It’s that time of year again! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to TPOL’S (Transitional Posts of Learning). They happen once a year, and are in many ways similar to MPOL’S. TPOL’S are the blog posts of all blog posts. They are where I talk and reflect on the whole year. So without further ado;
Destination Imagination
I talked a lot about teamwork in my two Destination Imagination posts this year. That’s because there’s a lot of great things to say about it. One thing i didn’t really talk about was the “leader” of our group. There wasn’t one. We were all leaders in different parts. Some of us were in charge of the script, or the songs. Obviously there was more than just the script and the songs, but I won’t bore you with the whole list. I’d never worked in a group where there’s just one leader before. It’s really nice because you don’t have the pressure of being the leader and making most of the decisions, but you don’t feel like you aren’t contributing enough. I think it also helped that we all got along well. We listened to each other well and didn’t argue about much. We did really well in our performance and in our instant challenge. Our second performance was much better than our first. We listened to what the appraisers said and made a lot of revisions based on the feedback that we got. Since we were willing to listen to the feedback the appraisers had for us, we did much better in provincials. I have learned new ways of working in a team after this project, and i now know how much you can improve if you really listen to feedback.
Cloning
I really enjoyed the cloning project, though it was frustrating at times. I found it cool to learn about cloning plants, because I’m personally interested plants and possibly becoming a landscaper. However, (as usual) there were some problems with my group. Not everyone was carrying their weight. We tried to resolve it within our group multiple times, but the two group members continued to not do any work. Eventually I had to go to mr gross with another group member to address the situation, because we knew we wouldn’t be able to get the project done by the deadline if the other two group members didn’t start pulling their weight. This project demonstrated that I’ve learned to ask for help when it’s needed. I’m glad that we asked for help because I’m happy with the final outcome, and how things were resolved.
Lego
The lego project was another example of challenging group work. There seems to be a lot of that in this program. With this project, I ended up doing the majority of the work. Again, i tried many times to resolve the problem on my own, but (just like with the cloning project) it didn’t work. I could’ve gone to mr gross again, but I knew that I could get the work done in time for the presentation. I also didn’t think that going to mr gross would really work this time. I ended up finishing the project on time, and overall Im happy with the final product. I feel like this is a good example of real life learning that will apply outside the classroom. Sometimes not everyone is going to contribute and you can’t always help that. The difference between the lego project and the cloning project is that I knew that we wouldn’t be able to finish the cloning project in time without help.
Comic book
I enjoyed this project, and learning about the treatment of shell shock. Before this assignment I had heard the words shell shock approximately 2 times. Both in Ottawa. So it’s fair to say that Ilearned a lot from this project. This entire unit was very important because we need to learn about the horrible things that happened in the past so we can learn from them and not treat people that way in the future.
We decided to make a comic book as a class, because our goal was to make World War One easier to understand and more interesting for kids in elementary school. We presented to the 6th and 7th graders at Cove Cliff Elementary. The first and second groups i presented to were genuinely interested in what I was presenting. It was easy and enjoyable to present to them because they wanted to know more and they asked questions. The 3rd (and final) group I presented to had a harder time understanding the topic, so they weren’t as interested in what I was saying. It was difficult to present to them, and it showed me that not everyone learns the same way, and that sometimes you need some background knowledge to enjoy things more. I also learned that it easier to present when your audience is interested in what you’re talking about. I will think about this for future presentations so I can try to get everyone interested.
I learned a lot this year about myself, and others. I made many, many mistakes, but I learned from every mistake I made. As I’m sure you know by now, one of my ongoing goals is to get work in on time. I am slowly getting better at this each term, but I still need to improve. I previously mentioned setting timers for myself, to work for 30 minutes, then take a five minute break. This method has been working well, but recently I changed it a little. Instead of setting the timer for the same duration each time I break the assignment up into smaller chunks, then I give myself a time limit. I just started doing this recently, but so far it has worked.
Our past unit in humanities was World War One. WWI is a huge topic to cover in just three months, but somehow we did it.
War Horse
We started off this unit by reading one of three books; War Horse, Private Peaceful, or Generals Die in Bed. As you can probably tell, I chose war horse. The book is about a horse that was separated from his mother when he was young. Joey (the horse) is bought by a family to be a farm horse. At first joey doesn’t like his new home, because Albert’s father comes home drunk and hurts Joey. However, as time goes on Joey forms a strong bond with Albert, but his happiness doesn’t last long, because Albert’s dad threatens to sell Joey if he doesn’t start ploughing. Albert really doesn’t want to say goodbye to Joey, so he trains him every day until his father will “keep him”, but their family is struggling financially because of Albert’s dad’s drinking problem. So Albert’s dad ends up selling Joey to the army. The rest of the book goes on to talk about Joey in the war. Once we finished this book, we made a book report over spring break. We chose between 5 options for our book report (but we could also come up with our own). I chose the book soundtrack for my book report. The songs I chose were tears in heaven by Eric Clapton, and Wildfire by Michael Murphy.
Ottawa
For this unit we went to Ottawa with ENCOUNTERS WITH CANADA. Our week was based around the battle of Vimy Ridge, but we learned about more than just that. We learned about a lot of different battles within WWI.
Comic book
Once we got back from Ottawa it was time to start on our comic books. Before we started to create them however, we read an online graphic novel called Shattered Ground. Reading it let us see what war was like for the people involved in it, and how much of an emotional toll it took on people. Before we left for ottawa we were told to think of a topic about WWI that we wanted to make our comic on, and I picked shell shock. I picked this because it seemed really interesting when it was brought up, but it was never really properly explained. So I naturally wanted to figure out more about it. EMILY and I were both making our comic about shell shock, so we decided that she would make her comic about the stigma around shell shock, and I would make mine about the treatment. I put a lot of time, and research into this project. I put a lot of work into each draft of my comic book. Since i spent so long researching I didn’t have to change any of my facts which was nice. After everyone was done their comic, we put them all together into a book. You can read my comic below.
Presentation
At the beginning of this project we were told that we were going to be presenting to a group of 7th graders. We made our comic book with the question “how can we tell the story of WWI through visuals and text?” We ended up presenting to a large group of grade 6’s and 7’s. The groups that I presented to were genuinely interested in what I was talking about. It was fun to be able to present to them, and after we even gave them their own copy of the book. This was a really fun way to end off a really fun unit.
Recently we have been learning about Canadian history. We have learned about Upper and Lower Canada, confederation, and everything in between. This of course isn’t the first time we have talked about (Canadian) history. Last year we were taught about New France, and this year we did a huge project on revolutions.
Upper and lower Canada
Canada was very different in the 1820’s. It was split into two groups, Upper and Lower Canada. If you lived in Lower Canada, you were most likely French. If you lived in Upper Canada however, you were most likely English, and of the middle or upper class. Life in upper Canada wasn’t always easy though. Farmland was scarce, and people sometimes had to wait years for a single crop. It was also often quiet, with the only noises being the farm animals, and the weather. In Lower Canada however, there was plenty of good farmland, but a lot of it was owned by English men. Upper Canada wanted more control over Lower Canada, but Lower Canada wanted more freedom. There was a constant struggle with power between the two groups. This only really ended once they joined confederation. Class meant a lot to people back in the 1800’s because the colonizers wanted upper Canada to be an extension of the British empire. So that they could keep their class from when they were in Britain, and continue it when they arrived in Upper Canada.
Confederation
Confederation was basically how Canada was formed. Of course, not every province joined in 1867. Only Ontario(Upper Canada), Quebec (Lower Canada), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined. Some provinces didn’t join until much later however. For example, Nunavut didn’t join until 1999.
The Project
Throughout this whole unit we have been watching heritage minutes. Some of me favourites being Wilder Penfield (burnt toast) and Winnie the Pooh. We watched these to learn about different parts of history, and film techniques used in heritage minutes, because we were going to make one ourselves.
Once we were split into our groups, our first task was to decide what we would make our heritage minute about, based on our categories. My group’s category was art and culture. We decided to make our heritage minute about Emily Stowe. Once we chose our topic, it was time to research. When we researched Emily Stowe, we didn’t just learn about one part of her life. We looked at almost all of it before we decided what part of her life to base our video about.
Once we were done our research, we scripted the video, and made a storyboard. Once we were done researching, scripting, and storyboarding, it was finally time to start filming. Our first draft was….. not great. We had to refill the whole thing for our second draft, but it was definitely worth it. We showed our second draft to another socials class, to get critique. When we showed our second draft to the class, we were actually proud of our work, and only had to fix a few things. Between the second and the third (and final) draft, we definitely didn’t change quite as much. The main thing we did was change the voiceover, and edit a few clips.
For my mPOL I have been reflecting on my experiences in PLP and thinking about what I do well and how I can continue to improve as a learner. In my mPOL I will be talking about my PLP experiences, and it would be impossible to talk about my learning in PLP without talking about my struggle to complete work on time. I am also going to talk about what I do well.
Group Work
I feel that my strongest skill as a PLP student is my ability to work in a group. I am comfortable acting as a leader in a group but I am also okay with letting others take the lead, as long as they are being respectful and are making sure that everyone’s voice is being heard. If someone in the group is being unfair, I speak up about it. I always do my best to take on a fair share of the work and take on extra when there is a need. I get my group work done on time as I don’t want to let anyone down. Sometimes I have to stay up late to get the work done, for example, the work at the beginning of metaphor machines. Or for my Star Wars project.
Of course, some group work has gone better than others. In the beginning of metaphor machines, I was frustrated by other group members who were not doing any work. I tried to get them to help, but they seemed reluctant . I decided that I wouldn’t force them to work, because I didn’t want them to think I was going to boss them around for the whole project. Eventually, as the project went on, the others started doing their share of the work, but by the end some people had still done more work than others.
Scimathics
I recently was told to not work too far ahead in math which is funny since I am always behind in my other subjects. I find both math and science easy and because I can stay on top of my work it doesn’t cause me any stress. I help my friends whenever they need it, especially in math. The math card game took me a bit longer to complete because I was putting a lot of work into the art involved. I was able to make some changes to my original plan when I was running out of time which worked out well because I was still happy with the end result even though I made some compromises.
French
French may not be part of PLP, but it is a part of my learning experience so I am going to talk about it as well. I am doing French online, but I started it three and a half months late as I was using my spare block to catch up on PLP work. I am happy to say that I have completely caught up on my french in one month. I find French really easy, so I can do it quickly once I get started, but I sometimes have a hard time motivating myself to get to work.
Humanities and Maker
This is definitely where I struggle the most.
I have trouble getting motivated with some of my work, which makes it hard to get started on it, especially if it is a big assignment. One example of this is my two revolution blog posts that I didn’t complete. At the time I was behind on the rest of my work, and I was still doing most of the work for my metaphor machine group, so writing two blog posts seemed like a lot of work. My Star Wars exhibition turned out well, and one of the reasons for that is that I was motivated to get it done on time, because I knew that I would have to present it to people no matter what I had. I wanted to be proud of the work I was presenting, so I worked hard(er) to produce high quality work. The exhibition blog post however, was late. A lot of people who handed the post in before me worked on it over Christmas break, but I needed to use that time to catch up on French.
Progressing forward
Moving forward, there are definitely things that I want to continue to work on. One thing I want to work on is becoming more motivated, especially on big projects that seem overwhelming. If it involves other people, I get the work done quicker, but if I am working on my own I am often less motivated to get the work done right away. For example, I was motivated to work on my Star Wars exhibition, because I knew other people would be looking at it. Or how I prioritize my group work, because I know how frustrating it is when someone hasn’t done their part of the work. Another thing I want to work on is being more comfortable speaking up to my peers about my problems with the group without worrying that I sound bossy. This is something that will just have to come from practice, and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.
In December, we had our mini exhibition. Last year our theme was the environment, but this year our theme was Star Wars. So naturally, every Friday leading up to the exhibition we watched all the movies, so everyone who hadn’t seen them before could watch them.
Creating an inquiry
Just like the winter exhibition and the blue sky exhibition, the Star Wars exhibition was based around an inquiry based question. This was difficult to do, because before there exhibition I had only watched three of the Star Wars movies. After brainstorming as many questions as I could, I chose my top three, followed by my favourite. Once I got my question approved, it was time to start my research.
How does the power of belief affect your ability to perform a task?
You may be wondering how this question relates to Star Wars. It’s actually linked to the force, and how you have to believe in yourself in order to use it. This question wasn’t exactly a yes or no answer, because most of the time believing in yourself does help accomplish a task, but not always. Sometimes you will fail.
Research
When it came to researching my question, it would be pretty hard to just get all my information off of websites. So I interviewed my hairdresser who used to be a Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN), so she knows about what I was researching. I emailed her dome questions, and this was her response:
Can you tell me a bit about the job you had when you were helping others, and some of your experiences?
The job I had that helped others was as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN). I provided support in community settings for adults living with mental illness. I was responsible for managing their medications, counselling them, communicating with their doctors and psychiatrists about their health and encouraging their independence with their daily living. I worked specifically with people who had bipolar mood disorder and schizophrenia and I was there to support them and keep them stable. Sometimes, their illness would effect them acutely and they would be in a crisis state and would then need to be admitted to the hospital.
What are some things someone could do to turn their “negative thinking” into “positive thinking” Turning negative thinking into positive thinking can be tough when your beliefs are deeply ingrained. It is easy to feel powerless when in a negative mindset. Journaling can help you recognize what thoughts you are telling yourself which contribute to your own mood. One way to empower yourself is with thought replacement. The idea is to write down your negative thought, followed by the feeling this thought leaves you with (ie: “I am a failure because I didn’t pass my test. I might as well give up in this course now.” Feelings: Defeated, depressed, like a failure, sad, hopeless, disappointed). Then write down a replacement thought that is reality based and the feeling this leaves you with (ie: “I can get my mark up by hiring a tutor to help me study for the next test and I will pass the course.” Feelings: empowered, hopeful, relieved). Realizing that you have a choice to remain negative and defeated or empower yourself to be positive and feel better are motivating reasons to do the work behind this thought replacement training.
Does believing in yourself impact your performance on a certain task?
Believing in yourself greatly impacts the outcome of your performance. We are always telling ourselves messages that effect our confidence. If we tell ourself that we will fail at something, we will become anxious and fearful. This negative state sabotages our performance. If we expect to fail, we surrender control and confidence and run the risk of fulfilling our beliefs.
On the other side, if we set our expectation to succeed at something, and we truly believe that we will, the determination and resilience to persevere through the process will set us up for a positive outcome.
Groups
Just like past exhibitions, we were split into groups for presenting our projects. This year we were split between the light side and the dark side. I was on the light side because my inquiry question was about the force. The light side had 20 people, grade 8 and 9. The light side had the PLP room to set up our projects and decorate. Within main group (the light side) we had 3 different subgroups; environment/science, (movie) tech, and philosophical. We based the placings off of inquiry questions. I was in the philosophy subgroup along with 7 other people. environment/science Jessie Melika Kailey Alivia Gabbie
Fraser Jordyn (movie) tech Owen Isabelle H Robin Sam Isabelle L
Kiera philosophical Kai Logan Emily Tamara
Emerson Luciano Grace
We decided that we would decorate the room as the rebel base on Hoth. The tech and philosophy subgroups were inside the rebel base, and the science group was outside the base. We separated each section with blankets, so it was easier to tell where each section started/ended. We also had an “Admiral snack bar” with different food and drinks, like Jedi juice and princess lays. For audience engagement we decided to put on a short skit every 15 minutes, and we also had a pin the lightsaber on yoga station. I was in the skit from the beginning of “A New Hope” because I was dressed as Princess Leia. We tried improv, but it didn’t work, so we just stuck to the scripted skits.
Creating
Of course, I couldn’t just stand in front of a table and talk about the research that I did. That would be pretty boring, and whenever I left my station (to do my skit or to help with pin the lightsaber on Yoda) there would be nothing for people to look at. So I decided to make a poster board and a box with a rock on top, (I’ll explain more about that later). The poster board was mostly so people could know what my project was about while I wasn’t there. I also had a “guessing game” on one side of my poster board, where you would read the description, then guess who it was about. When I was finished gluing stuff to my poster board I decided that it didn’t look like I wanted to. So I decided to paint stars on it, using white paint. The other display that I made was a cardboard box with a rock on top of it. The rock had a magnet on the bottom of it so I could move it with another magnet attached to a stick inside the box. I used this as a way to “demonstrate the force” to my audience. When I made this box I decided to use one of the lava rocks from Iceland, because they resemble “space rocks”. I added a white tablecloth to the box to give it a more finished look, and I added “The Force” to the front of the box with stickers.
The exhibition
At the exhibition we (the light side) decided to dress up. I dressed up as Princess Leia, mostly because my friends wanted me to do my hair in the famous Princess Leia buns, but partially because it was actually related to my project. I linked it to the fact that Leia couldn’t use the force until she believed in herself.
Overall the exhibition was really fun. It also went by a lot faster than the past two exhibitions. I presented to a wide range of people, but my favourite people to present to were the little kids who loved it when they got to “use the force”.
What I would do differently next time
Next time I would either make a better poster board, or not make one at all. My poster board was pretty boring to look at because there weren’t any photos on it. I would also spend less time researching, and more time building.
As you may or may not know, recently in class we have been working on a project called metaphor machines. For this project, each group was given a different revolution to study. Our group studied the Haitian revolution. We spent some time researching our revolutions, and once we were familiar with our revolution, we started to plan out our machine. The type of machine that we all created, was a Rube Goldberg machine. Our machine also had to have a steampunk ascetic, to tie it into the book that we read, called Leviathan.
We split up our revolution into six main events to represent in our machine. After that, we created metaphors for each of the six stages. We then planned it out, and started to build.
Before we started making our machines, we studied Crane Brinton’s theory about the four stages of a revolution.
Once we finished our machine, we made a video, about our machine, and our revolution.
The Haitian revolution
Stage one This revolution started because the slaves were being mistreated. Not only did they work in the blazing heat for long hours without many breaks, but they were often whipped and beat by their owners. After years of mistreatment, they eventually realized that they could fight back. Once this was realized, word spread quickly among the slaves, and eventually thousands of slaves attended a ceremony, and planned an uprising. Later that night they killed masters, and plunged the state into war. Within the next ten days, the slaves had gained control of the northern province. Just one month into the war, over 100,000 slaved joined the fight.
Stage two
In 1793 approximately 600 British soldiers invaded Santo Domingo in an attempt to prevent the slaves’ revolt. Eventually, on January 1st 1804, the British surrendered, and Dessalines proclaimed Saint Domingue to be the second independent state of the Americas, under the name of Haiti.
Stage three
Slavery in all french colonies was put to an abrupt end in 1794 by the government in an attempt to prevent military disaster. At this time, black men were given civil and political rights.
Stage four
The war of knives lasted from June of 1799 to 1800, between Toussaint Louverture (the leader of the Haitian revolution) and André Rigaud (a free coloured person of mixed race who controlled the south.) they fought for control of Saint Domingue during the war. Eventually Toussaint won, and took control of Saint Domingue, resulting in André Rigaud fleeing the country.
Stage five
Toussaint was the leader of the slave rebellion in 1791. Throughout his years in power he worked to improve the economy and security of Saint Domingue. He restored the plantation system, this time paying the workers. He negotiated trade treaties with the UK and the US and maintained a large army.
Stage six
On 1 January 1804 Dessalines proclaimed the colony of Saint-Domingue to be the second independent state in the Americas, under the name of Haiti
Creating the machine
Before we started building, we planned out our machine on sketches pro so we knew what supplies we needed in order to build our machine. Once we finished the blueprint on our iPads, we got a piece of paper to do a full sized sketch. After our full sized sketch was done, we got to start working on our machine. First we spray painted our board with a faulty can of spray paint, to give it a steampunk ascetic. Then we started to build, going in order according to our blueprint. We ran into many many problems when we were creating our machine. Most of the problems we had were involving the circuits or the tracks. Almost everything on our machine broke at least once (not including the deconstruction). We also had the most crowded board out of all of the groups. Everything on our machine worked separately, but we couldn’t get our machine to do a full run through.
Scimathics
This project was about 50/50 between humanities and scimathics. In humanities we learned about the revolutions, and Crane Brinton’s theory, and in scimathics we learned about circuits, and we built the machine. When we were in scimathics we mainly worked on our machines, but before we started building we had multiple labs to learn about series and parallel circuits. We were also taught the symbols for different things in circuits (like batteries, wires, switches, etc) so we could properly draw circuit diagrams on our rough sketch, full sized sketch, and final blueprint.
Group work
Most of my group worked really well together. We all had different strengths, so that worked well. We had some struggles with work distribution at the beginning of the project, but once we got further along with the project the work became more evenly distributed. At the start of the project I was doing more work in humanities, and less work in science, but as I’ve already said, it didn’t stay like that for long.
My group: Luca Logan Daniel
What I would do differently next time
The first thing that comes to my mind is the machine itself. The design of the machine was very flawed, especially the three tracks at the start. The timing didn’t work out at all how we planned it, so I would definitely put more thought into the machine before actually starting to construct it. The other thing I would’ve done differently, is I would’ve tried to get the rest of my group to do more work at the beginning of the project.
A Frankenstuffie is an animal that has adapted to its surroundings. For this project we were each given a region of Canada to base our story around (setting, and animal(s)). My group’s region was the Canadian Shield. The Canadian Shield covers over 50% of Canada, so we had a wide range of animals to work with.
What is project Frankenstuffie?
The project was split into four main parts, learning about the regions of canada, writing our logs/diary entries, writing our script, and making our videos.
Part one This was the very beginning of the project, where we were learning a bit about each region of canada, so we could later choose which region we wanted our project to be based around.
There was originally some confusion with the groups, because we thought it was a group project (a group of four people working on the same story), but we later found out that the groups were only for peer critique/editing.
Part two This was split up into two mini parts: log entries 1, 2, & 3, and log entries 4, 5, & 6. All of the log entries were from the perspective of the main character. They were meant to be like a kind of diary(/personal log) Lets start with 1, 2, & 3, these entries were mainly about getting to know the main character, and their surroundings. The first three entries, are the days (or months) leading up to the climax. There’s also some foreshadowing included in the first three log entries. Episodes 4, 5, & 6 are about the climax, and what happens afterwards. These entries are about a change that happened in one of the matter cycles, and a change (or multiple changes) that happened to your animal because of that change in the matter cycle (eg, growing moose antlers). The last three entries (4, 5, & 6) also talked about the other animals and how they were adapting to the changes. We also revised each entry.
Part 3
I found writing the script easier than writing the log entries, because I wasn’t having to come up with a story. I was just converting a story written in first person, to a narrative script (for a video). However, it was still a time consuming process. The script writing was also broken up into two mini parts: converting entries 1, 2, & 3 into a script, and then converting entries 4, 5, & 6 into a script. As I was changing the stories, I noticed that I was changing small parts of the story/taking out the unnecessary bits of the story.
Part 4 The last part of this project definitely took the longest, because our last step was to make our story into a video. Luckily, we were given time to write (and revise) a script beforehand, so this step was much easier. Making the video was split into three parts this time. The first thing that we had to do, before we even started to film was make a storyboard for our video, and get it approved. Once the storyboard for our entire video was done, we were able to start filming the first half of our video (that was episodes 1, 2, & 3). The storyboard helped with this, because I didn’t have to spend as much time thinking about each scene, what angle the camera would be at, etc. We then revised the first half of the video. Once we were done the first half of the video, we made the second half (episodes 4, 5, & 6). Then, of course we revised the second half of the video.
The video
Now I’ll talk about the creation of the video. I started off making the video using a green screen, because we have/had one in the classroom. I ended up using explain everything as well.
Green screen vs explain everything
Using the green screen was difficult at times, because it was hard to get the stuffie in the right place. While filming, I used do ink The green screen was crowded at times, because there were multiple people using it at once. The other downside to using the green screen was that you usually had to get someone else to hold your iPad (Tamara held mine for me) and film while you moved your stuffie across the screen. Once we were done filming one of my scenes, we would switch, and I would hold Tamara’s iPad while she moved her stuffie across the screen. This ended up taking too long, so I switched to using explain everything. Using explain everything was easier. The only downside to switching to explain everything halfway through, was that it looks different from a green screen. Other than the difference in styles, overall I’m pretty happy with how the visuals of my video turned out.
What I would do differently next time
The fist thing that comes to mind when I think about this is the voiceovers. I think I would have benefited from having someone else voice my characters, so the video is less confusing to the viewer. This would’ve also saved me time, because I wouldn’t have to record as much audio.
Another thing that comes to mind is the log entries. I wouldn’t have fallen as far behind in this project if I hadn’t spent so much time trying to make the entries perfect. I also could have been more organized, especially with the filming, because I would spend too much time looking for a photo to use as my background, I wouldn’t have much class time to film.
There are many things that I still haven’t said about what I would do differently, but that list is long enough to make a blog post of its own.
Hi, I’m back. And I already have things to write about for my blog.
A few weeks we (the class), went on a field trip to Calgary Alberta, and I’m going to tell you all about it.
Why we went
One of the main reasons that we went to Calgary, was to go to beakerhead. Beakerhead is an interactive mash up of science math and art. There are multiple exhibits, for you to visit and explore.
Beakerhead was only one day though, we went on a seven day trip. So, what did we do for the other six days you ask, and I’m here to tell you. We drove. It was a lot of driving, but other than that, we did a lot of fun things.
Videos
This year our theme is finding and telling stories, in the form of videos. So on this trip, we had a lot of videos to make, as I go through, talking about different parts of the trip, I will talk about the different videos that we made.
The last spike at Craigellachie
This was our first stop of our entire trip (unless you count lunch). The last spike, is where the last spike was driven in 1885, completing the Canadian pacific railway. We posed with the famous driving the last spike photo *to the left* multiple times. When we were there, we actually tot to see a train go by, (on the train tracks, obviously).
Three Valley Gap Heritage Ghost Town
This was our first stop where we got to make a video. We were told about this video a few days before we left, so we had time to prepare. We were told that we were going to a ghost town and that we would be making a fictional video there. We were split into group of 5 and 4, and got to work. My group decided to make it a horror/mystery film, about the ghost of the old train man. You can watch the video below.
We could’ve done better, but we planned on having two hours to film and edit, however, we were running behind that day, so we only got one hour. We also could’ve planned ahead better, but overall I’m pretty happy with how our video turned out. Our group worked well together. Even under the time constraints, there was practically no yelling at each other!
This was my favourite stop of the entire trip for multiple reasons.
First we ate our lunch (along with a very yummy brownie). Then once we were done our lunch, we went over to the wolves to learn about why they were there and a bit more about their lives. We got the wolves to howl by howling ourselves, then stopped so we could listen to the wolves. Once they were done their ‘song’, we got to meet one of the wolves and pet them! Before we did that we posed for a photo with the wolf, he was on a leash so he would stay still. So as we arranged ourselves into “photo formation”, I tried to make sure that I was in the front, so I could be closer to the wolf. What I didn’t expect, was that I’d be holding the wolf! I mean, yeah, it was on a leash, but still. I got to hold a wolf, and it almost sat on me a few times. He also licked Kailey’s face, a couple times, I’m sure you can read more about that on her blog. Kailey’s blog
Drumheller
We spent all day at Drumheller (minus the driving and eating). While we were there we did a lot of cool things, but the main thing I’m going to talk about is the video that we made when we were there. Unlike the ghost town video, we did not know about this assignment beforehand. It was a surprise assignment, in other words, we were only told about it when we were at Drumheller. Once the teachers were done explaining what we had to do, we got to work. We had already been through the museum, so we didn’t have to spend all of our time looking through it to see what we wanted to make our video on. For the video, our instructions were to find a dinosaur in the museum, and make a one minute video about its story. I chose to make my video about the Regaliceratops. You can watch it here:
Now I’ll tell you about beakerhead, the main reason we came here. Surprisingly enough, beakerhead only took up one day of our trip. One very long, tiring and exciting day, but still only one day. I’m not going to talk about the whole day, because that would probably be long enough to be a post of its own. I’m just going to talk about the highlights. My favourite parts of the day were both after dinner. The first thing I’m going to talk about is the serpent mother. We technically saw the serpent mother earlier in the day, but it was a lot cooler at night. We went back at 9:00 (pm) to see the serpent mother on fire. It was on purpose of course. It was really cool, figuratively speaking of course, it was actually very warm there which was nice, because we were all cold by that point. After about 15 minutes of us just standing around looking at the art, they decided to “activate the egg”. We had to move away from the serpent mother, for safety reasons. Once everyone was a safe distance away from the egg, it opened up. After about one minute of workers setting everything up, and making sure nothing would go wrong, they backed up and *POOF*. The egg shot colourful fire up into the air. Everyone was instantly warmed from this sudden burst of flames. It shot fire for quite a while before we had to go, but it was nice while it lasted. The egg shot up pink and green coloured fire. Once we all got back on the bus we headed to my second favourite stop. It wasn’t necessarily what we did when we were there, but that was fun too. It was what we saw. We were all taking a quick break down by the river, in our groups of friends, when Kailey noticed something that looked like a plant, moving up the river, against the current. TAMARA KAILEY EMILY JAMIE and I were all looking at it, when it just poked it’s head above the water. That moving plant thing was actually a beaver carrying branches back to his dam. Now that his head was above water, the branches looked more like a cape. He also looked very happy. That beaver definitely made my day, and now I can officially say that I’ve seen a live beaver in person.
Lake Minnewanka
When we stopped here, the first thing I did was feel the temperature of the water, because we were told that it was one of the coldest lakes in Canada. It was very cold. Once we were done admiring the lake from the shore, we went over to the tour boat and, yep you guessed it, went on a boat tour. While we were on the tour, we learned a lot of different facts about the animals around the lake and its history. We learned about how the lake was a lot smaller before, and there used to be a town, but now it’s underneath the lake. We learned about the story of the lake monster that parents would tell their kids, to make sure that they wouldn’t go into the lake. They told their kids this story, because if they went into the lake they could get frostbite, because that lake is and was so cold. We also learned about the *slightly disgusting* way that they collected their data on approximately how many berries the bears by the lake eat. Basically, a group of students went out to collect bear… waste, and took it back to the lab. The point of this was so they count the number of seeds that they found in it, because that was the only part of the berry that didn’t digest in the bear’s digestion system, and (as I’ve already said) they wanted to know how many berries on average a bear ate each day. On the cruise we also got to see a bald eagle. Fun fact, there are more bald eagles in Canada then in America, but there are more Canadian geese in America then in Canada. Our tour guide told us that when we were looking at the eagle. There were lots of fun stories with this lake, if I were to ever go back to Calgary, I would definitely come back to Lake Minnewanka, and see how the stories have changed, and if there are any new ones.
Lake Louise
At this stop I made another video! What a shock. Unlike the other videos I’ve talked about, this was not a stop where the entire class made a video. Only three people, including myself, made a video here. This time, we didn’t have specific guidelines on what we were doing for the video, we were just told to tell a story about the place. Everyone chose a place to make a video about. I didn’t actually choose Lake Louise, I chose Johnston canyon, but we didn’t have time to go there that day, so I had to make my video on Lake Louise instead, without any previous research. But I think my video turned out pretty well, even without research beforehand.
This is the last stop I’m going to talk about. The enchanted forest was on our last day, and it was another video stop! This was the last place in Calgary where the entire class made a video. This video was also a surprise. So we had to think on the spot. Our challenge was to find a place in the enchanted forest, and make a video, we could put a spin a classic fairytale, or just create our own. My group decided to create our own fairytale, using the castle as our main setting. The video definitely could’ve used a better ending, and we probably could’ve normalized the audio better. Overall, I would say it definitely isn’t the best video I’ve ever made, but I wouldn’t say that it’s the worst.
This trip was really fun, and it was an awesome way to start off the year. I enjoyed every day of the trip (even when I was sick) because of all the fun things we did. It was a wide range of activities, which was nice, because if you didn’t like what we were doing, it would change pretty soon anyway. I would definitely come back to Calgary again if I was given the chance. It was a good chance to get to know some of my friends better, and I feel like I’m a lot closer to some people then I was before.
Winter exhibition I know I talked about the mini winter exhibition in my last SLC, but this time I want to talk about a different part of it. For the exhibition I was the DRI of my group. This meant I was in charge of keeping my group organized, and going to the teacher whenever we had a question, request etc. To be honest, I don’t know why I signed myself up for this position in the first place, if I can barely keep myself organized. Our group had *some* difficulties with agreeing on stuff, and actually COMMUNICATING. But other than that it was fiiiinne I definitely learned about leadership skills during that *fun* time. I think it was worth it, but I wouldn’t exactly want to do it again. Even though I will probably have to.
Oregon Oregon, like many other things this year has taught me more than I thought it would. You know, I’m starting to see a pattern with our work. It taught me about being responsible for my things. Girl Guides HAS taught me about this, but not as much as Oregon has. With Guides I’m only really responsible for my clothes, sleeping bag etc. With Oregon however, I was in charge of my passport (only for short amounts of time luckily), and I was in charge of money, and how I spent it. I also had to keep track of my iPad and Apple Pencil. Oregon also helped me become a lot closer to my friends.
DI
Destination Imagination was… fun? I don’t know how to describe my experience with DI, we (my team and I) definitely experienced some challenges along the way. Most if which I explain in my DI BLOG POST. If I were to quickly sum it up though, I would have to say the main problem was the work distribution. I’m not going to mention any names, because that’s not important. Some people did more work than others, and some people put in more effort and energy. DI taught me to see things from different perspectives, I’m not just talking about the main challenge when I say this. I’m talking about the main challenge, the instant challenge, and seeing the problem of work distribution from different angles.
Math
Math is a subject that comes somewhat easily to me. So far anyway. Since it doesn’t usually take me long to pick up on how to do something in math, I usually help others. This sometimes means that I don’t finish all the textbook work, but that’s mainly so we get the idea. I actually enjoy helping people with math, which might come as a surprise to some. I think it mainly comes from my nature of wanting to help people
Notebook/sales pitch
I think the notebook and sales pitch taught me more about group work than it taught me about actual history, and how to pitch an idea to someone. It taught me about how to deal with *difficult* group members, and people in general. It taught me to pick my fights. But most importantly, it taught me to stick up for my friends, and for myself.
Science paints
I haven’t presented this project yet, so I can’t exactly tell you how it went. However, I can tell you about the slightly disgusting process. First we ground up some different coloured pigments. That was the fun part. We ground up Verdigris, Oak gal Ink, Red ochre, Charcoal, and Violet. That’s not the part I’m going to tell you about though. I’m going to tell you about our “fun” experience with making the pigments into paint. The less disgusting way of making them was to mix an egg yolk with the pigment, then slowly add water. This way was fun, because it didn’t smell like fish eggs. The second way of making these pigments was to grind up fish eggs with our saliva. It made the entire classroom smell like “soft but satisfying” salmon eggs. It also made our hands smell like eggs.
Areas for further improvement I can definitely improve on many things. For example handing my work in on time, staying on task, not being a complete perfectionist when it comes to my school work. Last time, I focused on being a perfectionist. I haven’t accomplished much on this because, like I mentioned before, this will take quite a while to accomplish. I plan to be better at this by the end of next year. I will also work on balancing my work time with my spare time. I have already been working on this by setting a timer to work for 20 minutes, then taking a 5 minute break.
Biggest accomplishment?
If I had to choose my biggest accomplishment this year I don’t know what I would choose. There’s all of the in school awards, like my seyhawk award, or my outstanding grade 8 instrumentalist, or my trophy, medal and ribbons from DI. There’s also my outside of school awards and accomplishments, like my medal from my first ever tap competition, getting into pre-TapCo, doing a front tuck in trampoline, and. Then there’s my in school accomplishments. This includes coming to PLP, being a DRI of my group for the winter exhibition, becoming a mini teacher in math, and making all of my amazing friends here.
A few weeks ago in humanities we started a unit called this changes everything. It was about how advancements in technology create tension. So of course, we did, not one, but two projets with this unit.
Before the project
Of course, before we did our project(s), we needed some background knowledge. We learned about multiple things and people. First we learned about the red Fs of feudalism, fealty, fief and faith. When we learned about the three Fs of feaudalism, we were put into groups, and made a keynote (slideshow) about it. Once we were done that, we learned about how “back in the day”👴🏼 If you thought differently from everyone else, or if you were creative, you were considered an outcast.
During the first project
In order to be sorted into the groups that we would be in for the next two projects, we made a list of our top three topics that we wanted to focus on. Next class we were sorted into our groups, I was in a group with Tamara, Sofia and Emily. Our group was focusing on weapons. The first project was to make a book about your topic. Obviously weapons would be too big of a topic to cover in about 8 pages, so we had to narrow our focus, and make a question to answer throughout the hole book. Our question that we made was “how has the evolution of portable gear and weapons affected law enforcement?”. All of us got two pages to write about our question in a certain time period. Sofia worked on the Middle Ages, I worked on the renaissance, Tamara worked on the technical revolution, and Emily worked on modern day. We each chose 2-3 weapons to research/write about that we thought had made an impact on people’s lives.
Drafting the notebook
Our first draft looked like four different books put together. I think that was mostly because we couldn’t come to an agreement on if we would have our text on top of, or beside our photos. Eventually we came to an agreement that our pages that were specifically about our time era would be text beside photos, and all of the other pages would be text on top of photos. Overall our first draft was a bit of a mess. It got a lot better after we got feedback on it though. It started to look like an actual book, nit just a bunch of random pages SLAPPED together. We were continuously working on the book, making small changes along the way, so we didn’t have to do as much work all at once.
The Sales Pitch
The second part of this project was to make a sales pitch. Basically, we had to come up with a revolutionary invention in the field we were studying. My group invented a weapon, the transportation group made a new way to transport people/things etc. My group decided to essentially make a bomb that would shut off the electricity in the area it was set off. Our invention is basically an EMP that lasts longer, and has a wider range. We also “designed” small attachments that you could clip onto any device, to ensure that it would not be affected by the C4-E Alpha (our invention).
Presenting
Originally we were going to present outpr final draft of our sales pitch to people from Apple, and people from the school board. Then we (the teachers) realized that it would take too long, and it just wouldn’t work. So instead of that, we were at a table with some other people talking about different aspects of PLP. Not everyone was able to come, because it was during a different class. Most people from band didn’t go because we had cabaret the next day (which was fun by the way). I wouldn’t know much about what happened because I wasn’t there presenting. This was because I was in band, and (like I mentioned before) I couldn’t go. No one in my group ended up going, because Emily Tamara and I were in band, and Sofia wasn’t there the day we signed up. This meant that after all of our hard work, we weren’t able to present our final draft to anyone other than our class. I don’t think that any of us minded that much though, so that was good.
I talked a lot about teamwork in my two Destination Imagination posts this year. That’s because there’s a lot of great things to say about it. One thing i didn’t really talk about was the “leader” of our group. There wasn’t one. We were all leaders in different parts. Some of us were in charge of the script, or the songs. Obviously there was more than just the script and the songs, but I won’t bore you with the whole list. I’d never worked in a group where there’s just one leader before. It’s really nice because you don’t have the pressure of being the leader and making most of the decisions, but you don’t feel like you aren’t contributing enough. I think it also helped that we all got along well. We listened to each other well and didn’t argue about much. We did really well in our performance and in our instant challenge. Our second performance was much better than our first. We listened to what the appraisers said and made a lot of revisions based on the feedback that we got. Since we were willing to listen to the feedback the appraisers had for us, we did much better in provincials. I have learned new ways of working in a team after this project, and i now know how much you can improve if you really listen to feedback.
I really enjoyed the cloning project, though it was frustrating at times. I found it cool to learn about cloning plants, because I’m personally interested plants and possibly becoming a landscaper. However, (as usual) there were some problems with my group. Not everyone was carrying their weight. We tried to resolve it within our group multiple times, but the two group members continued to not do any work. Eventually I had to go to mr gross with another group member to address the situation, because we knew we wouldn’t be able to get the project done by the deadline if the other two group members didn’t start pulling their weight. This project demonstrated that I’ve learned to ask for help when it’s needed. I’m glad that we asked for help because I’m happy with the final outcome, and how things were resolved. 
The lego project was another example of challenging group work. There seems to be a lot of that in this program. With this project, I ended up doing the majority of the work. Again, i tried many times to resolve the problem on my own, but (just like with the cloning project) it didn’t work. I could’ve gone to mr gross again, but I knew that I could get the work done in time for the presentation. I also didn’t think that going to mr gross would really work this time. I ended up finishing the project on time, and overall Im happy with the final product. I feel like this is a good example of real life learning that will apply outside the classroom. Sometimes not everyone is going to contribute and you can’t always help that. The difference between the lego project and the cloning project is that I knew that we wouldn’t be able to finish the cloning project in time without help. 
I enjoyed this project, and learning about the treatment of shell shock. Before this assignment I had heard the words shell shock approximately 2 times. Both in Ottawa. So it’s fair to say that I learned a lot from this project. This entire unit was very important because we need to learn about the horrible things that happened in the past so we can learn from them and not treat people that way in the future. 
We presented to the 6th and 7th graders at Cove Cliff Elementary. The first and second groups i presented to were genuinely interested in what I was presenting. It was easy and enjoyable to present to them because they wanted to know more and they asked questions. The 3rd (and final) group I presented to had a harder time understanding the topic, so they weren’t as interested in what I was saying. It was difficult to present to them, and it showed me that not everyone learns the same way, and that sometimes you need some background knowledge to enjoy things more. I also learned that it easier to present when your audience is interested in what you’re talking about. I will think about this for future presentations so I can try to get everyone interested. 
