Hello I am Quinn Helgason from the PLP learning program and I am going to tell you about my experience and learning from this project. First let me introduce my team, we got selected to do the Top Secret Scientific Challenge and here’s the video below (a little more explanatory)

This challenge seemed really interesting and intriguing so I was definately eager to start this. Ok back to my team, our team name is H2.0 don’t ask why but if you ask me it sounds kinda cool, the people also in this group with me include: Tyler Newell, Will Buckingham, Makyla Slater, and Ruby Gilson. Our story is set in world war III (hasn’t happened, yet?) in a rebel spy headquarters, when evil robots are trying to take over our base (in a nutshell).

Anyways we went to regionals and I think we did a great job! But I know we can still improve waay more, we just need to keep pushing and we already have a ton of new ideas for Provincials! Below is a picture of our scoring coming first place in our category! Go Seycove!

 

Right there at the top Seycove Secondary! I’m definitely looking forward to provincials and I wish all the othe teams good luck! Woooo DI!

 

 

 

 

 

Recently the PLP learning program class has been learning and reading to write our very own essays, these essays consisted of two different topic questions you could choose: 1) How does Carroll create a real imaginary world for his reader?
2) How are readers/viewers drawn to imaginary worlds?

My Essay was based on the first question and the worst part was that I didn’t finish it, after loads of critique I realized I was worrying to much on the length of the paragraph and not the strength. The strength of the pargraph is way more important as I reinforces your statement, giving you a better place and overall statement. What I concluded in my essay was that this Alice and wonderland book was almost a form of escapism, it really drew you into the imaginary world.

Here is a picture of the Essay if you wanted to read it and I really learned in this that making a strong point is highly important!

 

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So here’s Florida, at the Walt Disney World, beautiful huh? They say it’s the place where happiness is bountiful.

Florida was one of the best trips yet and here’s some great evidence!

So we visited every park in Disney World, keep in mind that one Disney Land can fit in one of the Disney World parking lots! Huge place!

Here was my view when I first entered the famous “Magic Kingdom” park, crowded but an almost more medieval world, close to imaginary.

Another Great photo of the Walt and Mickey statue right infront of Cinderellas Castle.

Now we also did some great field School work and play time in the Universal Orlando Studios, it was a great park, lots of character but what it lacked in imagination it replaced with thrill.

Another greal expierience was at the Disney Animal Kingdom, now this park was filled with lots of animals, trees and themed rides that brought out a lot of real and imaginary feelings such as a safari truck/jeep ride that took you through the jungle filled with real animals and multiple biomes.

 

Now this ride “Expedition Everest” was my favourite ride in the Animal Kingdom, Fast, thrilling drops and turns and also some backstory and theme, for example when you are in the line queue you are examining photos of Everest, and mock up equipment and the important people to help you make your journey etc.

Next up is EPCOT, Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was in my view one of the less exiting parks had lots to offer. The world showcase was one of the coolest parts, a whole variety of countries ex. Germany, France, China and even Canada!

The next place we went to was the Kennedy Space Centre, it really amazed me. As you can see above was the first thing I saw when I walked in, multiple rockets, some replicas, and some real. It was a really cool experience because we learnt about the things the astronauts went through and all the amazing parts of space, and the best part was when we got to speak and take pictures with an actual astronaut! Very cool day.

So that just about sums up the best parts of Florida, I learnt many great things and had a great time while at it!

So in the SciMathics PLP class we were making our own Copper! So first we set off to grab all of our materials and we got to work, and then we took some aluminium foil and dropped it into copper Chloride, a blue compound.

It almost instantly started to get hot and boil into this brown (copper) mass

Once that was done we used some water and then some hydrochloric acid to purify the copper even more and once we took it out of the liquid, we let it settle then picked it up with crucible tongs and burned it on a Bunsen burner, it burned a beautiful green colour.

IMG_4681-1hsi9ue

 

Hello everyone, this is a special blog post as I have been learning and reading some very interesting things in Mr. Featherstone’s class. And if you want to read this article that we read and as you can see some questions below that I answered are about this article, https://aeon.co/essays/why-wonder-is-the-most-human-of-all-emotions
1) Prinzs experience with the Ringlings and Barnum and Bailey Circus was different then his parents, especially because it became part of his world and so much wonder! came with that, aside from his parents who thought differently and thought it was more pageantry.

2) Rolling of the eyes, suspension of the breath and swelling of the heart.

3) Francis Bacon considers wonder “broken knowledge”

4) Here was one of my own experiences of wonder for you readers to experience too!

I was on the stage of a crowd high over 3-4000 and I could feel the energy pulsating through me, I looked at all my band members, probably also very excited but some of them looked very scared. Then the show began and it was so built up, all the lights shining on you made the stage your own pocket of light as the crowd watched but the unlit crowd looked almost invisible, it was magical as the crowd waved all their phone lights at us while we performed, it was like space as all these little flashing lights matching to the rhythm of the song. And then it was over, by that time I was sweating and my band and I walked off the stage as the loudness of the crowd and people talking, faded away as we walked off into the the dark underground corridors of the mirror room.
And below is a mind map of what my group and I feel toward the word of Wonder

Wonder
A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.
Hope
Magic
Curiosity
Possibilities
Delight
Mystery
Shocked
Believing
Purple
Bread
Surprise
Creativity
Imagination
What if?
Space
Inquiry
The future
Compensation for the unknown
Choices
Passion
Innocence vs Experience
Fascination
Devotion
Why?
Fantasization
Confusion/ lack of understanding
Outcomes
Dreamers
Santa clause/ myth
Adventure
Thoughts
Theory
Alternative

Above is a picture of one of my first Blue – Sky Drafts.

What I wanted to accomplish in this project is, what would a Canadian Hogwarts look and feel like? So when I started thinking about how this would be done, I thought that I could make a model maybe out of clay and other materials, and then attach it to a poster board with information about the model and overall project.

So I started constructing the model out of some nicely textured clay and I filmed a timelapse of the first bit of the construction. The link below should work.

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Here’s a picture, first I worked on the trees because I was going for a Canadian look kind of like British Columbia.

And here was some inspiration for the landscape and structure of the building for me.

And so after the trees I started working on the blue lake out front of the cabin.

And then eventually I started working on the cabin using brown clay, but I ran in to a problem, the clay doesn’t stand up on its self so I thought what were some materials I had kicking around to help it stand up. And lucky enough I found some toothpicks that I lodged in to the middle of the clay for structural integrity and sure enough it stood up.

So by now I had the frame built and then I used the rest of the Clay for wrapping around the bare toothpick frame to give it a more wooden look. And then I ran into my final problem, I didn’t have enough clay to cover the roof hole or sides of the cabin, and even when I tried using the small amount of clay left, it just drooped because it was just clay. So I thought again what could I use? Well I had some old shoeboxes and I cut them to size, then used them as the roof and siding for the cabin and presto, we have a completed model!

And here is my final product including the poster board with the information that I just told you, including pictures of my inspiration, as well as a picture of hogwarts.

And that lead on to a great well done exhibition!

Our whole class was divided into different groups based on the theme of our projects and my group consisted of things themed by locations or technology or quizzes, our group had been working on giving the audience a special experience so we first drew a part of the great hall which if you don’t know Harry Potter well it looks like this.

So we tried to recreate it, what we drew was a big drawing of the window of the great hall as you can see above, then we tried to recreate the floating candles by wrapping little electronic tea lights in paper to look like candles, then taped them to the ceiling with thin hardly visible wire. We also all thanks to the help of Ms. Pye had a chocolate fountain for the people, which was delicious, but don’t tell my group, ps. it was not for us, shhh.

We had quite a bit of attention in the exhibition because we were one of the first groups you saw, if you came in through the library. And overall this was a great project! I hope lots of other students enjoyed it as much as I did!

Thanks

Quinn,

 

So recently in Scimathics everyone got put in a group and joined together to make a superhero, but not just any.. Elemental Superheroes! That’s right these heroes were from the periodical table. So Sam, Robbie and I set off to find a element, and in the end we chose neon.

Then we decided to name our group the Night Ryders and here’s a picture of the logo.

It is a bike handle bar because we all like mountain biking and the logo in the middle that looks like a biohazard symbol is actually a little alien face.

Then we got to draw our own periodic table, I must admit ours looked pretty good and you can just see for your self.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post as much as I did!

So recently everyone in grade nine got a chance to go to one of their parents workplaces and truely see what it’s like. So my dad works at Global News and he is one of the Chief Editors for the news stories, my mom works as a Department Head. My dad says he didn’t want me in his line of business, so I had no option but to go to my moms work which wasn’t bad!

Here are some pictures of the campus:

Building B

Interior of Building B

Building A

I really enjoyed the experience and one of my favourite things was seeing the automotive crew students working on the cars! Something that surprised me the most was that everyone had a job, there were some things I have never even heard of. I’m not sure if I would consider a job here but there are so many to choose so I don’t know atleast yet. The job was positively a nice workspace and you can meet lots of people and learn and teach new things with them, but negatively the counselling part (my moms job) is very stressful I think, because you need to listen to a lot of people’s problems and that can sometimes bring you down. I think this experience sort of influenced my career goals and choices in the way that I now know there is lots of different jobs and opportunities to choose from and that is great!

 

Interviews for Various people of the College

Interviewee 1: Dave Stevenson – Student Services Manager

Interviewee 2: Tanny Marks – Arbiter of Student Issues

Interviewee 3: Catherine Mcnaughton – VP of VCC

Question 1: What are the essential skills necessary to perform your job.

Interviewee 1: Communication skills and expirience with students.

Interviewee 2: Active listening skills, writing skills, reading, pull apart concepts.

Interviewee 3: Ability to really listen well followed closely by respecting the skills of those around you and supporting their growth and development.

Question 2: What are some of the duties performed during a typical day? Week? Month? Year?

Interviewee 1: Helping students, listening and helping them reach maximum performance level in learning.

Interviewee 2: Writing Reports, Intake, Research, Attend Meeting, helping to resolve systemic problems.

Interviewee 3: Writing reports, researching about the students and the employees, attends meetings throughout the colledge, speaking engagements.

Question 3: What are the academic qualifications for your position?

Interviewee 1: Masters or Ph.D degree.

Interviewee 2: A university degree. Masters.

Interviewee 3: Ph.D degree

Question 4: What are the employment prospects in your field.

Interviewee 1: Small, not many.

Interviewee 2: They are pretty bad, small field.

Interviewee 3: Small, hard to achieve and be at the position of power.

I had a great time! I hope you enjoyed learning about my experience too!

so long,

Quinn

 

My group and I are almost done our Rube Goldberg machine based on metaphors related to the 1911 Xinhai Revolution of China, with a theme of steampunk, and last time the blog post was very bland and now I can fix some of that but this time we are almost finished, (practically are, but I don’t know what Willemse and Hughes would say). Fail, fail again, fail better, F.A.I.L = first attempt in learning.

Here is a picture of it

 

Sorry I do not know why it is sideways, anyway as you can see there is silver and bronze tones which are both very “steampunky” colours in my opinion and many others will agree, I feel like the black accompanies it very nicely too.

Anyways, that was a good look at our “Metaphor Machine” and I will keep you posted with the video and more information in a following blog post.

so long,

Quinn