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.
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.
Wednesday November 1st was take your kid to work day. I went to my mom’s work for the day, she’s works as a landscaper for Blooms ‘n Botanicals. For take your kid to work day, the grade 9s at seycove had to interview 3 people, and write down their responses, but since we’re in PLP, we didn’t do that. Instead, (because our theme this year is story finding and telling through video) we filmed our interview, and we were assigned a blog post along with it.
My day:
Wake up at 8:00
Work from 9:00-12:30
Lunch from 12:30-1:30
Work from 1:30-3:00
Blooms ‘n Botanicals
Blooms ‘n Botanicals specializes in landscaping design and maintenance. “At Blooms n’ Botanicals we strive to create a colourful year-round garden or patio with shrubs, trees and plants that are best suited to your lifestyle and the environment where you live.” – The blooms & botanicals website.
My mom’s work
As I’ve already mentioned, my mom works for blooms ‘n botanicals. While I was at her work I got to help out. I didn’t do too many things, because in real life there isn’t an undo button. Plus I’m not actually trained in that job/job field. I just did small things, like raking leaves. I enjoyed raking up the leaves, probably more than most people would. I also pruned lots of plants. Pruning is getting rid of the dead parts of plants, and just trimming them down in general to prepare for winter.
Last year, during our advertising unit, one of the ads that we had to make was for a business. The business I made my ad on was blooms ‘n botanicals, so it was cool to actually experience what I was advertising firsthand.
Interviews
While everyone was eating lunch (including me), I went around and asked people if I could interview them. I asked one question for each person, and here are their responses:
This is difficult to answer specifically, because there are many careers involving landscaping, and there are even more “mini jobs” within those careers. Let’s start with the “bigger” careers within/involving landscaping. Some of my top choices would be a landscape architect, and working as a garden Center employee might be fun. When I was in grade 7, one of the projects that I did was on a possible career. The career that I chose to research was a landscape architect. So I know that being a landscape architect would be a good job for me. I can also see myself working as a residential landscaper, because I enjoy gardening, and I have had experience with it on multiple occasions because I like to help with the garden in our front yard. I also usually help plant the vegetable garden.
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.
Most of the time when someone thinks about science, they don’t think about sitting at a desk and writing stuff. They think about doing cool experiments with chemicals and explosions, but we can’t do that without learning about how to safely work in the lab. So naturally, our first unit in science is “safety in the lab”, and as I’ve already mentioned in my Calgary LPP, our theme for PLP this year is finding and telling stories, in video form. So naturally, we were given an assignment to make a video about safety in the lab.
We were in groups of three. I was in a group with, Tamara and someone else who doesn’t want to be named, so since they played Sam the safety wolf, I will call them “Sam”. When we were making the video, we had to make it with at least 3 things that we had learned so far this year. In my group, we decided that we would have a mascot named Sam the Safety Wolf, and that Sam would be narrating the video, explaining the rules of lab safety. My friend Tamara and I were acting out the narration on screen (along with Sam the Safety Wolf).
During class we wrote the basic script, so when we were filming it went quicker. We filmed our video at “sam’s” house after school. We set up “sam’s” iPad on a desk, so spew could all be in some of the scenes. This wasn’t the smartest idea though, because it made the video more boring to watch.
Work
“Sam” did most of the work, in terms of organizing everything, and planning what we were going to do. Tamara and I mostly just helped with making the video, and planning out where we would stand and what we would use as props. We filmed the video in one day, after school at “Sam’s” house. Once we were done recording all the scenes that Tamara and I were in, we had to leave, because Tamara is allergic to cats, and “Sam” has two cats.
Things I would do differently next time
Camera angle
As I’ve already mentioned, the video didn’t have very interesting visuals, because it was just one camera angle. If I did this project again, I would make sure that we had different camera angles, so you can enjoy the video while you watch it.
Work distribution
Looking back on the project, the work distribution wasn’t very equal. “Sam” did more of the work then me or Tamara. Next time I will try to contribute more of my ideas ideas into the video, so others don’t have to do as much work.
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.
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.
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.
