Month: June 2017

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Southwest, the Essay

Fear ran rampant among the civilians of America as they learned what truly was behind the new atomic energy. However, despite the negative effects these atomic bombs were creating, people were too amazed by the magnificent show of lights and smoke the bombs came with. The lure of atomic bombs incentivized people to come to Vegas. Although they came for the interest in the bomb, they left with an interest in gambling. This was due to the quick growth of the economy and the city of Las Vegas.

Atomic was all the rage back in the 1950’s. Thanks to the American military and government for creating and using the first nuclear bomb to end World War II, people were using this new form of amazing energy for everything. Atomic candy, atomic comic books, atomic cereal, atomic hats. The new brand “atomic” would sell anything and everything. The city of Las Vegas used this to their advantage where they had live testing of real atomic bombs for the public to see. People from all over the place would travel to the once empty and desolate desert to see these amazing mushroom clouds of atomic energy. Las Vegas became known as the “Atomic City”, a new favourite tourist destination.

Casino owners used these atomic bombs to their advantage and advertised their hotels for people to stay in. Everything was advertised as atomic, even the bright signs were atomic like with their neon lights. People were drawn into Vegas by this attraction and when in need of a place to stay, resorted to the casino/hotels where they would try their luck on the slots and give their money unknowingly to the mob. Many hotels with a view of the test site gained popularity such as the Stardust Hotel and Casino and the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. People came to see the blast and they were able to from the comfort of their hotel. They were advertised as places with a great viewing of the mushroom clouds, and therefore, people who came to see the atomic testing chose to stay in those hotels

Before nuclear energy was even invented Las Vegas was a city known by few. At the beginning of World War Two, in 1940, Las Vegas had a population of only 8,400. It more than doubled within 5 years due to the sudden interest in gambling and casinos. By the 1950’s there were 44,600 people living in Vegas and 8 million people visited annually. In 1951 the Nevada test site was started and atomic bombs were being dropped, some even for the public to see. When these tests started begin available for the public to nsee, Las Vegas had a huge influx in visitors as well as business. Before these bombs became popular to the public, Las Vegas was a much less desired vacation spot. People would fly in from all over the world to see this new and spectacular bomb being blown up. Luckily for the casino owners you could see these atomic tests from the hotels and casinos on the strip. Many times residents even threw cocktail parties and gathered outside while a test was being carried out. The economy grew as more and more people were staying on the strip and spending their money on the food and hotels to see the glorious mushroom clouds from the atomic bombs. And in the meantime while waiting for the showing of the bomb, they would pass time by spending their money on shows or in the casinos. Therefore, the mob grew its power over the economy.

The lure of atomic bombs incentivized people to come to Vegas. Although they came for the interest in the bomb, they left with an interest in gambling. People feared that without the atomic bomb showings, Vegas would lose its attraction. However, the mob made sure that Vegas would be around for awhile by created hotels and casinos that were just as exciting. Although without the atomic bombs, Vegas wouldn’t have become as popular of a destination and therefore, the economy wouldn’t have done as well without it.

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TPoL, The New SLC

Here’s the big question, why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level? I don’t even want to think about grade 12… 

Here we go. Another SLC, I mean TPoL. I know this time of year you’re normally seeing an SLC blog post, but our teachers decided to change it up on us this year. Instead we are doing something similar, what they like to call, a TPoL. Better known as a Transitional Presentation of Learning. Basically we reflect on our learning, our growth, our strengths, work we’re proud of, work habits and responsibility. Although this time we are adding another aspect, why we feel we are ready to advance to the next grade level.

This question stumped me at first. I thought to myself, I don’t know why I’m ready, and honestly my first thought was, “well because I passed my courses”. But then after thinking about it some more it became pretty clear with me. All of the time, effort, skills I’ve developed have prepared me for the next year, my final year in high school.

Since PLP this year consisted of English and socials, as it does every year, I thought I would share how I’ve grown as a leaner in humanities. Over the past few months of third term I feel I have improved in every way, maybe not the quality of my work, but every other way. I’ve been more confident with my work and by that I mean I’m not afraid to ask for critique anymore. Before I was always nervous about asking my teachers or peers for critique for fear of being judged, now I grew some more confidence and have started accepting more critique and I realized how helpful it is. Also I feel I’ve been diving deeper into my critical thinking by spending my time researching more. As well as I’ve been paying more attention in class. Normally I kind of half listen and don’t really absorb much of the information, but recently I’ve been focusing more and trying my hardest to listen carefully to all the information being delivered.

As I say every time we have one of these, I plan to improve on my time management skills and handing everything in on time. This time around I actually made some progress. Throughout third term I have been handing in all of my work, seriously I don’t think my showbie has ever looked better. Normally I procrastinate everything until the last minute and sometimes I don’t even do it. Recently I have been planning out my time more efficiently due to the huge work load I have had near the end of the year. I don’t know why I didn’t start doing this earlier because it had helped me feel so much better and less stressed out. Although I have been handing everything in, it may not be my best work. That is something I hope and plan to improve on. I’ve got the timing down, now I just need to work on my quality of work. This last term has been one of my best for work ethic and work habits. Although there is always room for improvement on both of those. Maybe I can work on handing things in early next year! (Or maybe not, but one can always dream).

Teamwork. Probably one of my favourite and least favourite words associated with school. When I think of teamwork I think of all the difficult times we had while working on our Macbeth project, but I also think about the amazing teamwork we had while doing our winter Exhibition. This term we had a few chances to work in teams. For example we were put into teams based around lord of the flies. We were awarded and denoted points for work handed in, being on time, participation in class, all the basics of the classroom. This forced us to try extremely hard to be our best. I had to take on a responsibility for my team to make sure I was holding my own so I wouldn’t bring them down. This competition actually made me hand in all of my work on time, which almost never happens, however it wasn’t my best work. We worked hard in our teams for our debates. That was probably one of the best teams work wise this year. We collaborated well together and fought hard in our debates.

I’d say some of the work I’m most proud of this year would have to be the debate, althoughI I didn’t get the chance to talk during it, it was one of the projects I worked the hardest on. We spent so much time preparing our concepts and practicing rebuts. We were prepared and worked very well together.

Another project I’d say I’m most proud of is the concept blog post we recently completed. I spent a lot of time focusing on this one. Previously we had written concept paragraphs in class. Our task was to choose one of these and elaborate more on it in a blog post. I turned my paragraph into a somewhat essay and related two more topics to the concept. Then I created s visual to help the reader better understand the concept. Overall I feel I worked hard on this task and the product came out well.

Grade 12 is only in 2 months. Seems like a lot closer when you put it like that. Just thinking about it makes me nervous. Although I may not have thought I was prepared for this, I know I am. After all the hard work I’ve put in this year, not just in PLP, my growth in learning, my responsibility over my work, and most importantly I think, my procrastination. Next year is gonna be my last year of high school and I feel I have never been more ready for it to come.

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A Violent Human Nature

Violence is something as a society most people frown upon. However there are still many people out there in the world who resort to violence as a solution. Others who claim to be non-violent and fight against acts like that are still prone to thoughts of violence and even have outbursts of their own from time to time. Does this mean every person can ensue violence or is it in our human nature to be violence?

The book Lord of the Flies draws upon the inner nature of savageness that lies within each of us. Being violent is something that couples well with savagery and in fact most savages are quite violent as we see with the character Jack. “Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair.” – Lord of the Flies. This was at the very beginning of the story, before Jack turns completely savage and we see that even early on, he had an underlying savage and violent manner. Before landing on the island in the story the Lord the Flies, the boys were proper young British boys who obeyed all the rules and stuck to the typical format of a non-violent society. As the days passed by on the island the boys began killing animals for food, which they all found a thrill in, “(Jack) tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up,” – Lord of the Flies. The more the boys killed for food, the more violent they became. They started killing the animals on the island just for the fun of it. This led to them even becoming violent towards one another, and killing their own. But how could these young British boys turn into complete violent savages so quickly? Does this mean that it is in our human nature to be violent?

As much as we try to be nice and civil to everyone and everything in our world, people still tend to drift back to the underlying instinct within them to be violent. Being violent doesn’t always mean you are conducting a physical act of violence. It could also mean you are saying or even writing violent ideas. In our society today we see how popular books and movies that are violent or have violence in them are, but we forget to look back on the past entertainment as well. The play Macbeth was gruesome, evil, and violent. It’s not just today’s society that uses violence for entertainment. In the time of Macbeth and even before that things for almost more violent then they are now. Does this mean people have always been violent? In the story of Macbeth we see how the main character Macbeth fights against his beliefs and listens to his wife, Lady Macbeth, into killing the king. This he immediately feels bad about afterwards but he still went against his own thoughts and beliefs to inflict and act of violence upon someone else, and therefor, kills another. Lady Macbeth although doesn’t inflict the initial act of violence, is the one who conducts it. This shows us that there are more then one way to be violent, not just with physical actions.

Not only does violence occur in stories, but it happens day to day in difference societies all over the world. Especially in the past. World War Two was one of the most violent and savage wars there was. As humans in the past, and sometimes still today, we resorted to violence and war as a way to solve our problems and disputes. Instead of choosing to solve things in a civil manner, our human nature chose to be violent as if that were a better way to solve things. Wars are generally some of the most violent times in history, but sometimes the violence carries on after the war once soldiers have returned home. In the bombed-out ruins of Europe’s cities, feral gangs scavenge for food. Old men are murdered for their clothes, their watches or even their boots. Women are mercilessly raped, many several times a night. And the wrong surname, even the wrong accent, can get you killed. for hundreds of millions of Europeans, many of them now gentle, respectable pensioners, this was daily reality in the desperate months after the end of World War II. The violent acts and thoughts continued on with them after the war had finished and although for most when they left for the war not wanting to kill, they came back with a blood thirst for violence. Maybe this violent nature was always there for them.

The way we act and the way we think may differ when it comes to violence. Since society has told us that violence is bad we try to erase those thoughts and forget about them, for some this is more challenging to achieve and they end up being violent. This means that no matter how much you may hide it, everybody has violent thoughts and violent outbursts no matter how small they may be. Therefor, violence is in our human nature, no matter how much we try to fight it, there will always be an underlying urge to be violent in some sort of way.

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Southwest, the Project

Over the years of being in PLP, we have done many different types of projects varying from essays, videos, explain everything’s, and for some, even puppet shows. However, we tried a new form of project to demonstrate our learning this time, the video Essay.

Video Essay definition: A video essay is a written essay read aloud and mixed with a stream of images, sound, or video. They often explore topics in a subjective or poetic manner.

Now when we first heard the news that this would be our project following our trip to the Southwest, I wasn’t too thrilled. We watched an example in class of what one of these video essays might look like and wow it was pretty amazing. After watching it sure I was inspired to do my own and do it well, but I was a little worried because of the amount of work that was put into it as well as how well it was done. I worked with Anatolia on this project and it definitely did not end up being as good as the example we saw.

To start off the project we traveled all the way down to Tucson Arizona, and Las Vegas Nevada, (which of course isn’t necessary, but was amazing nonetheless). Before leaving for the trip we had been learning about atomic energy, the mob, and everything under the concept of fear around the time of the 50’s in Las Vegas and America. And of course we created our question for our project. For ours it was. We then took the flight, very early in the morning I might add, and traveled down to the southwest to experience and learn even more about what we had been talking about in class.

During the trip we had the opportunity to get video, pictures, interviews, and find even more information for our topics and video essays. When we returned from our trip we used all of this new information, as well as our previous knowledge from class and brought it all together in an informative expository essay. Here’s a link to the essay: Southwest Essay

After getting our Essay approved by our teachers, we moved on to the video aspect of the project. We had to take our Essay and record it as audio, with a few changes to better the video content of course. Then we took that and found videos, pictures and used our own videos, pictures and interview clips from the trip to enhance our written aspect and create an image for the viewers to use to better understand our essays.
This was more challenging then expected because of course we didn’t get as many clips and pictures from Vegas as we had hoped because we ended up altering our topic when we returned from the trip. At first we were focusing on the mob so we got a lot of footage for that, but when we returned we changed our focus more to the atomic bomb and the economy of Vegas. And it is completely our fault for not recording everything, which now looking back we should have. Since we didn’t we have had to find and create our own footage and images to use for our video. This has made things a little more challenging for us.

Honestly we had a slow and rough start to this project. We didn’t collaborate well and therefor we were left with a terrible and not finished first draft. I spent hours after receiving the feedback and critique fixing, adding, and editing our video. It took a long time to get our video to an acceptable state, and I still wish I could go back and edit a few more things.

Before this unit I had never heard of a video Essay and when I first heard about them I was not excited to be creating my own. After completing this project I realized that it wasn’t that bad to do. I always have enjoyed writing essays, (well not enjoyed, but they’re probably my favourite to do over most other things), so by incorporating an essay into a project I used one aspect of a project that I liked and used another, the video, as something that I need to improve on and want to get better at. This project showed me a new form of presenting my learning and I’m glad we did it. It was something different and engaged me in the project more then doing something that we normally do would have.

 

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The Debate of the Year

The end of the school year has come once again, and we all know what that means, exhibition time. This year, unlike my past two years in the PLP program, we didn’t do any blue sky projects, (which not gonna lie, I’m kind of happy about). Instead as I explained earlier on in the year, we have done different types of projects. We created an immersive experience for our winter exhibition and that was extremely fun to create and present. This time we tried something a little different. A debate battledome.

Recently in class we have been studying a few things. The Canadian government system as well as other government systems, Lord of the Flies, and finally debates. We spent about 3 weeks to a month doing all of this and wow can I just say that it was hectic. All of our class time was spent learning about these topics and preparing for our big debates. We were put into teams of 3, these were the teams that we would debate with. My team was made up of myself, Cashel, and Jackson. Going into it we were all pretty confident we would do well as we all enjoy doing debates.

The night had finally come. Thursday night, our exhibition night. We had spent all of our time in class preparing ourselves for this and we were all ready to do our best and destroy the debates in the battledome. We spent our time after school practicing and preparing as a team for our great debate. We were looking over our concept charts we had made in and out of class and practicing thinking on the spot. Now was the time and the three of us in our group were prepared and ready to battle.

We got the news that we would be the first ones up and debating. That was the most relieving and stressful news all at once. I was glad to be going first so that I wouldn’t be nervous thinking about it later, but at the same time I was dreading going up. I was surprisingly 100% calm right up until the moment we walked up in front of everyone. I don’t think I’ve ever shook that much in any presentation. As prepared as I was I was still extremely nervous. While we were debating I was trying to type notes and points for my team and had to retype everything five times because I was shaking so much. Honestly my only fear at that point was dropping my iPad from shaking so much.

Our team did really well in our debate, despite the fact that the results didn’t show it. We were well spoken, had good points and strong rebuttals. I’m proud of the work we did in our first round. Even if we did get eliminated. Since we technically lost the first round, we then had to fight in the losers bracket a little later on in the night and boy did we kill that one. For this second debate it was all based upon audience votes and we had an almost unanimous vote for us. It was insanely fun to debate that second time because at that point we were all riled up and prepared to take down the other team. I guess the name “debate battledome” was quite appropriate for our exhibition then.

Here’s the winning team, Michael Sutherland, Christopher Ross, and Maria Melhado

Overall I feel this was a new and extremely helpful learning experience for us all. It forced us to think on our feet, use our witty abilities to come back with good rebuts, and create well thought out points quickly. I enjoyed my time at the debates and feel it was a god choice for our exhibition this spring, even if we didn’t win it was still a fun event and project. Although next year I wouldn’t mind trying something different again.