As you should probably know by now, our PLP class recently got back from california. While we were there we were assigned multiple projects. 2 of which I will be covering in this post.

The first project was a partner project where you could make a video, podcast, or even a puppet show about a place in San Diego, it just had to connect to disruption. I partnered up with Adam to make a podcast about the USS Midway.

The USS Midway was a boat made just after World War 2 ended. It was the first boat of a new class of aircraft carrier. This was because it was just so much bigger than any aircraft carrier before it. The USS Midway was over 900 feet long and help about 4,000 crew members. This was huge compared to the other boats. The Midway was a huge part in how aircraft carriers look and work today.

Only a few years after the Midway was built, it was changed to be more like the British aircraft carriers. They changed the angle of the landing strip so that they could fit more planes on the boat and to make it easier to land planes while launching planes. So now instead of having one strip for taking off and landing, they had a strip for landing as well as there take off area. The adjustments took about 6 years to do, but as soon as they were done the boat was back afloat.

After doing all of this research prior to the trip Adam and I were very excited to get the chance to be aboard the Midway and to get the chance to look around on it. Before we got to the ship we originally planned to make a video rather than a podcast. But after a bit of discussion on the ship, we decided to just make a podcast. While we were there, there was a small booth featuring a World War 2 veteran. Adam and I took this opportunity to interview him for our podcast and then have a genuine conversation with him. Once we stopped recording he may have had some controversial views about a specific North Korean leader, but it was all in good fun.

We also got another interview with a volunteer in the ship who had served on it for many years after World War 2. Here is the podcast:

The other project I will be covering in this post is our end of unit essay. It was a synthesis essay on the topic of ”How Has Technology Acted as a Disruption Throughout History?” We were allowed to take this any way we really wanted to. The only requirement being we had to use at least 2 sources and one of them had to be the book we read as a class Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. The other source could be whatever you wanted it to be. Click Here to read my essay.

I was very happy with my essay as my writing was one of the things I used to struggle with. I have been working on my writing a lot since grade 8 and I think it’s paid dividends. Next unit coming up is WW2!