The Life Of Mimi

Perspectives of WWII

Over these past few weeks we have been studying WWII. As we began the unit, we slowly came to a realization that the victors of a battle always get to write history. This led into our driving question for this unit, “How do we view and understand war, depending on who we are?”. Throughout all our assignments and project we kept that question and the theme for this unit (perspective) in the back of our mind.

Before we dived into WWII we were told to read a book which we would then write a book review for. You can read all about that here!

During this unit we learned about tons of battles and important dates, but throughout the weeks we were working on a project as well! As a class we were going to be creating a website, the theme as I mentioned before was perspective. With this in mind we filled out a google doc were we got to list our 3 top countries we were interested in (obviously they all had to had played a part in the war). In the end I got France, and my group members were Alex and Spencer! There was a little criteria for this project but not much which was good. The main idea was really to represent our country and the perspective they had on the war. We did have to include a few things like:

-country pre-WWII (before 1939)
-beginning of war
-military technology
-timeline
-significant battles
-soldier details

Overall our layout also had to somewhat coordinate with other countries. I didn’t mention this before but the application we were using was Weebly. We had a lot of trouble with this at first when we used our iPads but soon after we discovered that it was 100 times better on mac books. Overall Weebly was pretty simple to use, all you had to do was drag and drop widgets that you wanted over top of your website and you were done!

After we were organized into our groups we started our research. The easiest way to do this was just to start a google doc and paste facts, dates and timelines we thought were important. Throughout classes we also learned how to cite websites using MLA format. A lot of times we watched a video or were given an article we had to write a paragraph about, this had to include two or more quotes we had to properly cite in the end. This meant that we also had to cite all information we used from other websites for our website, yay!

Throughout this process we also had to learn about important battle and dates. A huge battle was Dunkirk, over 68,111 soldiers where either captured or killed during the battle. This happened on the 26th of May, when the British and French forces were stationed on the beaches of Normandy. The Germans then used a Blitzkreig strategy to wound and capture as many soldier as possible. Another important battle was Barbarossa. This was the axis invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941. We also learned about a lot more events like Pearl Harbour and the Battle of Hong Kong!

This next part of the project was my favourite! We got to talk to a WWII veteran about his personal experiences in the war. Since the project is all about perspective it tied in perfectly. We were told about him coming just a few weeks before, so we began to prepare our best questions. The WWII veteran, Helmut Lemke let our teacher know he wasn’t easily offended so he was basically an open book! To make sure we didn’t have to many questions we had to submit 3 questions we were burning to ask, the teacher then went through all of them and told us which ones we were going to ask. Here were a few of mine:

-How did your perspective on war and violence change after WWII?

-Do you think the world would have been the same as it is now without WWII? Would it have changed for the better or the worse?

-In your view, do you think anybody truly won the war?

The day of his visit we set up the chairs in a horse shoe shape and set up a few microphones. These microhpones were going to record our soon to be podcasts! We wanted to create these podcasts because the story’s and experiences of the veterans were so amazing and soon many of the veterans won’t be able to tell their story.

Once we finished talking and hearing Helmuts stories (which by the way were amazing) we had about 1 hour of audio that we needed to shorten into about 5 minutes. We each got to choose what section of the audio we wanted and from there we had to integrate our voice and create compelling podcasts! For all my drafts I used: Ferrite, Garage Band, Youtube, SoundCloud and iMovie. Here’s my first draft:

So as always in between drafts we got critique so we could revise our podcasts. We got into pairs and listened to our partners audio, from there we wrote things like what we thought, clarity of audio and storytelling. Here’s my critique:

With my critique I learned that I needed to add a little bit more of my voice and opinion throughout the audio. So thats exactly what I did, take a look!

Overall I loved listening to all of Helmuts stories! I think he really helped us get a perspective of the war and its consequences. At this point in the unit we were almost done our research and we were slowly adding all our information into our website. After it was time to critique and revise! Each group got a laptop and opened their website page, then all groups rotated throughout all the countries and gave critique on sticky notes. Once we were done we took that critique and revised. Here’s a picture of all our critique!

As well as the sticky notes we got some critique from a teacher. He basically said we needed to take advantage of the website, this means add more links, slideshows and videos. Click here to check out our final drafts before our presentation!

I didn’t mention this before but in the end we presented our website to Kathleen Barter. She was basically our fact check, she also created some of our curriculum and previously worked as a historian at our school. To prepare for our presentation we split up the websites info into three sections (one section for each member of the group). Since the presentation could only be around 5-6 minutes we had to also decided the highlights and important parts of our website. After we decided what we were going to say, we did a run through in front of the class a few days before the big day! We then presented in front of Mrs. Barter which i’d say went pretty well! The only critique she gave us was mostly to really add more perspective into our websites. With this critique we decided to add a perspectives paragraph on the front page, talking about anything from what they were taught in school to the french civilians opinions.

Overall I loved this project! I felt like it really gave us purpose to write and learn about WWII. This was because in the back of our head we knew that what we were creating was going to be used by other students just like us! I think the hardest part of this project was finding viable info from sources we could trust and using that towards our website. But it was really cool to actually see all our hard work and info online were everybody can use and see it! I think also the most important part I learned was realizing that everybody has different perspectives, and there are always two parts to a story!

Renewable Energy

Over the past few weeks we’ve been hard at work trying to put together a project for science class. This project was centred around the idea of renewable energy and finding a durable source to create enough energy to power one or more LED lights. The driving question for this project is: How can we capture renewable energy from nature? This would challenge our math and science skills, and as always we have a criteria sheet that gives us more insight into our project.

I had four members in my group including me, Simon, Calum and Lucas. After many days of brainstorming and sketching ideas out we decided upon building a water wheel. This would turn kinetic energy into electrical energy using the motion of water. After we had a rough idea of what we wanted to create and how it would look, we split up different roles depending on our skills and interests.

Throughout this project our teacher helped us along by giving us a hand crank, wires and LED lights. For our first draft we decided to use the hand crank to our advantage by attaching six dowels to the spindle part. We then attached some recycled plastic bottles to the ends of each dowels to act as paddles in the water. The paddles would catch the movement of the water, spinning the dowels, then cranking the generator and producing energy to power LED lights. When we tested our water wheel we had just a few problems…

First of all our dowels had way to much resistance for how slow the water was moving. The paddles or recycled bottles eventually fell off because they weren’t attached properly, and after many trials all our LED lights burned out! After our very unsuccesful experience we went straight back to the drawing board.

Most of our problems were very manegable so our second draft was pretty simple. We essentially used more sturdy plastic bottles and attached them properly with a glue gun, used many LED lights and put them in parallel, and found a stronger flowing body of water! We thought our project was pretty much done and ready to share with the class, until it broke! Unfortuantley we had to recreate our water wheel which took lots of time. To aid us in this ‘bump in the road’ we used our critical thinking core competencies to recreate our project. Once we were done we weren’t finished yet!

The next step was to create an advertisment video to sell our project to an audience! Throughout this we had to incorporate graphs and linear equations that would tell us approximatley how much power we were creating, where we were getting it from and how much you would be saving. Hope you enjoy the video!

Overall throughout his project I learned so much. I also really got a visual of how much energy we need in our daily life compared to how much we created using our water wheel (which was nothing compared to what I use everyday). To show how much I learned I created a mind map of my knowlege and included one from before this project!

Before Project-

Post Project-

Book Review: All The Light We Cannot See

Right now we are studying WWII, along with a large project, we were given a mini assignment. Over spring break we were given the choice to read three books, All The Light We Cannot See, Unbroken or Code Name Verity. Once we read the book, we discussed the events and analyzed the characters. We then each created a book review including a summary, background of the author and our opinion. Here’s mine, enjoy!

All The Light We Cannot See, a moving story that transports readers back to WWII. The author, Anthony Doerr, has wrote many books like The Shell Collector and Memory Wall but none have earned the amount of recognition All The Light We Cannot See has received. Throughout the book he managed to show us how two different characters Werner and Marie-Laure experience the war and their adventures through Germany and France. Throughout the book we meet many new characters that shape Werner and Marie- Laure in one way or another. For example, during the Hitler youth camp Werner meets Fredrick, a friend who teaches him the importance of loyalty and resilience. Marie-Laure eventually meets her great uncle’s maid, Madame Manec who gives her strength and purpose. The two grow up in completely separate environments, country’s and lead different lives, but somehow together create a compelling story of how the war effected them and their surroundings.

Most people today have not gone through a world war, but this book let’s you get a glimpse of the sacrifices many people had to make. For example, Werner an orphan who’s biggest dream is to become an engineer, at the age of nine was told all he was going to be was a coal miner. His mind couldn’t help but wonder about every little thing he came across like, “What is lightning? How high could you jump if you lived on Mars? What is the difference between twice twenty-five and twice five and twenty?”. This in the end, led him to the hitler youth camp starting his journey through WWII. Instead of creating and inventing things, young Werner had to worry about how much food he was going to get, or if he was going to have to kill somebody. This really effected the way I viewed the war and gave me a wider perspective into the sacrifices kids my age (16) had to make, creating a deeper connection between the reader and the characters. This aspect really aided in telling a more compelling story, making the book more enjoyable to read.

The author also challenges himself and his readers by creating more perspectives to paint a picture. For example, when Marie-Laure’s father was walking through a small town a perfumer carefully studies him and his appearance, “A thin beak-nosed man who skulks outside the telegraph office, whittling little wooden boxes”. This gave an outside view of what the characters in the story looked Ike to others, which in turn broadened my outlook on each character. Overall Anthony Doerr did a wonderful job transporting his readers back to the 1940s as well as building characters perspectives and personality’s throughout the story.

Above is a picture of two soldiers using a radio transmitter, much like the one Werner used.

As much as I did like this story, I have to admit it was very challenging. The book had many perspectives as well as timelines that would jump back and fourth. This would often make things very confusing and hard to follow, which would in turn be very frustrating. The author also tends to mention large turning points at the end of a chapter with little detail which made the book even more challenging. For example, when taking about Marie- Laure’s experience at a museum at the very end of the chapter he wrote, “One month later she is blind”. This left me very confused and wanting more information. Although the book did use imagery to it’s advantage, since the author didn’t explain the large events it wasn’t necessarily a book that I couldn’t put down, or one that I read into the middle of the night. Regardless, it was still an intriguing story that taught me about the war, the effects and the different perspectives.

Excerpt From
All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel
Doerr, Anthony

Destination Imagination Provincials!

So, it’s that time of the year again where DI wraps up and the blog posts start appearing. If your caught up with my blog posts you’ll know our class has been participating in Destination Imagination for three years as well as hosting this years regionals!

This year I actually had quite a lot of fun putting together our final project and working with my team members (Ruby, Claire, Ryan, Adam, Michael). I felt like this year everybody had their hobby’s and talents which they could contribute to the team. For example, Ruby likes to write so she put together the script, and Claire likes art and Special FX so she transformed each member into a character using makeup!

This is our team sign, Ruby put it together using Superimpose!

As I said before I had tons of fun putting together this project! If you didn’t know already, our story is about a teenager who goes through social anxiety at school. I think the reason why I had fun this year was because this project was meaningful and was a very interesting story to create and build upon. Below is a little intro to our teams challenge:

Although we did pretty well at regionals we still had a few things to improve for provincials! After we brainstormed for quite awhile we came up wth a list of things we wanted to change and improve. First of all last time we presented we unfortunately ran out of time, so we decided to shorten and revise the script. We mostly left out the filler conversations and kept the turning events in the story.

Another problem we came across was the screen for the projector didn’t properly project the image. Our issue was that the screen was just a white sheet, so whenever any type of movement occurred or the attachment at the top was uneven the sheet would wrinkle. We came up with a solution to our problem by simply attaching a PVC pipe to the bottom, this stretched out the sheet and essentially just made it even and flatter. Finally we tried to make our structure lighter and taller, which would hopefully make it more stable. To do this all we did was attached more cork to the top and used less epoxy around the outside. While we did this we also learned that using less epoxy is a trick that people who build planes use, apparently using less epoxy on materials actually makes them stronger and more useful.

Unfortunately during the provincials no matter how much we improved a lot still failed. Since we were using quite a lot of electronic devices something bad was bound to happen. Before hand we were testing everything to make sure it was all working, we realized that one of the wires to the radio was a little loose so we tapped over it. During the presentation unfortunately somebody must have tripped over the wire therefor loosening it. When we went to project a scene we had filmed their was no audio. Regardless of what happened I was still very proud of our presentation and team because we had managed to incorporate a very powerful message into our presentation and inform people of the significance of anxiety in ones life. Here’s the critique we received:

Throughout these past few year DI has taught me a great deal of things. I think that the most important thing I learned, and something I use in my everyday life is the skill to evaluate and consider different perspectives. Many times throughout DI I have come to a complete stop with ideas and needed to find a different perspective. Each time I ran out of ideas afterwards I would take a minute and look at the different perspectives. Another contributor to training my mind to do these things was the instant challenges. These challenges were focused around your teams effort to problem solve under pressure. Each challenge we were faced with we brainstormed and thoroughly looked at all the options and perspectives. A study also showed the many other benefits DI can give you:

Overall DI has taught me quite a few skills that I can not only use in school and projects but also in my everyday life!

2018 DI Regionals!

I think that from my many previous posts over the years, you know what DI (Destination Imagination) is. This years regionals just finished, which we competed in! Since we are a little older we competed in the Senior Level in the engineering category called “Drop Zone”. This year we weren’t allowed to make our own groups so the teachers made them, I ended up being with Ruby, Claire, Adam, Ryan and Michael! I think that this year the groups where made perfectly because everybody in our group liked to contribute in different ways. For example Ruby made the script because she likes to write and Adam and Michael created some props because they like woodwork. To kick off the long journey ahead with our team we did a mini video project together where we used iMovie to create our own trailer, here’s how it turned out!

Once we were settled in our groups we began to brainstorm some ideas. Our challenge, I would say was the most straight forward out of all of them. The main idea was that we had to create a story around a sudden event that has impact on something. We then have to incorporate a structure that’s under 175 g which eventually gets weights dropped onto it until it breaks. We also have to incorporate things like an event depicter and two team choice elements (an element in the story that represents the teams strengths) into the story. Our first thought was to go towards a murder mystery where the main character (a political representative) dies. We thought about the idea over the weekend and once we came back to school on Monday we decided to scrap that idea. We decided this because we all had experience with over complicated stories in DI in the past, and we knew that those never worked out. After more ideas and brainstorming we came up with the perfect storyline. We aimed for a more serious story where we had a student who struggled from anxiety.

Throughout this whole process we were also practicing our “instant challenges” skills. An instant challenge is a mini challenge you do on the day of DI where you can get extra points. Basically all you have to do is solve a challenge they put in front of you with certain materials and a time frame. Some challenges could be building something and others could be a performance! Anyway, as I was saying before we had to practice these throughout the whole process. Most teams usually give a job to every person on their group like “time manager” or “points manager” to be more productive since you only have a few minutes to complete the challenge!

During most of the classes and time we got at the beginning, we used it towards creating a script because we all felt like this was a very important aspect. The presentation was supposed to be under 8 minutes so we had to run through the script multiple times to make sure we fit in the time limit. We also made a few revision along the way that effected the storyline, but besides that we stuck with the big idea the whole time. Here’s how it turned out!

Once we had run through the script a few times and felt comfortable with the storyline we started to plan out our props and structure. We decided to split up the tasks since we were getting close to the presentation day. I ended up creating the backdrop which had a white sheet draped over it so we could use it as a projector. During the presentation we would project our first team choice element which was a scene where Claire and Michael are talking on the phone. Our second team choice element was the transformation of the characters, this was basically tattoos and makeup all over a character’s body.

Finally for our event depicter we made a podium which was included in the presentation scene (which you can read about in the script above). The podium was created by one of our group members and had speakers, project and radio built into it. As for the structure, we used epoxy and cork to create a cylinder which was sturdy enough to hold almost 150 pounds. The structure had to be under 175 grams, at first the structure was a few grams over but then we came up with the idea to cut holes into the sides, which worked in the end!

On the day of regionals we showed up at 8 am to sign in. At around 9 we did a mini parade where everybody held up their team signs! We didn’t actually have an instant challenge until 10 and our main challenge until 3, so I had lost of time to kill! Throughout the day I watched a lot of my friends presentations then my team practices a little. This year wasn’t as stressful as the others, but I did feel like I was forgetting something every minute of the day. When it was time to present our team checked in and got our structure checked, measured and weighed. I was really nervous before going on but I think in the end it was all worth it, take a look at our presentation!

In the end I was really proud of our group! We were able to take a super simple but serious idea and turn it into an interesting, engaging and informational play. The structure also worked out well and was able to hold a lot of weight. In the end we got third places, which I was really proud of!

Here’s the feedback (raw scores) we got from the appraisers:

I think if anything I improved and learned lots of new skills, and found out some of my weaknesses and strengths. I think throughout this whole process my group and I improved our leadership skills and stepped out of our comfort zone during the performance. I think that next time I would like to improve the volume of my voice and staging during the performance, but regardless I was still really proud of everything we were able to create. In a few weeks we’ll be off to provincials, so wish me luck!

Thinking Outside the Galaxy!

So we just wrapped up a unit in math on tile squares and polynomials. Along with this unit we did a project! The project was based around what we had just learned, and it was a partner project so I worked with Izzy!

For the project we had to create a game that included all the aspects of the unit (factoring, expanding, squaring), along with some criteria, I’ll include that below!

So before the game started we brainstormed a little so that we could come up with a theme for our project. We decided to go with a galaxy theme, and the name would be “thinking outside the galaxy”. At first we had a few good ideas like a new version of the game cheat or of monopoly, but after a while we decided to come up with a completely original game! We started the process with a draft one of just our game rules, here it is!

1. gambling game with tokens
Each turn each player is given an equation at random that could either be the answer of an equation or the equation itself.
2. Both players have to solve them and whoever’s sum is the largest, moves on forward 2 spaces, and draws a card with positive movements.
3. if make a perfect square points are doubled
 
Our draft one had a good direction but it wasn’t quite there yet. The teacher was explaining to us that we also needed some sort of condition or luck so some part of winning could be luck and not just intelligence. We also had to have a few more aspects that where fun and not as boring. Once we brainstormed and wrote down our daft two rules, we handed it in for critique!

Objective: To get to the other end of the “Galaxy”

-gambling game with tokens
Each turn each player is given an equation at random that could either be the answer of an equation or the equation itself.
-Both players have to solve them and whoever’s sum is the largest, moves on forward 2 spaces, and draws a card with positive movements.
-if make a perfect square points are doubled

We ended only having to do a few more revisions to get to our final product so it wasn’t much different then the first, here it is!

Objective: To get to the other end of the “Galaxy”

-gambling game with tokens
Each turn each player is given an equation at random that could either be the answer of an equation or the equation itself.
-Both players have to solve them and whoever’s sum is the largest, moves on forward 2 spaces, and draws a card with positive movements.
-if make a perfect square points are doubled

Rules:
1.Before the game begins, roll the dice to get your equations
2.Whatever number you get, you double the amount that was shown and pick up that number of algebra tiles.
3.Once you have your cards gamble your personal items, and place them in bowl.
4.With algebra tiles each player will get time to arrange tiles as either the expression to a sum or a sum.
5.The person who makes the largest sum out of the tiles wins
6.The winner then draws a card with positive movements, this could be moveforward like 2 squares and whatever the other person gambled, you keep it.
7.Repeat these steps until the first person gets to the end of the galaxy

Once we were done the game rules we had to get started on actually creating our game and the video! We started out with a square of cardboard and painted it black. We then took a sponge and dabbed purple and blue around the corners. We then took a straw and some white glittery paint and blew it everywhere to make it look like stars! After it dried we painted on a track on each side as well as two tile square areas.

The next part was creating the rule book. We ended up creating a little booklet with a rule on each page. Along with a rule there would be a picture we drew using Paper53, here’s some examples:

Throughout the process we were filming everything, we also played a game of “thinking outside the galaxy” while recording. With all the film we got throughout the process we created a final video that could explain the rules as well as have all aspects of the unit. Here’s the final product!

We showed the class the video and explained our rules, then got some revisions for draft 2! We only had to make a few changes like the audio and titles, but in the end I thought it turned out pretty well. Here’s our final critique or grade!

Overall throughout this project I learned a lot that I didn’t know. I also got to improve many skills like editing and videography! I think that projects like these really help us grasp whatever concept we are learning in a fun and exciting way that we can really put some personality into!

Acid Rain in Vancouver?

So we recently just wrapped up a unit in science, along with a chemistry project! Throughout this unit we studied a lot about chemical equations, and balancing them. Before the project we also did quite a lot of experiments with the class, this eventually lead into the project we just wrapped up! Just like all projects, we have an inquiry question. This project the question was:

How can chemical reactions be used to identify the composition of a substance?

So for the project the idea was to create our own reaction so that we could figure out what other substances or elements are in them. The class was first split up into groups. We then got some time to brainstorm our reactions. Once we had a solid idea of what we wanted experiment we wanted to conduct, we filled out essentially a lab procedure sheet. Along with this we also had to come up with our own question which would encompass our experiment.

Here’s our question:

How does the acidity of each water source differ? How can we test their acidity?

In the end my partner and I decided to come up with a simple reaction using chemicals in the classroom. Here was our procedure:

1.Take your four different water sources (sea water, rain water, tap water, fresh water) and pour 100 ml (this is our controlled variable) of each type into three sets of separate containers.
2.Add 3 drops of methyl orange to the first set of containers. Observe + record the reaction. (See visuals below of what each reaction means).
3.Add three drops of bromothymol blue to the second set of containers. Observe + record the reaction. (See visuals below of what each reaction means).
4.Take red litmus paper and dip one single strip into each container of water. Observe + record the reaction. (See visuals below of what reaction means).

We collected the ocean water from our local beach (panorama beach), the rain water from outside the classroom, fresh water from a glacier stream and we collected the tap water from the school sink.

Once we planned out our procedure we came up with a hypothesis. The hypothesis was difficult because we had never used most of those chemicals before so we had know idea what physical or chemical changes could be observed. What do you think will happen?

Here’s our hypothesis!

If we add the bromothymol blue to each source of water we think that the salt water will turn a yellow ish green colour meaning it is the most acidic because of the pollution in the ocean. Then following we believe will be the rain water, then tap water, and fresh water being the most basic (this will be the most blue).

Once we had stated our hypothesis we conducted the experiment during class! We filmed everything we did so we could observe what was happening. Then we used that film to put together a video of our procedure and results, here it is!

Observations:

Overall the bromothymol blue had the strongest reaction, it ended up turning the rain completely yellow, the tap water a little bluer, the ocean water a light blue and the fresh water blue. All of the containers reacted right away, unlike the methyl orange and litmus paper. The methyl orange had a slight change of colour in each container. It turned the rain water a dark orange, the tap water a lighter orange, the ocean water slightly yellow and the fresh water yellow. As for the litmus paper, the scale of what the red litmus paper can detect wasn’t large enough so their was no reaction in the end.

Conclusions:

We have come to the conclusion that that the rain water is the most acidic then following is tap water, ocean water and fresh water. Throughout the experiment the rain water turned yellow with the bromothymol blue, this means that it was acidic and there was large amounts of carbon dioxide found in it. After doing research we realized that the rain could potentially be acid rain. Acid rain is formed when the carbon dioxide dissolves into the precipitation creating carbonic acid. Carbonic acid is a weak acid because it ionises (removes electrons) to forms hydrogen ions. As for the fresh water, it was the most blue because of its extensive amounts of minerals that are known to be found in fresh water.

Since the beginning of the year we have been doing mind maps at the begging of each unit! Once we finish the unit we start a new one to see how much we’ve learned and grown. So here’s a comparison of the two mind maps!

Overall I felt like this project really helped me get a deeper understanding of what we were learning. I also really liked how much freedom we had with the project, because we could really experiment anything we wanted to. In the end I learned a lot more than I thought, like what acid rain is, how litmus paper works and PH level scales!

Safari Parks and Essays!

As you may have already known from many previous posts, we went to California! Every year we go on a big trip, along with this trip we have a theme that’s encompassed around our unit. This years unit was disruption. We focused mostly on the effect and disruption of technology on certain places, people and ideas. To really see in person what technology has disrupted we visited Silicon Valley along with many computer museums and twitter!

Along with this trip we did a project! For this project we were put in groups and told to pick a place where we were going to in San Diego. With this place we could either create a podcast, video, photo essay or puppet show. We also had lots of freedom for this project. The only criteria we really had was to answer the question of what our place disrupted. In the end we chose to create a video at the famous San Diego Zoo Safari Park! I really wanted to do this place because it is really controversial but at the same time, has helped the environment a lot!

At first we really didn’t know where to start for our thesis. Then we really started to research and brainstorm what the Safari Park strives for, how its different and what it’s done. We then compared this zoo to others, and realized that the safari park and many other “conservation zoos” like it are starting to replace regular zoos. Once we brainstormed some more we had a solid answer to the question and new which path we wanted to go down. I really liked our topic because it was really positive and showed growth in our society.

At this point there was about 2 days until we had to leave for California! We put together our outline for our script and cinematography to make sure we were really prepared. We also had to run through everything we had learned about interviewing the past few months because we where hoping for our interviews to be really strong. If I was totally being honest I would have wanted a lot more time to prep for the project and brainstorm but I was pretty satisfied with what we came up with over the course of two days!

Once we got to the Safari park we filmed every inch of it. The whole experience was really cool though! We learned a lot about the purpose of the zoo and what they’ve done for the environment like their biggest success story, the California Condor (you’ll learn about that in the video!). We ended up getting four interviews but one of them was unusable because the microphone jack wasn’t properly plugged in. I loved getting interviews though because every person was genuinely interested in our project and where also really passionate about what they did!

Once we got back home we started to organize the videos and start our script! The script was definitely difficult because it was really hard to organize our ideas and find a focus point for our thesis. I was pretty happy with it in the end though!

As per usual we used iMovie to edit all the clips and Garage Band to create the music! In the end Draft 1 turned out pretty well. The main thing we had to edit and focus on was the interviews. Most groups made the mistake of bunching up the interviews and not cutting up the parts they only needed. What do you think?

For our draft 2 we really narrowed down on the audio. We noticed that since we had recorded so many different clips in different places the tone and balance was really uneven. We decided to pan out the interviews and retouch some of the recordings we took at home, which worked out well in the end!

I think throughout the project we really got to learn about all the different aspects of disruption and how it can really effect everything around it. But the video was just part 1 of this project! After the video project was done we had to write a synthesis essay! A synthesis essay is a little different from normal ones though. It has to incorporate sources and very thorough evidence and not just your own experiences. The topic for this essay was also encompassed around the idea of disruption! The question was, how has technology acted as a disruption throughout history?

Once we where given our question we where given around a week to brainstorm and write out an outline including a thesis, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. Throughout the week we also learned about different types of order throughout essays like order of importance, space and time. At the end of the week I had a solid outline and figured out my thesis, here it is:

“Technology has had a huge role in our history whether it be negative or positive. It has shaped our modern world into what it is today by playing a major role in our democratic system, accelerating the growth of democracy in oppressed countries and giving a platform to terrorists.”

As for my sources I used many articles from CNN, The Globe and Mail, BBC, twitter and the novel Little Brother! The day of the essay I was a little nervous though because we weren’t allowed to bring our outline so we had to memorize it. Since the process was split into two days, the first day I finished three quarters of it and the second I finished the rest and proof read it! Here it is!

Today politics are weaved into every aspect of our life, we learn about it in school, we hear about it in the news, we write about it and we talk about it. The changes and opinions politicians put out in the world effects everybody, and it effects history. When technology gets introduced into things like politics it can be helpful but also very detrimental to our world. Technology in today’s politics has created a platform for terrorism, helped the acceleration of democracy in oppressed countries and made it easier for politicians to be elected in a democratic election.

2001, September 9th, a date everybody has carved into their mind. The day a plane crashed into the twin towers devastatingly killing 3,000 citizens. As soon as that plane hit the two towers the media was all over the event. The story hit every news headline, and just hours after the event George W. Bush made a statement saying “The US was at war with a new and different kind of enemy” (BBC). Many different media platforms got news that “the attack was denounced by governments worldwide” (BBC). Just two days after the attack it was obvious that the whole world had heard of this tragedy all because of the technology that was being used. Unfortunately this was exactly what the terrorists wanted, they wanted the world to know what they could do, they wanted to spread terror. Almost 18 years after the attack politicians and governments are still fighting against this terror. Many teen and children novels like the famous Little Brother book written by Cory Doctorow, have mentioned terrorism and the effects it still has on us. The author briefly mentioned the tragedy a few times, “The headline was set in the biggest type I’d seen since 9/11” (pg. 297).The media and technology are just creating more and more platforms to share their fear on. We are even starting to hear terrorists groups like ISIS trying to recruit young kids to join their forces using social media. “Using social media as a recruitment tool is not a new method for ISIS. In 2015, experts estimated more than 20,000 foreigners were fighting with or supporting ISIS in Iraq and Syria – and more than 4,000 of those had come from Europe, the U.S. and Canada” (The Globe and Mail). Over the past few years this has effected our politics and governmental system by putting pressure on every action they take.

As much as the internet and social media has effected the world negatively, it has also had many positive impacts. A major one that couldn’t have been possible without twitter, Facebook and YouTube is the Arab spring. The Arab spring was essentially a revolution that started in 2011 and its purpose was to accelerate the growth of democracy in oppressed countries. Many countries contributed to this continental revolution, but only few where successful to creating a democratic system. The biggest success story was in Tunisia, where they now have a semi democratic system. The only reason that any of these countries were able to revolutionize their governmental system was because of social media. Arabian countries would use YouTube to let the rest of the world know about their struggle and what’s happening. They would also use other forms of social media like Facebook and twitter to quickly let their friends and family know that there was a rally, riot or meeting. A poll later showed that “Nine out of ten Arabs responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organize protests and spread awareness” (The Globe and Mail). Just a few months into the Arab spring “the use of social media platforms doubled in Arab during the protests-” (CNN). Today there are still many countries attempting to change their oppressed countries by using social media. Without technology none of this would have been possible. Without technology peoples lives would not be changed for the better, and without technology our history would not have been effected.

Finally many politicians, prime ministers and presidents would not have been able to be elected and express their opinions without technology. Just twenty years ago being elected and attempting to run for a seat would be very different. Your campaign would have been made up of whistle top tours (small town appearances), rallies and newspaper articles. Today getting elected is a lot easier. I’m sure that by now you have heard the name Donald Trump. Many studies were done showing that technology greatly impacted his campaign. For example, this study showed the amount of advertisement trump received using social media, “social media company, Social Flow calculated during the campaign trump was getting more than three times more free exposure then Clinton by using twitter. By January he was the most talked about person in the world” (CNN). As you can tell technology has a huge impact in politics over the past few years by helping with things like trumps campaign. If twitter and other social media platforms weren’t here today, you mostly likely would never hear about trump unless you lived in the United States of America. Many even believe technology is the sole reason for trumps election. Regardless, I think everyone can agree that technology has greatly effected the election, effecting our politics, effecting our world, effecting the history, effecting our future.

Whether the technology disrupts terrorism, oppressed country’s and our democratic system it all comes back to the politics some way or another. Even if technology disrupts our future politics, the future will eventually become our history. Technology has acted as a huge disruption throughout history because decisions politicians make change the course of our history. They change the course of our tomorrow.

Since we haven’t received feedback yet I’m not sure how well I did, but overall I feel pretty confident about my essay. I do feel like I could have been a little more focused on just a few aspects rather than lots though. Regardless I was proud of the work I put out their including the video! At the end of this unit I was surprised of how much I learned from different aspects of each project. For example I learned a lot about the difference of conservation zoos and normal zoos and about animals from the video project. I also did a lot of research on politics and famous revolutions like the Arabian spring for my essay! Finally I think this unit and trip has really taught me a lot about out world and how basically everything that you do and others do always has a ripple effect and can always disrupt something!

Adventures in California

We recently just came back from a huge trip to California! I met so many new people and overall had so much fun with everybody! Although I was excited for the trip, I wasn’t excited for the 3 am wake up to get to the airport. We had a flight to Seattle first, then to San Diego! Once the plane landed we hoped in the cars and went straight to Torrey pines state park!

Before I start getting into the trip I do want to mention that along the way we had to do a scrap book where each page would have instructions to take pictures of something or talk about a certain subject. Also at this point your probably wondering why we went on this trip? Well this unit we’ve been talking a lot about “disruption” in the world whether it be negative or positive. We focused the subject of disruption mostly on technology and how its effected the world. A major part of technologies history is Silicon Valley, so that’s where we went! Anyways, back to California now…

So, once we went to Torrey pines we headed off to a few major attractions in San Diego like, La Jolla Cove, and Coronado beach! We then went to diner at Miguel’s, there was a very long wait to get in but in the end I think it was worth it. This was definitely a super chill day which prepared us for the next few days to come.

The next day we went to the San Diego Safari Park. Before we left for California we also started a video project where we talked about the disruption of certain places, mine was the Safari park. Throughout the day I got lots of interviews, which was kind of a good thing because I got to talk to a lot of new people that where really passionate about their jobs. By far my favourite part of the Safari Park was the cheetah run. All the cheetahs that run have partners that are dogs, they do this because in the wild before a cheetah runs it needs to check its surroundings for predators. The cheetah ran 70 mph down a 330 foot track, and reached 40 mph in the first 3 strides! We also saw tons of rare animals like the California condor and white rhinoceros.

The next day after we had breakfast we went to the USS midway. The USS midway is basically this huge ship that aids in the take off of naval air crafts. Its amazing to actually stand on it, because its honestly way bigger in real life than it is in pictures. Every time the ship embarks on a journey it takes around 36 billion dollars! This includes water, food and clothes for the crew. A few crew members who where on this ship said its basically like a mini community filled with apartments, shops and even jails! We were at the USS midway for quite a while so after I had explored the ship I talked to a lot of the crew members that used to work on the ship. Just like the Safari park all of the volunteers where really passionate about where they worked so it was really interesting to talk to them!

The next two days where filled with us going to a charter school called High Tech High, I talked all about this awesome experience in a separate blog post, click here to read it!

After High Tech High (HTH) we caught a plane to San Jose! San Jose was where we were going to be exploring Silicon Valley. We started off with going to Googleplex! Googleplex was basically the workplace for google employees, they had everything there ranging from tennis courts and pools to refreshment carts within a 50 metres range!

Next on the list was apple park! The actual apple play park was this big loop in the middle of the visitors centre. The loop was actually restricted to visitors and only employees had access to it. We went to the visitors area which had an apple store and a sun deck where you could actually take the phones up and take pictures. In my opinion it was amazing how everything was so planned out and everything that was there was there for a reason. For example, the outside ring of the loop is made up of glass so the employees can feel like they are outside. All the trees outside are olive trees which 10 years ago Steve jobs had them planted at a reserve then shipped to the apple park! And all the parking lot roofs are made up of solar panels! Overall the park was an amazing experience and also showed how every single detail of the park was carefully thought out and planned for a certain reason.

We then went to the intel museum where we saw the company’s progress throughout time! After this we went to have diner with Scott and Brendan. Scott and Brendan are both technology enthusiasts so they came to talk to us about their experience with it, and some disruption aspects of technology. I think it’s safe to say that Scott and Brendan actually gave me more advice in life than I have ever gotten in the time period of an hour and a half. The main thing I took away from this conversation was that Silicon Valley was not at all what it seemed like. People are always talking about how Silicon Valley is the land of opportunities, and in some ways it is but in others it isn’t. If you think about it, you never really hear about the people who don’t succeed in silicon Valley, you always hear about the people who do succeed. It’s kind of like how you only hear about the planes that crash, and not the ones that take off safely everyday. Although there are many opportunities in Silicon Valley, sometimes the opportunities don’t work out and that’s the reality of the growing industry. Brendan and Scott also talked a lot about how they got to were they are today. Scott mentioned that when he was in the 10th grade he and his friends created a camera mount out of makeshift materials and tools. Scott later got invited to a conference because of what he had invented. The whole time he was talking about this, I was thinking about blue sky and how it resembled what we do on a daily basis. The idea of creating something from purely interest and passion I feel is what blue sky is about, which also resembled Scott’s project and what he was trying to create! Scott and Brendan also talked to us about the iPhone, and how it had disrupted their daily routine, which ties in perfectly to our unit! Overall the talk with Scott and Brendan was really enjoyable and also taught me a few things along the way!

The last day in San Jose was spent going to the computer history museum, HP garage and Stanford! In the end I learned a lot that I didn’t know about the school. Before I walked into Stanford I was imagining people dressed in sweater vests, and suits n’ ties. I was very surprised to see that half the school was wearing sweatpants or pyjamas! Another assumption I made about the school was that it was focused on grades alone when accepting applicants. I was very surprised to hear that they focused a lot on what you’ve done for the community and who your are as a person. Overall the day was filled with excitement and cool experiences!

The next day we hoped on a plane to San Francisco! The next two days were filled with learning all about San Fransisco, Alcatraz, twitter and being a tourist. The first day was pretty busy because our plane was delayed so we had to move our plans around, it all turned out in the end though! We first headed off to twitter headquarters where we got a tour of the whole place. We learned a lot about how twitter works, how they hire their employees and the daily life of an employee. We then went to the Golden Gate Bridge, which I had been waiting for the whole trip!

The last day we embarked on a three hour walking tour of San Fransisco! If you ever think about going to California you should definitely go on a walking tour because every single corner we turned was somehow historically important to SF. Every part of the tour was also very interesting so I took lots of notes! After the tour we went to Alcatraz. This was really exciting and kind of creepy at the same time, because everything was exactly were it was ever since Alcatraz had shut down. While we were there we got a very interesting interview from an employee at Alcatraz which will be in the book!

Sadly the next day we had to leave, so on the plane I started working on my scrap book that I mentioned before hand. The book was really long and sometimes very tedious to complete but in the end I was super happy with my outcome. I also really liked creating the book because I knew one day I would look back at it and remember the experiences I had on the trip.

The first draft I thought was pretty good but still had room for improvement. I ended up editing it again for a draft 2! I basically just changed some spelling errors, reconfigured some pages and added more explanations with each picture. Here is the final copy!

Overall this trip was a great experience and I learned a lot. Whenever people ask me the point of these trips or if we ever learn anything I always tell them that the experiences that we have teach us way more than we could ever learn in a classroom, I think that this trip proved my point perfectly. Throughout this trip we got so many unimaginable experiences and opportunity’s that I grew a lot as a learner. I honestly can’t wait for the next one!

High Tech High

If you’ve been catching up with my blog you would know that we went on a trip to California, if not click here to catch up! On this trip we went to a charter school called High Tech High (HTH).

Charter schools are basically schools that receive government funding but abides by rules that are created and approved by an independent group of people or a person. Throughout Canada, the only province with these schools is Alberta but in America they have them everywhere!

This specific charter school is very well known throughout California and even the world! HTH is made up of a cluster of schools one of them is High Tech High Media Arts (HTHMA, is the school we visited). High Tech Highs current CEO is Larry Rosenstock, one of his many beliefs is that “HTH is founded on respect, if you treat kids like adults they will act like them”.

Many kids all over California and even other states dream to go to this school, unfortunately its really difficult to get into HTH. The school accepts applicants from everywhere, then depending on your zip code they use a lottery system to choose students. Usually if you live closer to the school its more difficult to get in, the school does this because they really want to give kids with not many opportunitys a chance to improve their education. The teachers even mentioned they had a student from Taiwan crossing the border everyday!

While we were at HTH we were partnered with either one or two other students! To pair up with other students we created an intro video to match our personality’s. We used iMovie and many other apps to mash together basically a definition of who we are! Here’s mine…

I got partnered originally with two people (Arlet + Loren) but by the end of the trip a student called Natalia tagged along! I was super nervous when I first met them but as the day went along we all started to get to know each other and by the end we couldn’t stop talking!

Our first day was tons of fun! HTH’s day looks a little different then Seycove’s though. We started with a grand tour of the whole HTH “village”, including HTH media arts, HTH international and all the middle and elementary HTH’s! Afterwards we shadowed our partners around for the day! We started of with going to a Media arts class, which i really enjoyed. We started the class with current event (talking about events in the world) the class ended up having a very heated discussion about gun laws which was very interesting to listen to. I think that media arts class was really helpful because it was a way for everybody to express their opinions on todays current events, I definitely want to see this class at our school in the future. We then headed off to math class and were separated into groups to try to solve a math problem. Afterwards we all went down to the mall to get lunch at five guys!

At around 1:50 we went to humanities to finish off the day. We started to talk about rights and the unfairness of education. We also went outside to record our HTH interviews for a podcast we were going to put together! The criteria was really open, so there wasn’t anything specific we had to talk about which I really liked! We just sat outside on the grass and had a conversation about our daily routine and things we wanted to change in the world, and how we could do this. By the time we got back into class it was time to go home!

The next morning we went to media arts and created some mini books with drawings of our trip on them. Then we went to their flex block, this was a block that the students could sign up for whatever interested them. My partners and I went to yearbook which was really fun to partake in for a day. After we went out for lunch again, this time I went to trader joes!

After lunch we went to our last block together! In humanities we continued to talk abut the unequal education rights among different schools. We did this by listening to a podcast about this super smart student at a poor school that didn’t have enough opportunities to get the education she deserved, and how this impacted her. I thought this was a very powerful story, and something that shows how messed up the school system can sometimes be in the world. After this we played a mini game where the teacher would say a phrase, and if you agreed with it you would stand in a certain area and if you didn’t you would stand in the opposite area.

Once the game was done it was time to say goodbye. I had so much fun with them and met so many great new people that I was super sad to leave. I really hope that one day I can meet my partners again!

Once we got back to Canada it was time to start editing! The raw clip was around 20 minutes long so my focus was to cut down the parts I didn’t need. My first step was listening to the whole thing, once I had a good idea of what I wanted to do I started editing! I decided in the end to use the part where we talked about the future and what we want to change in America and how we can do this. As per usual I used ferrite to record and edit, and YouTube to post. For my second draft I added in some music in the beginning to set the tone. I also rearranged some clips and cut some others out, to create more flow. I ended up creating the music in garage band like I usually do. For the final draft I listened to it a few times and decided to rearrange some clips again in Ferrite. I also retouched some audio and tried to balance out the volume even more! Here’s the final draft…

Overall it was a really fun experience that I’ll never forget! I felt like I also improved my editing skills, I think compared to other podcasts this was really strong because it was really focused. The whole trip was super fun but I feel like this was the highlight because of all the great people we met, I just really hope that we can see them again!