Science That Matters

You would think that learning about matter and atoms is common knowledge and is something that everyone should have learned in the fourth grade. Going into this project with that mindset did not serve me well. I instantly realized how much there is to know about something as small as atoms and molecules and how important they are in the universe.

We have just completed an entire project on this topic and my head is overflowing with information. Due to my need to make a little more space in my head for projects to come, I am so exited to share all that I have learned along the way.

This project was made up of three competencies that helped guide us throughout the assignment. Our first competency was all about building a curiosity or wonder towards learning about matter. Although we covered this competency multiple times throughout the extent of the project, I best showed my knowledge through my project-start-mindmap. For this task we were asked to think about any previous knowledge on matter and the changes within it. Luckily I found this topic very interesting so I had accumulated a fair amount of knowledge on the topic. We then revisited the mind map at the end of  the project to ad some of the information we learned as well as the answers to our questions we formed at the start.

I thought that I showed the most growth in the “Evaluating” competency. This one mainly focused on showing an in-depth understanding on the topic at at hand. In this instance we were asked to show our knowledge in the form of a video game or simulator. Starting the game was quite difficult due me having zero programming or coding knowledge. I struggled with this aspect for quite a while.
The final competency was quite challenging and was used many times throughout the work we completed. This competency focused on communicating ideas using scientific language, representations, and digital technologies. After learning all about the KMT, the Atomic theory, mater and everything in between, we were provided with quite the chalenge. Taking advantage of the amazing devices we have at our fingertips, we programmed a game using code that would answer the driveing question: