As the end of the year rapidly approaches, it is time to start reflecting on all of the work I have done so far. This is where SLCs come in, because they help share the work that I have done so far this year with my parents and my outlook with my teachers.

Timelapse from Destination Imagination

The first project that I will be talking about is my presentation for Destination Imagination. Destination Imagination is an tournament where you are asked create a project that helps solve a complex challenge. The area of focus that I chose was Fine Arts, because of my passion for art and design. Our challenge was to create a play about the effects that would happen if a colour was to disappear. My group chose to focus on if yellow disappeared. This posed a lot of challenges because of us choosing a primary colour. We didn’t take into consideration of how colours mix to create other ones. This created a lot more of of work for us to do when we were running out of time. In the end, our project came together and we were ready to present at regionals. Unfortunately regionals didn’t go as planned because the vanishing act didn’t seem to turn on. This didn’t discourage us because we still landed in 3rd place out of 8 other groups. I am very proud of how my group worked so hard and so well together to create something we were very proud of. Moving forward from this we hope to perfect our act by practicing more and adding some key elements we might have missed, and hopefully do even better at provincials.

This year I feel that I grew a lot as a learner. I not only changed my outlook on learning but I also feel that I have become a much better writer. Looking back at my first blog post about camera angles , I can really say that it wasn’t my best work. The way I wrote, didn’t reflect my personality and I really didn’t know how to write for an audience. Now when I read my more recent posts like in my Oregon Blog Post , I see more text and pictures, that have links and other media to help explain a topic even that much deeper. I also use more transition words and my spelling is a lot more outgoing I have been using more unique words that I probably didn’t know at the beginning of the year. Continue reading →

Business is a big topic. There are at least two sides when it comes to people’s opinions. The business people who gain all the money, and the workers who risk their lives everyday to earn just a mere cent. When we started this unit on sales I made one priority clear, I wanted to keep my ethics. I didn’t want to mark up the prices of the gum I will be selling that much, but just enough to make a reasonable profit. The one big factor that separates me and my group from a huge company like Loblaws, is our motives and values. A large company focuses most on profits and sales. My motives are more on making ethical money that will benefit my chosen charity and do something good for the world. One way we have thought of helping benefit in an ethical way, is by buying products made in Canada. In Canada it is the law to have safe working conditions and pay workers at least the minimum wage which is around $13 on average. The majority of Gum companies we have chosen are manufactured in Canada, which is good for us. Overall I am excited about this project and I hope I gain a deeper understanding of Sales and how it effects the world.

In the beginning of Grade 8 I was very nervous about Math and Science. I did well in Grade 7 with math but I had a bit of trouble grasping the concepts at first. I made many errors and was afraid that I would never catch up to how confident I was last year. This suddenly changed when my teacher Mrs. Klausen started teaching us about how we learn from our mistakes. We learned that you will never succeed if you don’t learn from failure and not to be afraid of being wrong. We called this “The Rightness of Being Wrong”. I found this very helpful and I now have applied this mindset to many of the projects we have done so far. For example at the beginning of our door project (where we increased the surface area of the door 3 times using geometric paper shapes) Maggie and I were off of our calculations by a good 100cm2. After going back and re-evaluating we found that we could remove more sides of a shape to expose more area of the cubes. This brought us to nearly the exact goal and it worked out perfectly. I now don’t feel a sense of panic or disappointment when I make a mistake but instead I look for a lesson and use that lesson to move on and make it better.

 

The highlight of my grade 8 school year was definitely going to Oregon. I learned so many new things and got to experience so many more opportunities. I enjoyed learning about things that we could actually relate to in our direct environment that we couldn’t do back home.

One of our first projects involving Oregon, was advertising. We were asked to create 3 different types of ads about 3 different things in Oregon: one tourism, one business and one disaster ad. We also had to use many of the modern techniques and appeals that are used in actual ads. The goal of the tourism ad was to make tourists to want to go to a specific attraction. My group was given South Beach State Park which I never actually got to visit because of the rain. This was okay because I had been there before and I used a picture that someone else in my grade took. The business ad which came second, was my personal favourite because I was given a very nice restaurant called “Nisa’s Thai Kitchen.” The PLP program had actually been there before with other grade 8s in previous years, so they were very open to us interviewing them. The interview part was very important because it was key to how we were going to design the ad and what points we were going to focus on. The restaurant I interviewed wanted to focus on their originality and how they are a family owned business that has passed on the skill from generation to generation. To incorporate their uniqueness, I made the ad look like it was showing pictures in a photo album. The pictures I used were all mine and taken when we were interviewing.  Overall, this ad was probably my favourite because of how amazing this place really was. The last ad we were asked to do, was a disaster ad. This ad was an advocacy ad that was meant to warn people in Oregon about the dangers of tsunamis. It was really hard to find a picture for this ad, so I used a photo of a “tsunami hazard zone” sign. A lot of people used this photo because we actually really didn’t see a lot of warnings. I chose to focus on how there won’t always be a sign to show you where to go.  My ad informed people that they should always be aware of their surroundings and know where to go when one strikes. I learned a lot about how to design ads and what to do to make an effective point in the marketing world. I also learned about how ads can be used for good and how important it is to share knowledge with people in an eye catching way.

One of my favourite ways we learned in Oregon was through field studies. We had the opportunity to go to the University of Oregon and actually help collect some research and act like community scientists. My favourite experiment involved “shrimp slurping” in the marshes that were close to the laboratory.  I know that that this sounds humorous, but it is actually quite cool. Basically, we used large tubes that we would push into the sand and suck up the underground shrimp.  After, we had to observe every single one and look for a specific parasite that was hiding on the side of their abdomen. Doing experiments like this and collecting data is very important because small problems can escalate to larger ones in an ecosystem. I really enjoyed helping because I like hands on learning and having the opportunity to help fix a problem in real life.

The final conclusion of the whole trip to Oregon was our iBook travel diary. There was a page for us to fill out every day. We would answer questions and add any other media and photos to help decorate the book. I really enjoyed designing each page because the app we used made it so easy to include any design media at all. For example, we were asked to draw a timeline about the trip in the same way that the Astoria Tower tells the history of Astoria.  I also added a picture and audio to give as much information as possible about everyplace we went and what we learned. Something I would do differently if I was to re-create this iBook, is probably keep up to date on each slide while we were in Oregon. I found it really hard when we got back to remember all the details, especially at the beginning because it wasn’t fresh in my mind.

Here is the link to my iBook…

Oregon iBook

Oregon 2016 was an amazing experience.  I am so happy that I went and with what I learned. I feel so much more confident with learning and experimenting with new topics. I am very excited to go on all the other trips planned for next year and learn even more things that I wouldn’t get to learn in a normal classroom.

Recently in Humanities we have been studying Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar”. This play is a lot more than just some thing that is preformed for an audience, it tells the story of a very important time in history.

Each table group was assigned a different character from the play, the only thing was that they had to have been a real person. My group was assigned Gaius Cassius. He was a Roman senator and was the main conspirator of Caesar’s death. He was very crucial to the play because the plot of the play is based around Caesar’s assassination. Our project task was to create a life size cut-out of our person and explain all about them by using symbols on the body. We could also use other things like body pose and colour of paper to represent key points.
   My group chose to have Cassius with a finger on his lips (as if he was keeping a secret) and him holding a shield and a baby in his other arm. The importance of his pose was because he was a conspirator and always had a secret to keep. The baby and the shield are to represent his baby boy and how he fought against Caesar in many wars. We also included a sword on his arm and a two pieces of body armor on his shoulder for the same purpose. Something we did not included was eyes but that was because we showed a brain on his head with drawings of telescopes and books to represent his love of Philosophy. In his heart area, there is a picture in a frame of him whispering to someone to kill the king because Gauis never physically did it but was all along with the plan. His legs are filled with roads and trees that show how he traveled long distances after he was defeated in many wars. The waves we added on his hip are also to represent how he traveled on water. The reason he was on ships a lot are because he burned a lot of Caesars navy, as shown on his left foot. His other foot has a coin with his face on it because he was shown on a coin for sometime too. The cutout paper we chose was red, not for aesthetic reasons but because he caused a lot of blood shed in his lifetime, 88 BC-42 BC.

Something I would do differently if I was to get the chance to re-do this project, I would probably think about and make meaning of where I put specific objects on his body. I think that maybe the coin could have gone in his hand to to represent wealth or the waves could have been used as a belt for clothing instead. I would also probably cut and paste more things because when you use a red background, things don’t really stand out.

Over-all I really enjoyed doing this project because I love drawing and creating things. I also thought that it was a cool take on modern projects because we weren’t allowed to use any words on he silhouette but instead had to be creative with our symbols and think deeper about how we would imagine this historic figure to be.

I think that one of the most influential things I learned this year was a Growth Mindset. Having this advantage of a Growth Mindset is very important in PLP. Someone with a Growth Mindset is someone who sees failures as crucial to success and never gives up. To help us develop one, we have done many activities in our class called “Maker”.

One of the very first projects we did regarding Growth Mindset was to make a list about the things we have Growth Mindset about and what we don’t. This was very early on so looking back now I can see how I have changed. A lot of the things I have a Growth Mindset about were things that I don’t have a lot of practice with. This was my downfall because just because I didn’t have natural talent, I could still be just as good as someone who does. I think that this point was the most out-standing to me.

The most recent task we had to was a “Growth Mindset Selfie”. Basically we had to take a selfie and put text saying our long-term goal and how we are going to achieve them on it. I used a photo of me in Oregon and used the app Phonto to add text. A trick I used to make it more effective, making an emphasis on specific words by making them different sizes. I also used shading behind the text to make it standout in front of a greyish sky. I think that if I was to do something differently I would probably choose a better photo of myself, because the one isn’t my favourite.

I will insert a picture of my selfie but my app keeps crashing and I accidentally deleted it 🙁 sorry

This unit was full of learning. I feel like I can truly say that I have developed a Growth Mindset and I try to incorporate it into my everyday life. I think that this skill is very important and can help me in almost anything in life.

In my opinion I think that the Exhibition was a great experience for me. I worked the hardest I had ever worked and learned so much. My whole project was made in one week. This means all the planning, the building and all the rehearsal was done in just 7 days. What made the huge task a little bit less stressful was the timeline we wrote. This timeline included what we would do on each day, what we would need to complete the daily task and how long we would work on it up until presentation day. Some other key factors in how much prep time we had was other variables like extra curricular activities, other homework and events. Unfortunately for me the week of the exhibition was one of the busiest weeks in a long time for me. I had a drama performance, 2 tests, and a lot of french homework. You may ask “Well, how did you do it?” Well, pure focus.

When we first did the brainstorming for ideas for our Blue Sky project, I was all over the place. I had 7 different topics that were all very broad. I wanted to do all of them because all of them were all equally interesting, so I blended 2 together. My 2 strongest topics were “animals adapting” and “global warming effects”. I really thought that I could create a project out of both of them. At this point, I couldn’t think of a way to mash the 2 topics together so I started thinking about how I would present my work. I thought about my strengths: art, design, math and science. Two passions really stuck out to me: art and design. To use both of these I could create a model. My model would have text and art pieces. Now I just had to go back and think about the question. I could incorporate the animals adaptations through clay or crafting supplies and show what makes them adapt through text and larger models. I wanted this model to be quite large so I drew it out. My model did not resemble this sketch in the end but that’s okay because its all part of a revision process.

Next I started building the model. This was defiantly not the easy part. My model had so many different pieces to it that I knew I would take a long time. So I started with a base. I figures that I cardboard piece would not be able to hold all of the heavy masses of clay so I used a wood slab instead. I painted half of it green and half of it blue. I wanted to show a couple ecosystems to make it more diverse. Then I realized I forgot a step. I completely skipped the most important part, the research. I spent a strong 3 days just researching effects, animals and adaptations. Once I chose 5 different animals to focus on I chose the effects that were going to cause them to adapt. I chose 5 more. Now that I could actually start building something, I went straight to work. I built a mini factory to represent a oil spills and air pollution out of toilet paper rolls and fake candle lights, A cut down forest out of cut in half wine corks and I showed sea level rise by building a sized down dike out of clay rocks. The animals I built out of Fimo, were placed in there ecosystem and part of the enviro was fine and the other half extremely polluted. Not all of the animals of species were shown adapted, but the closer they were placed to the hazard, you could see the more adapted they were. I put little mini signs with info about the hazard and adaptation beside each scenario. The last step I did was to figure out what I needed to say to people when they ask questions. I made sure I could answer every question that was related to my topic, display and idea. To help engage people when i wasn’t there I made a little short video on repeat on my iPad./ The bad part was that by the time my project was complete it was12:30am the night before.

When I came to school the next day, I carried 5 large bins along with me. This was excluding my project outside of a bin. In the bins there were many Christmas garlands and a miniature Christmas tree. My group’s theme was environment, so we tried to make it as earthy as possible. The hour before we spent decorating and making last minute changes. When the Exhibition was finally open a lot of people started coming through. It was really fun explaining my project to people because it something I am passionate about. I think that the presentation part went well except for the fact that I didn’t get to explain my project to many people because of running between being the door manager and my Minecraft project with Maggie.

Overall I think the Exhibition went just fine. Somethings I would do differently are spending more time to try and engage the audience and add audio to my video to make people actually notice it behind the display model. The whole experience was awesome because I had never participated in a science fair or something of that sort before. Moving on from the Exhibition I can take forward with me the feeling of accomplishment of my model (even if it took a strong 8 hours straight) and the building skill of time management.

I could not find any photos of me from the Exhibition, but I do have some of my project.

Have you ever received critical feedback? Did you take it as a way to improve or as an insult? Well recently in PLP we have been receiving alot of feedback from our peers to help us revise our ads we have been making. We have had 3+ times now that we have had our fellow classmates criticize our work for the better. Some choose to take it while others chose to keep it the same. I personally revised my ad multiple times because it does matter to me what other people think could be better. With an ad, the whole purpose is for consumers to see it and say “Wow that is a good ad, we should go buy it!”. On my 3 ads (earthquake advocacy ad, business ad and tourist attraction ad) I have changed alot. At the beginning I got alot of people saying my text was to hard to read on the buisness ad so I made the colour darker. Another example is on my tourist ad I edited the photo so it would give more of a dramatic effect because someone said that it was too sad. Things like these comments are very useful and my ads wouldn’t have been as great as they are today if I hadn’t listened to the critical feedback.

Here are my 3 ads. These all are 3rd drafts and are close to being done because I don’t have that much revision to do anymore.

Thank you for reading,

Syrah 🙂