Tpols

Who am I and what have I learned?

Looking into it.

I am still the same physical person as I was at the beginning of the year. I am still named adlih, I am still a girl, and I am still living in deep cove, and even though my age did change I am still me, but I feel different. At the end of last year I felt as though I was just sort of shifting my gaze from one page to the next, when it came to thinking about grade 10, but stepping back into my shoes now I feel as though I am actually starting a whole new chapter. I know that sounds corny and fake, but it really does feel that way. It’s almost as if I am staring down a whole new challenge, compared to a year ago this time. A year ago I was excited for summer but I knew that grade 10 was looming near by and I was a bit nervous, and almost I felt as if grade 10 would be just another year, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Obviously there was something that changed, something that shifted inside me this year that has lead me to this understanding about school, and even about life in general. I felt like I have grown up a great deal this year, and I would like to share with you why, and how.

(Un)Balanced

I know what you are thinking right of the bat. “She going to talk about how she’s more balanced and she using time blocking… etc.” And now you probably thinking “she’s already thinking about our response to her “balance” section, and she’s trying to make it seem like she knows what she’s doing, and she is deserving of using balance as one of her categories…” and I myself am a bit lost by what I wrote, but what I am trying to say is that every year I have talked about my balance in school, and work, and friends, etc, and I don’t feel like I deserved to talk about it every year, since I have been able to experience it in actuality. I bet every single kid is trying to sell you guys on their work life balance but I really think that this is one that I want to talk about this year. 

Now I am not a crazy kid when it comes to school work. I don’t spend every waking moment doing things, but if I enjoy it I spend quite a bit of time doing it. I am also a busy woman, being 16 isn’t easy, and if you remember there’s a lot of stuff happening in ones life right now. Now my work life balance has always been very strong, I will take a shift every now and then after school, but the shift ends at 5 and then I have the rest of the night to do homework or relax, or really just do what I want. My school-schoolwork balance has also improved very much throughout this year. I felt that last year, it being my first year in PLP, I was a little lost when it came to what amount of effort I should put in, (even though we all all know that it’s 110% all the time!) I felt this year I have found a grove. I was able to see where my strengths and weaknesses are and where I need put more effort in.

https://soundcloud.com/user-335030245/circle-bc-podcast-adlih

A project that exemplifies this is my recent podcast work. I believe that I was able to find a good balance when it came to my podcast and how much work I should put in and when I should work on it. I produced a final product I was really happy with and was able to not overly stress about it during the trip! I found that this is a very important key or token to find and take with you into the future, because I get very very stressed about work and I was able to produce some of my best work this year when I was under pressure! My Pecha Cucha, my circle BC podcast, my PGP project (these are just a few coming to my mind). I felt under pressure during these projects, but I was able to push myself, and find a inner stable and peaceful space during that time. I feel that I produce my best work under pressure and I was really only able to see that when I found a space where I was unbalanced. I feel that being both balanced and unbalanced is very important and that you would have a lesser appreciation for being balanced with out being unbalanced. I was able to understand all this through balance. I cannot dedicate myself to my school work.

Though school work is very important to me, a project comes and goes, and it does not last forever, so I try to keep that in my mind. This is really not sounding the way it should, but what my main point is, is that, I work hard all the time. Like I said in my Mpol, I work hard to have a product I can sign my name on, and so to find a space where I can live my life and create work I am proud of, is a really big accomplishment for myself, and I know that this will play a big role in grade 11!

Style

Throughout this year I believe I have created a signature work style. Take our book trailers for example, I worked endlessly on that trailer, trying to perfect it.

Though there were people in my group that were more well known for their editing, I decided to accept the task and try to make it look exactly how I wanted it. I had a style for the trailer, and I created that. My style is unlike others in the class room because my style shows hard work, and more simplistic choices that risk a lot. When I say this what I mean is that I take a simple task or project and try to find a successful route to the end goal, but modify it and improve it along the way. Take my PGP project for example. Magazine isn’t that creative of an idea, it interests me so I decided to follow it.

Instead of just allowing it to take me to an end goal that isn’t anything I’m that impressed by, I decided to push my imagination a bit. I wanted to see how well I could make a magazine, I wanted to see how much work it was, I wanted to see what it would look like, and how I could put my vision onto a page. I built my style from this drive to find a successful route and then personifying it, to make it truly mine. Another example of my style is even in the pêcha couchas, or even the blog post challenge. In the blog post challenge I was able to show my style when we did the free blog because I was able to pick a something that interested me and style it around that one thing.

Failure

Life’s not about success all the time, if we all succeeded all the time, success wouldn’t feel the same, and we as a species would not be driven to reach success as much. I feel that PLP has always spoken about failure as your first attempt at learning, but only this year did I fully understand this. Obviously I didn’t learn that it’s totally ok to fail, and to just toss everything your doing to the wind, but when you fail it’s important to realize what you can learn from it. I failed countless times this year, but for this blog post I would like to address a fail that I still really don’t like to talk about.

For DI this year I got my team and another team disqualified. This stings to write, and I feel horrible even thinking about it. I thought after some time of thinking about this off and on, it would disappear, but every now and then I think about it and it makes me pretty upset at myself. I spoke to Ms. Willemse and Mr. Hughes about the whole situation and they really helped me to see what I could learn from such a horrible situation. It was really hard at first, and even now I am struggling to understand how to see the good in the bad, and trying to not hold on to every little piece that fails, but instead of the piece that succeeds. But I believe that this is an important skill, and I thought I would share about it here in this Tpol so that you can see how highly I think of failure, and success in school. I also feel this way about other things such as sports. When I skate (skateboard) falling is looked at like failure. When you fall you have failed a trick, or a landing. Though isy has helped me to see that when you fall you get right back up and you realize that you are less scared to fall again because it really wasn’t that bad. When I fall skating now I see it as a step further towards success then the opposite, which relates back to school because being able to see the good in the bad will help me to stay focused on the end goal and not get caught up along the way.

I have been brought every to a whole new level this year. I feel as though I matured and learned so much throughout the year, and am so excited for grade 11, though the summer is really on the top of my mind right now! I wanted to share with you how much has happened and what I’ve had time to clasp a hold of in the past year, and I hope I was able to do that!

I am ready to advance to the next grade because I have learned how to balance and to accept failure, not only have I also learned how to work under pressure but to portray my own style in a way unlike everyone else’s, and for these reasons I believe I am fully ready to advance to the next grade!

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It’s nature’s energy

In science class lately we have been working on our sustainable/nature electricity projects. My group (Maggie, Lucas and me) decided to take a different route. We decided to create a pulley to generate our electricity. We had learned a whole bunch about sustainable energy and where we can source it from and how we can source it, so our idea didn’t take to much time to produce! We decided that we would capture the mechanic energy that is produced when rain falls. We thought to harness the gravity pull from the water to turn our pulley and power our lights. Though in the end using a pulley system didn’t really pay off for my group and I. We realized that the effort the person would have to put in to generate electricity is far to much, and that the machine does not run consistently. Our machine does work, but in the future we can think about how the energy sourced will have an impact on the people who buy it.

Here is the video we made to sell our machine. In the video you will see the the comparison between the machine and solar panels. Our machine actually makes more energy then solar panels at this time of the year because the sun is only out for 1/3 of the day, instead of all day. Whereas with our machine we are capable of catching energy all day if there is rain all day! 

Throughout this project we learned a lot of core competencies. I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the 3 core competencies that I think I saw the most of during this project.

The first core competency I used was collaboratively and individually plan, select, and use appropriate investigation methods, including field work and lab experiments, to collect reliable data. I used this core competency because to conduct our research we had to figure out the wats and joules our machine produced before we could tell how long it would take to power a iPhone. We used our field research to figure out the first draft of our product, which we tested and realized what worked and what didn’t work. 

The second core competency that I used was construct analyze and interpret graphs interpret graphs (including interpolation and extrapolation), models and or diagrams. I used this core competency because throughout the project my group and I used graphs to demonstrate our learning. We used graphs to show the contrast between our product and solar panels when comes to generating energy. We also used graphs to show our cost savings over time. 

The third core competency I used was formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon. I used this core competency when my group and I created our diagram showing how our energy gets generated and where it comes from!

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GOALS

I am very interested in goals, and what makes a good goal, what drives people to make goals, and how they complete their goals. I really only realized that I enjoyed hearing about goals after I interviewed my first person for my magazine. I interviewed Isabelle Humenny right off the bat. I had a vision of how the magazine would look and I had a idea of how I wanted the photos to turn out, but when it came to the interview I really did not think about it thoroughly. I had a bunch of questions laid out and had thought all about the books I had read, and the habits that I needed to revisit, but I hadn’t realized how much I would learn about goals and the people I interviewed through it. I was amazed at what people had to say about something that is so often overlooked. 

This whole project is about learning something that you wish you knew at the beginning of the year but only know now. I feel like I have learned a whole bunch throughout the corse of this project, from learning to read people better to understanding the meaning behind a goal. I wished that at the beginning of the year I was capable to understand and communicate goals with myself and others. Throughout this years PGP course I was able to realize just how big of a role goals play.

A lot of the time we set goals subconsciously, we only realize that we achieved them after they are done. Or we believe that our goals are not good enough, or deserving enough to be called goals. Throughout my project my interviewees bring me back to that exact point. They showed me their fears of goals, and how they privately over come them, because most the time it’s just the person fighting for their goal themselves.

About half way through my magazine there is a 2 page break where I discuss setting your own goals. I really wanted to incorporate this into my magazine, because goals are deserving of a bit more light. The amount goals are talked about makes them seem like the should be qualified as shady business, or secret information. In this 2 page break I have certain things you should consider before permanently setting a goal. Things like considering if it is a SMART goal, or considering how it will help you in the future, even thinking about why this goal is meaningful to you. The main reason I wanted this in my magazine is because you only ever hear about goals that are absurd, or very very far fetched. Goals of corse should push you, but they should also push you in a direction you are willing to go, and want to follow. I want people to realize that when someone asks you about your goals, you don’t have to respond with “big ones or little ones.” Respond with the one that makes you the proudest, your favourite goal, whatever that may be. 

As I mentioned above goal setting can be hard, and I really didn’t realize just how much it relies on other things mentioned in the PGP course. Things like time management is huge when setting goals. To set your goal you must set aside an amount of time to complete your steps. That’s a very simple example, but it is also important to celebrate after a goal, to make sure that you are reminded of how nice it feels to complete a goal. An example is that when I run, i always treat myself to going to room 6 afterwards. I may not buy something but it feels nice to see people I know and have a nice conversation. 

Goal setting really ties into all of the 7 habits! 

I found something I really enjoyed through this project, I could not stop myself from working on this project. I could not stop myself from tweaking things, and trying a whole bunch of different styles and layouts to find the best one. I poured my heart into the articles and worked hard to transcribe long interviews until late at night. Time flew when I was working on this, and I can’t say that about a lot of projects. 

Here is my magazine, if there is any comments or feedback, please leave a comment, I would really love to hear what you have to say

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Workplace safety

Watching a young girl get her fingers ripped out of her hands puts a lot into perspective for me. Seeing how one mistake can take your life right away, it is horrible, and I realize how important is to train for work, and to understand the risks that you are taking before attempting them. 

I am lucky because I have a very cushy job. The biggest thing I push is sustainability, and I don’t think that counts! At my work I am fully trained, and I always have access to someone who can help. I also get a lot of responsibility when I am working and feel like I handle it well. Though my work is very safe, there are jobs, even in my neighbourhood that are not. 

The dangers in a workplace vary on what your employer is asking of you, and what your job entails. We recently learned about the injuries that could take place in the workplace, which are Chemical, Noise, MSI, Sun, Heat, Cold, and Biological hazards. I’ll go into a bit of detail on each of these topics.

Chemical hazards

  • A lot of the hazards led to lung problems such as lunch cancer. Or breathing problems.
  • These problems included but were not limited to dust, asbestos, lead paint, or lead.

Noise hazards

  • 1 out of four people are affected by hearing injuries 
  • The damage of your hearing is permanent 
  • A lot of work places are exposed to this kind of injury such as: kitchens, traffic, music, movies, yard work, and cleaning.

MSI

  • most common work place injury 
  • Injury’s such as strains or sprains
  • 8 out of 10 people will visit a doctor due to back pain which is a MSI
  • MSI’s are treatable
  • Many people miss work due to MSI’s

Sun, Heat and Cold

  • heat can lead to stress, and illness
  • Sun leads to burns, or in long term skin cancer
  • Cold leads to hypothermia affecting: fingers, toes, ears, nose
  • Hypothermia can cause permanent damage to tissue
  • When hot drink plenty of water and avoid caffeine and alcohol 

Biological hazards

  • includes HIV and AIDS
  • Can be transferred through needles or sexual action
  • Don’t touch anything that may have been used to inject anything
  • Don’t eat or drink anything that could have been eaten or drunk by something 

I also learned about my rights as a employee. I did not know I had rights and so that was pretty shocking when I realized that there are a list of things that I don’t have to do unless I feel comfortable, and have the right training.

This is the artifact for this blog post! Its the safety award! I will be working hard to achieve the safety award, which basically means I will be working hard to stay as safe as I can in the workplace!

One of the more important ones is working any machinery. If I feel that I don’t have the proper training to complete the task including the machinery, I can refuse to do the work including the machinery. I can refuse work as long as it puts me or others in danger. This is super important because I knowing your rights make the workplace a better place! Here is a link to the rights to refuse work!

Thank you for reading my blog post!

Adlih

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Learning about me!

Everyone asks themselves what they want to be when they got older. People always thing about what pays the highest, what is the funnest, and what there dream lifestyle would be and how a job would fit into that. I have done this every time I wanted to think about where I see myself in the future, but until I took the My Blue Print survey’s, I really don’t think I was doing it properly!

In Maker class, (which doubles as a health education class) we got to ask our selves deep questions to see all kinds of outcomes, such as: What kind of learner I am, What personality type I am, What job would best suit me, etc. Through this blog I will dive into these questions and the answers that I received from them and see how they will help me in the future!

The first survey I took was the Learning Styles survey. This survey talked to you about which learning style you would find suits you best. (Kinaesthetic, Visual, and Auditory). Surprisingly our class was quite divided. There was at least 3 people that strived in all of the categories. Now I have always believed that I was a kinaesthetic learner, because I though when I learned hands on I took more in, which is still true, but the survey told me that I was actually a visual learner.

I actually totally believe this is true. I could not learn how to build a table by being given a already built table and then being told to re build it, (kinaesthetic), I also could not listen to someone tell me how to build a table, (auditory), but I could totally build a table if someone showed me how to build a table, (visual). For the learning styles survey, I think that it was correct, and with this knowledge know I can transition this to my future. If when in university my Professor is teaching the class auditory style, and I don’t understand what is happening, I could know to ask the professor to try to explain the concept visually for a better understanding. 

The second quiz I took was the personality quiz. I scored the ISFP (the composer). This personality is made up of I which stands for Introverted. Introverted meaning comfortable alone, when working and when with others. A introverted person can be very reflective and reserved as well. I didn’t quite agree with the personality quiz in this part, because I think of myself as a bit more open to group situations, and I think that would lean me towards being extroverted. The S in ISFP stands for sensing. I use my sensing ability’s to gather information, which I agree with. The F stands fro Feeling. When decision making I prefer to use subjective criteria, then objective criteria. This just means that I base it on finding an area where everyone can succeed, instead of a standard. For the last part of the personality quiz I got a P which stands for perceiving. What perceiving means is that I am open to new information and as well as being flexible and spontaneous. It states that a perceiving person can go with the flow, which I feel does not really apply to me. I feel that I need a bit of planning and more time to understand things that are coming up, instead of just going along with it. In the end the personality quiz didn’t really express who I am, and what my personality type is.

Through this survey I sort of realized that these answers were not prescribed to me because I went through numerous steps and many interviews, instead I just typed how much I agree or disagree to close ended questions, and then a website spit out a answer based on the way I answered maybe 20 questions. So these answers are not set in stone, but they are helpful and do give a little light into ones leaning. 

On the contrary these quizzes, right or wrong, really help us as young adults to figure out who we are and who we want to be. The reason for this is because we are now forced to talk about it. We took the test, we then may disagree or agree with the test. If we agree, then perfect you just realized something about yourself, but if you disagree, then you are now curious to see where you belong and who else is the same. By taking this next step you are figuring out who you are yourself, and in that way the surveys are quite helpful! 

There were 3 more surveys I took, the interests the knowledge and the motivations. I felt that the above 2 surveys were more important and will help to shape my life a bit more, because they are important to know, and shape who you are as a person. Though each survey focuses on a topic that will greatly affect your future! 

In the interests survey I scored a counsellor, because I care about others and want to hear about what people have to say. I feel this fits well because I am very passionate, and if I hurt someone else, I immediately feel terrible and I feel like I just hurt myself. So I feel that councillor is a perfect fit! 

In the knowledge survey I scored language arts which really just means I am into english and socials. This makes a lot of sense because I really like to write and am a big fan of books, stories and reading! I have always wanted to be a journalist, and so I can see how I got this score on this survey. Knowledge plays a big role in your future because if you understand your stronger subjects in school, you can focus on subjects that may be more challenging, in this you are making your self a more well rounded person that is can be more successful. 

On the last survey I was told that I am motivated by success. I totally agree with this, for example if I am trying to run a half marathon, of corse completion of the half marathon would be the ultimate achievement, but along the way to make myself continue to push myself I will set goals that are achievable, and then I feel better because I feel like I am improving, and pushing myself past these goals. For the future knowing your motivation is huge. Knowing that I am driven to do my best by setting goals and being able to achieve them is very important. For example if I want to do well in a class that I’m not doing to well in, I can reset my corse by setting small goals and achieving them!

Now taking all this information and planning my future. I have learned a lot about myself through these surveys, wether they are correct or not. I really enjoy learning about myself because I want to be able to help myself in the future, when careers come into play, and postsecondary. Now each of these surveys helps me in there own way. Each of these surveys cover topics that are important to us, and I know I am better off now that I have addressed these topics and experienced them!

 

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The peoples podcast

In humanities 10 we have been trying to expand our learning by exploring minority groups in Canada, and how different their experiences are, compared to ours. Our driving question for this project was how has the Canadian experience been different for minorities.

 

We covered many different ways to express our learning through this project. We did buckets of research, interviewed people on our minority topics, wrote a essay, and made a podcast. We began our process of creating a podcast (becuase the podcast was the end goal) by sifting out the minority groups that interest us. I chose to do some research on Sikhism, because I was interested to see what the sikh religion is like, and what sikh values are. I also did research on Korean people in Canada, and Buddhism in Canada. When I got placed into my podcast group we chose Sikhism to do our podcast on, and I am very happy that we did! My group consisted of Isy, Daniel and I. The next step was to do research on your topic with your group, and to learn about facts and stories about the topic that will lead to a better understanding when interviewing. The next step, like I said is finding the right people to interview. It wouldn’t make sense if I interviewed a old man who is atheist on sikh religion, would it?! So my group and I found 2 teachers at my school that identify, or identified with the Sikh religion. Ms. Bhangoo identified with the Sikh religion, and Ms. Parmar is a part of the Sikh religion.

 

The interview with Ms. Bhangoo went incredible well, she was a awesome interviewee, and told us many eye opening things about her experience with Sikhism. I was blow away by what she had to say, and only after the interview did I truly understand what Ms. Maxwell wanted us to learn about through this project. 

Ms. Parmar wanted us to meet, and interview someone at her local Gurdwara, who she felt was very educated on the topic of Sikhism. Isy and I ended up skipping gym and driving with Ms. Maxwell to the Gurdwara near the Second Narrows Bridge.

At the Gurdwara we met Puran Singh Gill. Puran has worked at UBC for the majority of his career. He has his masters degree in Studies in the Sikh religion, and is very well educated. Puran really opened our eyes to the more historic and statistic facts about Sikhism.

We had a 40 minute interview with Puran and I personally found it very hard to edit down because everything he said was fascinating, much like Ms. Bhangoo’s. These interviews opened my eyes to the Sikh religion up close and personal. They showed us what it would really be like to be apart of the Sikh religion, and this is just one of the many examples of how PLP has helped me to better understand a topic or subject in school. I really needed to go out and interview people who have had or have ties to the Sikh religion, and I got the chance to. 

After our interviews we split up the parts and began to write a finer script that ties all our points together, because remember this podcast is about the Canadian experience for Sikh people in Canada. Isy, Daniel and I, wrote up our scripts separately, then recorded them on our own and I edited the clips together. We realized soon after completing this edit that it really did not sound very nice when we were all broken up like we were. The second draft brought a while new start to our podcast. We re-recorded the whole thing, we decided to use a bigger mic and record together and break up our lines so the podcast flowed better, we added music, and we added a better introduction to our podcast. The second draft was much better I thought and I was really proud of my work as editor. 

Now while all of this was happening we were also writing a essay. Our essay followed the same sort of path as the podcasts, but it dove into a more personalized tale, that you as a writer could relate to. The question that we, as writers, had to answer was: “How do our positions impact our experiences with literature?”

The position options were things like experiences, gender, race, religion, age, etc. I chose to focus down on family relationships, which sounds a bit narrow, but was really quite vast. I spoke about how the relationships that a person shares with their grandparents, their parents, and their siblings, alters the way they interpret literature. 

Basically what I’m saying is that if you, for example, don’t have a very strong relationship with your grandparents, and you don’t see them often, it may be harder to relate to literature where the grandparent and the grandchild hold a very tight bond. Through this the reader would build a different perspective of the relationship then someone who, for example, saw their grandparents every day. 

Through these 2 projects I have learned a lot. Firstly a lot about the minority groups in Canada, and poorly there have been treated. I learned that Sikh people as a whole are on the terrorist list in Canada. I also learned about the ins and outs of Sikhism and how they project themselves compared to how they are depicted real life. I learned about Chinese culture through Jade Peony, which shared the story of a Chinese family living in Chinatown, Vancouver in the 1930-40’s. I’m also learned about podcast editing and how to create something that people really want to listen to. 

In the end I feel successful in creating a podcast that reflects the knowledge that my group and I gained, and I hope that you enjoy it!

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Cell phone slope!

Recently in scimatics we have been exploring the costs for phone plans with when you need to roam for calls outside of canada. To start our work off we decided to pick the companies that we would be researching during the project. We chose to research Rogers, Bell and Telus. 

 

The plans we found for each are as follows:

Rogers = $2.00 per minute roaming, and a starting cost of $165

Telus = $1.50 per minute roaming, and a starting cost of $180

Bell = $1.45 per minute roaming, and a starting cost of $195

The next step was to turn this information into a slope intercept equation. The slope intercept equation makes it so that you can graph the equation. In the slope intercept equation  each letter has a meaning they are : Y=MX+B.

Y = the grand total, what you want to find out.

M = the slope intercept.

X = the first variable, the amount you have per will have.

B = the Y intercept

Here are the equations for the cell phone companies.

Rogers: y = 2.00x + 165

Telus: y = 1.50x + 180

Bell: y = 1.45x + 195

We then graphed these equations to see the slope of them. These are the graphs that we made. 

Rogers is purple, Telus is red, and bell is green. The best cell company, most affordable, would be Bell after 300 minutes roaming!

The final step of the project was to make a keynote to show our leaning to the class. Our keynote was a simple step by step version of this blog post. To make our project unique, Morgan and I decided to create a rap to help other people understand our project and alos to create a more unique lens on this project. 

Here is our keynote

 

 

Throughout this project I used a few curricular competencies. I would like to mention what they are and how I used them below!

The first competency I used was explore, analyze and apply mathematical ideas using reason, technology and other tools. I used this competency because throughout the project I was constantly learning about analyzing new mathematical ideas such as the slope equation, and then applying it to our project, and finding where our facts and ideas would fit into the equation.

The second competency I used was represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial and symbolic forms. I used this competency because for my end project I was able to show my learning in many different forms. We had concrete forms of our math in the form of graphs and equations and to spice it up a bit, we decided to do a rap, and rap the math to have a more creative form of our project!

The final curricular competency that I used was using mistakes as opportunities to advance learning. Throughout the project we made a few mistakes with our math, but instead of getting down, or continuing to present math that was incorrect, we decided to ask around and figure out how to properly present the math in graph form!

Thank you for reading!

adlih

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Destination imagination provincial tournament

Destination imagination happens every year. This was my second experience with DI. I would like to talk a bit about last year to help my reflection with comparaisons. 

Last year was my first year with DI, I was a bit nervous because of what people had said about it, which mostly just it was a crazy amount of work, and that it sometimes didn’t turn out so well and people could get harsh. I got my group and was a little nervous to get started. Our DI team did not succeed very far last year. We had our priorities in total wrong order, and ended up coming in fifth for provincials, which didn’t really bother us because we felt we had actually done worse! 

Switching back to this year, we only had 1 other competitor in our group, and they were grade 9 students in PLP, so we knew them all quite well. This point will play a big role later on in the post.

I felt we had an exceptionally good DI presentation. We had the the “Game On” challenge, (If you want to read more about our first steps and the regionals competition the blog post is here!) and for our challenge we chose to focus on the Game Of Life as our game, and have humour integrated in. Our perspective on the challenge was a humorous approach on stereotypes and situations that you get put while playing the game of life. An example being we tried to make many jokes on the marriage aspect of life, because you can’t leave life without being married! We also made jokes about retirement and juggling everything as a adult. 

Kai, Lucas and I during our Provincials Preformance

 

We lost a team member for our provincial tournament. Jessie was not able to make it to the tournament, so we had to plan around this. It put our team in a bit of a tight spot because Jessie was very important to our story and was definitely the main character. She had also memorized the whole script in the case that someone else had forgotten their lines, she could prod them with a line of her own to help the presentation move along. 3 days before the final presentation, we had to start to prepare without Jessie. We all took a bit of her lines, but Marshall took the most, becoming the main character. We all worked really hard for the last few days to prepare for a presentation, staying late after school one day, and working in our own time to remember the lines. 

 

Then out of the blue Destination Imagination just rolled right up. I wasn’t feeling to hot the morning of DI, but I felt a bit better later on in the day, but our presentation was almost right away in the morning. Our presentation was at 9:20 am, so we ran through our lines for awhile then presented. All things considered our presentation went really well, we had a few stutters and parts where people forgot their lines, but aside from that we were able to make people laugh, which felt really good. It felt good to get the presentation out of the way, and then all that was left was the instant challenge. I watched quite a few performances and ate lunch, and then it was our time for our challenge. The challenge its self felt like it went well, but afterwards I stepped foot into a situation that I have learned much from, and hope to try to avoid as much as possible in the future. 

 

I was speaking to another team about the instant challenge, we were caught, and disqualified. Talking about the instant challenge is against the rules and so we were disqualified from the whole competition. 

What I have learned from this is very important. I learned that when you know someone is upset, or angry, it feels worse to put it off and ignore it, then addressing it and trying to figuring out a win win situation. What I mean by this is, if you know you’ve done something wrong think about how that makes you feel, and then instead of being scared or fearful, address those feelings and find a way to let the other person know your sorry, or how you feel about that situation. I feel bad that I had to learn this lesson with the fate of my DI team resting on my shoulders, but I think we all may have learned. 

I also learned that even though DI is something that is extra curricular, and we can sometimes feel a little negative toward it, there are other people trying to enjoy it and to appreciate it, and are putting work into it, even if someone doesn’t want to be there, they have to realize that other people have really tried to put work in, and tried to make this a incredible experience for us, and that one should appreciate their work and effort. 

The last thing I learned is actually from PGP, and Ms. Willemse reminded me of it. If I had gone ahead and put my self in Ms. Willemse and Mr. Hughes shoes the outcome of the day may have been different. This is very important for the future and I don’t think I will ever forget it. 

All in all its the journey that matters not the destination, and even though it ended with a sour taste, the whole experience was actually very helpful, and informative. 

So in the end I learned a lot am a more educated person because of it. 

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Destination imagination regional tournament

DI seems to have come and gone very quickly this year. So before its fully forgotten, and provincials is just around the corner, I would like to reflect and consider the tournament that has just passed (regionals). 

In Destination Imagination this year I was placed in a team with Jessie, Marshall, Lucas, Kai and Luca. I really liked my team from the beginning. We complemented each other’s strengths and weaknesses, while also being able to be honest and give people the hard truth. A lot happened in a little bit of time. We decided our challenge, (which we were lucky enough to get,) and we got our team name and the rest just fell into place. (With a little bit of shoving!) We decided that our team name would be the KABOBZ, a letter from each of our last names! We also started to plan around our challenge guide lines. We chose the fine arts challenge.

In this challenge we had to pick a game that we could tell a story about and share with the appraisers, when the time came. We also had to be able to fit all the props or costumes or even the backdrop into one container. We got to work right away by planing what game we would choose to complete the regulations of the challenge. We set out a bunch of different game ideas from everyone in our group, and voted on which one would be the best.

In the end we choose the game of life, and decided to focus on what happiness and success really means in the game of life. We framed the story around the fact that you can’t leave the game without having at least one kid, and being married. And at the end of the game the winner is the player with the most money, and that is the only way that you can win. So when we brainstormed our story we thought we would toy around with that fact. 

Now once we had a story plan and a presentation plan, we got to work. We decided on the roles for our group. Jessie had the role of creating the story, and helping to paint the background, Luca had the role of creating our technical element, which was a game of life spinner, lucas and Marshall were on anything that wasn’t very prominent, the music the team choice elements, etc, Kai’s role was to finish forms, and I helped Jessie painting and was the team organizer, we all had very equal jobs.

We all complete our roles and responsibilities piece by piece. I was really proud of the work we completed as a team and when we practiced I felt that we had all put time and effort into the final product and I was very happy because of that. 

 

We had our provincial competition on Saturday March 9th. I was preparing with my group for the most of my time, and then it was our time to present. I was a bit nervous, but I knew that for the first time, I was really excited to present because we were all proud of the final product we had created. The presentation went really well, aside from one little stutter with our lines, but we got lots of laughs, which none of us were preparing for! We were all a little shocked! 

After the presentation my whole group was super happy about how it had gone. In the end we got 2nd out of 2, but I think since we had fun, that’s all that really mattered!

Reflection 

This season of Destination Imagination went really well because I felt that my team worked so well complementing and helping each other throughout the challenge. I learned a bit about de stressing and feeling in control for once. I felt that I would focus my reflection on the fact that for some reason this DI I felt that I didn’t have to worry to the point where it got in my. I knew that my team would pull it together in the end no matter what. I felt this way becuase throughout the challenge we continued to stay on top of our work, but also the team was very creative and if in doubt I knew they would make it work. So what I have taken out of this is that if I am stressed just remember that my stressing is not improving the situation, but if I take the time to figure out the problem and take steps to fix it I will be in a better place!

Thank you for reading, and I hope you learned a bit about our DI presentation. 

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How long do we have?

For grade 10 PLP students we got the lucky chance to explore linear equations in our everyday life. Mr. Gross asked us to think about the rising and falling water levels across the globe, and see what the water levels are like in seas and lakes across the world.

To do this we needed to learn about the linear slope equation y=mx+b. Each letter in this equation signifies something. Y is used to produce the depth of our equation. So how deep our final product will be. M is the amount of water that is leaving the body of water per year. X is the amount of time that this would take, and B is the amount of water that you start with. Now since we had all the background knowledge, it was time to figure out what body of water we wanted to choose. I was in a group with Luca Jacoe, and we decided to pick the Caspian Sea. (Really just a big lake). We did our research on the Sea and found all the numbers that we needed to, so we created our first equation.

Here is our equation. 

Since we don’t know Y and we don’t know X we have to solve for both of them. So the equation below signifies that. 

We then took our equation to Desmos to produce a graph with all the information we had. 

Here is our graph.

After creating the graph we also finished our equation by finding the values for X and Y. X which was time was equal to 11694 years (until the whole of the Caspian Sea disappears), And Y, which was depth, was 146 metres. 

We then presented our findings to the class in a keynote where we were able to share the knowledge we had built through our project.

Our keynote described the steps we took to come to our final product but it didn’t share the Curricular Competencies…

In this project I think that I improved upon the Curricular Competency “estimate reasonably and demonstrate fluent, flexible, and strategic thinking about number.” I think that I increased my knowledge in this competency because throughout the project I would be thinking about the slope intercept equation and using my predictive skills to determine what the correct answers were. 

I also used the competency “solve problems with persistence and a positive disposition.” I chose this competency because I was able to keep pushing myself to find the proper information for our equation, and trying to solve for 2 variables. I didn’t get turned away when I got it wrong, but instead tried it again.

Another competency I used was “take risks when offering ideas in classroom discourse.” I choose this competency because I felt that I definitely took risks when I was presenting ideas to my group, and when we were planning it out through sharing my concerns and ideas. 

My final competency that I used was “reflect on mathematical thinking.” Through this blog post I am reflecting on the learning that I presented and learned throughout the project period. I get to talk about what math I learned and what I got to explore through out these past few weeks. 

So thank you very much for reading, and I hope you have a good day!

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