box below.
My group members where Fraser, Jason, and Kyle.
http://www.blog44.ca/kyled/2018/04/11/di-pt2/
For provincials we had to fix several things from Regionals. Our biggest change was probably making a backdrop instead of using a projector in our presentation. We took a big piece of cardboard and then we covered it with paper. Then Fraser took it home to paint it. We also added some smaller pieces of cardboard painted like a temple and a sign. We tied these with ropes to the backdrop so we could flip them up when needed. The backdrop was painted on both sides, one was the Phobos landscape and the other was the inside of the Temple.
WIth D.I. there were five stages.
Stage 1: Recognize:
We had to recognize our flaws from regionals so we could make better performances in provincials. This included my friend Jason consistently showing his « sexy » back to the audience and not his face. This also included me not talking loud enough and not showing much emotion.
Here is a picture of Jason with his back towards the audience.
Stage 2: Imagine:
We then had to imagine how to solve our problems. Our projector idea from regionals hadn’t worked to well, so we decided to make a solid background. This way it would also be harder for Jason to cover it and make a negative impact. One of our Team choice elements was live music played by Fraser with a cello. In regionals we had lacked the cello so Fraser and I sat down and looked for more spots in the script were the cello could be played.
Stage 3: Initiate and Collaborate
For the third stage, we starte making the backdrop, Jason worked on his back facing the audience, I worked on my expressions and volume, and we snuck in more cello playing into the script.
Stage 4: Assess
To assess we were pretty much already at the school to present so we could only hope everything was ready to go. It turned out pretty great even if all our rehearsals were trash as we were focused more on chilling before our performance. Or at least me.
This is me in our group photo sitting on our sick ride with a VR headset on.
Stage 5: Evaluate and Celebrate
We were the only team in our class to place on the podium. We came third. We made sure to rub it into our classmates. That was pretty great. We thought we had nailed our performance at provincials but the Appraisers clearly didn’t. We significantly improved several aspects in my opinion but the Appraisers were harder on us on some things they didn’t even mention in regionals which to me makes them bad Appraisers just like bad refs in a hockey game. Of coure it’s nearly impossible to have good ones. Unfortunately I do not have my performance on tape nor do my group mates.
This is me and Fraser with our trophy and medals.
These are the Seycove teams in a group picture.
Here’s a picture of our group.
Below is the link to an article released by D.I. that is proving by some psychologist that D.I. is supposed to be making participants more developed in learning. Apparently it makes students more confident, tenacious, and creative. 82% of participants have reported that their teamwork skills have improved. D.I. participants have been able to brainstorm ideas more easily. I find some truth in this article but so far I haven’t enjoyed D.I. or felt like the benefits of D.I. be worth the time spent not enjoying something.
http://www.destinationimagination.org/proven-results/
If I’m forced to I’ll do D.I. again because I was forced to. Otherwise it was an interesting experience but I’m not to interested in doing it again.
That just about wraps it up for this year’s D.I. folks.
Introduction:
Back at it with writing yet another Humanities post. I don’t remember saying this in other posts but I honestly hate writing blog posts but unfortunately (for me) it’s part of the program I’m in. Hopefully it helps me with something further on in my life because I could have been doing something fun instead of writing this. Any ways let’s get back to the main topic for this post: Feudalism and the Dark Ages.
Book of the Lion:
At the start of the unit we were given a book to read. It’s title is: Book of the Lion. The book is based off an adventure of a crusader and his journey to get to the Crusade. Every third of the book we had to complete our role sheet. There’s were three in total. An illustrator role where you would draw something you read in the book. Below is my illustration.
The second role was a connector role where you had to connect some part of the story to a real event, an experience that you’ve had and a movie, book or piece of literature or media. The third role was an investigator. You had to find a word or passage in the book that you were interested in deepening your knowledge in and research it, I researched war hammers. Like the one below.
It wasn’t my favourite book because the start and the end were a little boring but in the middle I was hooked.
Here’s a the cover.
Quilts:
Our main project for the unit was to make quilts with a story tied to them. It was a group project. In my group were Taylor, Anika, and Nik. We had to start off by brainstorming ideas for a story based in Medieval times with two sides to it by having to separate main characters that meet in the story at a certain point in time. Our story was about a Christian man who’s wife got kidnaped and taken to Jerusalem. She escapes her captors and ends up in a farm close to Jerusalem where a Muslim finds her and takes her in. Her husband meanwhile plans a trip to Jerusalem with some hired knights to rescue her. When he stumbles upon the house his wife has been staying at he starts fighting her rescuer thinking he’s her captor. After she tells him to stop and explains what’s happening they al become friends and the Christian man and his wife go back home.
After that we had make designs that would sort of tell the story on a square and piece them together into a quilt. Once they were sown together, we added somethings to spice them up and that was our finished project. Below are pictures of us with the quilt.
Heroes:
To create the story we needed a hero and a villlain. Since we needed a hero we needed to learn about how to create a fictional hero and how stories revolve around the hero. We had to learn about the hero’s journey.
We learned that if you look at any story either from Disney movies or from teenage books, the hero’s journey is always there. The picture above shows the cycle a hero goes through.
They start off in a boring, familiar world. The next step, they discover a person or an object that tells them about an interesting world. At first they don’t want to go because they’re scared that something will happen. Eventually they give in and leave their boring world. On the way to the interesting world they meet a mentor who has gone through a similar journey and will help them along the way. The mentor, then, eventually has to set off and the protagonist is left to make their own friends but at the same time make new enemies. After meeting their allies and friends who will help the protagonist along the way, and their enemies that will try and stop the main character from achieving their goal, they will start approaching their main challenge, where everything starts getting harder and harder. They then finally meet their nemesis or their biggest fear, that they will have to overcome. After beating their biggest enemy, they get the reward. They then have to start going back to their normal world. They come back a different person, usually better and wiser. They then will start their journey all over again.
Percy Jackson was probably my favourite hero as a kid. (Above).
While we were learning about the hero’s journey we found out that the hero’s journey is the same in every story because it makes stories relatable to humans. We go through a hero’s journey every day, wether it be your afraid of heights or it’s a hockey game.
Myths:
During the unit we also learned about myths. Myths are a stories that are based off tradition and come from a truth/fact or they can be completely fictional. Many myths come from religions or are old myths when humans looked for explanations of natural events since they weren’t as technologically nor scientifically advanced as we are today. Below are some famous Ancient Greek myths explaining things or exaggerating a real event.
Well, you have reached the end of this post, so good luck with the ones coming up. See you soon on my next blog post.
We recently had regionals for D.I. We hosted them here at Seycove but many of you are probably wondering what D.I. is. Also, this blog post is just for regionals, the provincials post will come in a month or so.
Explaining D.I.
D.I. is an international school tournament based in the United States. There are different categories and subjects, but all groups have to have 2-7 people. I’ll talk more about my challenge and my group later, but let me explain D.I. to you first. Below is the introductory video for D.I. To me it seems like a cheesy ad but it’s convinced people to join the tournament so it worked.
There are different challenges you can choose from, but all of them have one thing in common, they have to have a story based around what they made. During your performance, the Appraisers, keep track of what you’re doing to give you points afterwards. The Appraisers are almost like judges but at the end they tell you what you did well and celebrate that.
The different challenges for this year were:
Here’s the link for the Destination Imagination website.
Apart from this we also had to do the instant challenge. Instant challenges give the group something to build or act in a span of 5 minutes most of the time. They provide the team with materials like rubber bands or paper clips. They all mostly give you points for your creativity and teamwork and not what you had to build. Unfortunately for whoever is reading this, I’m not allowed to tell you what we do. That’s good for me because I get to write less. Below is the video for it.
My group’s challenge
My team was put into Unlikely Attraction. We were four and I think we had great teamwork. Our team consisted of Fraser, Kyle, Jason, and me. Our challenge was to make an attraction like something you’d find at an amusement park and put it into an unlikely location. After that we had to make a story about our attraction and how it impacts its surroundings. Our team name was the Space Cows.
Below are the links for my team members’ posts.
We originally planned to make a bull ride that we could actually get onto. The fact that we wanted it to be rideable, changed our plans especially because we would need an enormous spring like the ones at playgrounds. Every team in our challenge had a 150$US budget. To buy a spring like the one we wanted, would alone go over-budget. We had to settle with a spaceship that looks like we merged the Millenium Falcon and a rocking chair.
Below are our original plans and drawings for what we were going to make.
This is what our ride looked like during the construction of it.
This is what our ride ended up like.
Our story was probably one of our best parts. We rehearsed so many times as I all other teams did. It’s about two explorers (me and Jason) going to Mars’ moon, Phobos, and discovering an abandoned festival/amusement park.
Below is the video for our performance, it was uploaded to YouTube by Fraser.
Our script was done and shared on Google Docs. Jason mostly wrote it but Kyle, Fraser, and I would contribute ideas and change things to be easier for us to memorize.