Hello! I hope you all are healthy! I am here to talk about our latest Humanities AND Scimatics project, Argh Matey!
Yes, we did a project that involved both Humanities and Scimatics. It was quite a crazy journey, and I am going to walk you through it!
So, first of all, I am going to tell you a bit about the project. We had two driving questions to answer, one for Humanities and one for Scimatics.
Humanities-What is the significance of global exploration?
Scimatics-How do cells and diseases interact?
We had to answer both of those driving questions through a comic. And not just any comic, a comic about an explorer who explored during the Age of Exploration. That explorer had to come into contact with a disease, and we had to show in our comic how the virus or bacteria interacted with the explorers body. Since there weren’t many explorers who came into contact with diseases other than scurvy, we got to make that part up.
By now, you are probably thinking, “wow, that sounds like a lot”, and you are entirely correct! I’m going to explain a bit about my comic, explorer, and disease!
When we first started this project, I automatically knew that I wanted to do a female explorer. I thought that it would be super interesting. I did run into one main problem. The Age of Exploration is from 1400-1600. At that time, women couldn’t do basically anything, let alone explore. So, I just googled ‘female explorers’. This is what came up.
As you can see, none of those explorers are from 1400-1600. So, I talked to Ms. Maxwell, my Humanities teacher, about doing the earliest explorer I could find, Jeanne Baret, who explored in the 1760’s. Ms. Maxwell agreed, and my project was a go!
Now that I had picked my explorer, I had to pick my disease. This part scared me. A lot. The main diseases that existed back then were Smallpox and Measles. Those two diseases both result in pustules forming on the skin. Gross, I know. Whenever I would look up Smallpox or Measles, guess what would come up. PICTURES OF PUSTULES! I knew that I could not deal with that, so I had to do a lot of research to try and find a disease that I felt comfortable researching. Then, I found yellow fever. Yellow fever is a disease transferred through mosquitoes. This, I could work with!
So, I started on my comic. We used a app called Comic Life. I have put in my comic for you to read!
Now, let’s talk about the curricular competencies! We had 5 competencies for this project. I’ll explain how I have used each competency in this project!
Connect: One of the first things we did in this project was read iconic comics, like Black Panther, and Batman. I thought about those while I was creating my comic.
Establish Historical Significance: As the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, Jeanne Baret definitely has historical significance , even though it was not expressed until way after her death. I think that I made it clear to the reader of my comic that Jeanne was the main character, and that she has made a lasting effect on circumnavigation.
Questioning and Predicting: I think that I persisted through my fear of pustules, and I have supplied adequate information about yellow fever.
Scientific Communication: I am very happy with my drawings, and I feel like they represent me using digital technologies. I feel like I have communicated my ideas very well through my comic.
Evaluating: I understand and appreciate the evidence that I have researched and communicated through my comic.
Okay, that’s a wrap! I encourage you to check out my amazing classmate Evelyn’s blog, because we chose the same explorer, and our different takes on her story are very interesting to read! Thank you for reading my blog, and I will see you next time!