Category: PLP 8 Scimatics

The Body vs Bacteria

Hello everybody 👋🏼

Tis’ me, Brooke.

It’s almost summer! I am writing this with 3-ish days left of school and let me tell you, this year has flown by. But this post is not about that.

Driving question

How do cells and diseases interact?

The truth is, different cells will react differently to different diseases. One type of cell has a different job than another type of cell and each would have different jobs when it comes dealing with a disease. In my comic, you will see that some cells are battling head on with the disease and others have jobs that work in the background.

The Project

Our last project for scimatics this year was called “Comic cells”. Basically we each had to make a comic about some sort of cellular process. And as per usual with science projects like this, we started off with a mind map.

I’m really sorry that the photo is so blurry. And if I’m being honest, I’m not incredibly proud of this mind map. I feel like I definitely could’ve added more especially to the questions section.

I came into this project not knowing much about cells, so building knowledge was a very important part of this project. Khan Academy was helpful for general cell knowledge but we also had to do our own independent research for our comics. I decided that I wanted to make my comic about how the body reacts to a wound. And, just for added flavour, tetanus would also enter the wound.

Before we jumped into creating the actual comic, we made a rough draft storyboard. Let me say that again before showing you, it is a ROUGH DRAFT storyboard.

And the moment you hopefully have been waiting for, here is my final comic;

p.s. I couldn’t get it in here as a PDF because the file was too big so instead it is an image metaslider.

Core competencies 

Questioning and predicting

This competency is usually hard for me because it includes using class time efficiently and I am a person who gets distracted easily. But in this project I feel that I did the best I’ve ever done in this competency. I guess that shows lots of improvement compared to the beginning of the year.

Scientific communication 

I really like using interesting vocabulary so this project was a great way for me to use and extend this skill. Learning and using new words is something that I have done a lot of this year and I think it’s pretty cool that I know the pronunciation and meaning of ✨immunoglobulin✨.

Evaluating 

I did SO much individual research to insure that my comic was as accurate as it could be. I think that this project might have actually sparked my interest in biology. Trying to make the comic accurate  without making it overwhelming was something that I was constantly thinking about but I think that I did a pretty good job at.

Conclusion 

Well thank you for reading my post and I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about what you body does at a cellular level. Have a happy summer!

As always, Brooke.

The Ultimate Bedroom Setup Noº3

Hi there 👋🏼

Welcome back to another scimatics blog post.

Fair warning, I am writing this post extremely tired.

Project description

In this scimatics project we worked in a small group to create 3D objects. We had to calculate the surface area and volume of the object we created and then put together a presentation for the class.

Driving question 

How can I design a bed to optimize its volume?

The main contributor of a bed’s volume is it’s mattress. A thick and fluffy mattress makes for added comfort and volume.

The project itself 

My group decided that we wanted to make a three part bedroom set. The set consisted of a bedside table, a bookshelf, and a bed. The object I was going to create was the bed. Before we started creating, we had to decide whether we would be designing the object for maximum surface area or maximum volume, I chose maximum surface area (but that didn’t work out for me in the end).

We would be using a 3D design website called Tinkercad.com  to create the object. At first, I found it difficult to understand the controls but after completing lots of the Tinkercad  tutorials I finally started to get it. I made a few sketches on procreate to help guide me with what the measurements of my bed should be.

My bed ended up looking like;

I also recorded a video where I scroll around to all sides of the bed. Just in case you were curious about what it looks like to use Tinkercad.

As I said in the project description, we needed to create a presentation about our 3D models to show the class. My original plan was to record us giving our presentation but I was so nervous that I forgot ☹️. So I made my group do a screen recording with voiceover so that I could still show y’all our presentation. Here it is;

The curricular competencies 

Applying and innovating: Contribute to self, others, community, and world through personal or collaborative approaches.

This competency was both harder and easier to achieve when working in a group with your best friends. On one hand we really worked well together and had no problem helping each other out. On the other hand I think that we could’ve done better at trying to keep each other on topic.

Reasoning and analyzing: Model mathematics in contextualized experiences. 

My model consisted of 11 basic 3D shapes and of those were 3 kinds; rectangular prisms, triangular prism , and cylinders. Sure my model wasn’t the most complicated but I made the design clean and it matched the other models in my group. I had originally intended the bed to have maximum surface area but later realized that the bed would end up having maximum volume if I designed it as I had planned.

Communicating and representing: Explain and justify mathematical ideas and decisions.

The calculations I made for my model were accurately measured and calculated. My milestone 3 shows the calculations which you can also see in the YouTube video presentation.

Milestone 3 calculations

Conclusion 

In conclusion, it was really fun working with my friends in a group project. I enjoyed learning how to use Tinkercad and I am proud of how I was able to create the model. I definitely feel like my math skills in calculating surface area and volume have improved a TON during the project.

Here are my group members posts on this project

Dana – The Ultimate Bedroom Set Up Noº1

Makenna – The Ultimate Bedroom Set Up Noº2

 

Thanks for reading!

As always, Brooke.

 

 

 

 

PEW! PEW!

For this project we had to make a fully functional laser gun to use in epic battles with aliens……..

Just kidding

This project is about using the Pythagorean theorem and the laws of reflection to        create a laser triangle. 

“LASERS?!? Aren’t those dangerous?”

We aren’t using those types of lasers you see in movies that can cut through metal and slice off fingers. The lasers that we use are just rays of coloured light. Just like those laser cat toys:

Building knowledge 

Atthe start of this project I had no idea what the Pythagorean theorem or law of reflection was. So obviously we had to do lots of building knowledge. We were out into our project groups to come up with all the questions we had for this project.

We then started a project start mind map just to gather all the information that we already knew. Here is a comparison of my mind map at the begging and end of the project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also did a really cool lab to learn about frequency and amplitude in waves.

Now what is the law of reflection? The law of reflection is the fact that the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection will always be the same distance from the normal. As you can see in the diagram below, the normal is an imaginary line that is perpendicular to the reflective surface. We did lots of practise measuring the angle of incidence and reflection with accuracy so that our final project could be precise.

We also had to learn about using the Pythagorean theorem. Pythagorean theorem is used to measure the side lengths of right angle triangles. The formula is A ² + B ² = C ² or Leg ² + leg ² = hypotenuse ². The Pythagorean theorem also states that the area of the square formed by the longest side of the right triangle (the hypotenuse) is equal to the sum of the area of the squares formed by the other two sides of the right triangle, the hypothetical squares look like this;

Our final laser triangle- milestone 5

The end goal of this project was milestone 5, where each group had to create an accurately planned laser model that included at least 1 right triangle. My group didn’t have a lot of ideas for what we wanted ours to look like but we decided that we would try to create the laser off the ground by elevating everything with stands and clamps. The whole point of the model was that it was supposed to be able to be measured accurately, especially the angle of incidence and angle of reflection. We ran into a big problem when every time we tried to set it up something had shifted or changed in height. With only two days left until the project was due we decided to scrap all that we had worked on and remake the triangle on the table like everyone else. We were able to measure more accurately and it was much easier to mark the position of the mirrors and laser. On the final day I brought in my glue gun and some glitter because we basically just had the project sitting on a white piece of cardboard that had marks all over it. What I’m trying to say is that even though our project was fully functional it looked….. bland. But there is almost nothing that glitter cant fix so with a little bit of white paint and pure creativity our project started to look pretty good. Here are some photos of what we made + a short write up;

Final triangle design pdf

 

 

 

 

   Core competencies

  • Questioning and predicting: How can I demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest? The milestones that correspond with this competency are; Milestone1- project start mind map, milestone 3- law of reflection group lab, milestone 4- lazer design lab individual, milestone 5- final laser model. This competency is about using your class time efficiently to do your work without distractions. This competency might not seem hard but definitely is something that I know I can do better on. In the final days of making the physical model my group had to scrap our original idea and start from scratch. It was really hard to stay focused on the project when it seemed like a sinking ship. We ended up pulling ourselves together and I am very proud of the final stage of our laser model.

 

  • Communicating and representing: how can I represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms? The milestones that support this competency are; Milestone 2- Pythagorean khan academy quiz and milestone  6- the blog post. This competency is about being able to develop a scientific procedure that is accurate and includes all required steps of a scientific method. Even though the project outline only links two milestones to this competency I would actually like to add more. I think that I used this competency in milestones 3, 4, and 5, when I had to write up about the experiments. Overall I think that I improved the most on this competency compared to the other two because I got more comfortable and confident the more I worked on this competency.

 

  • Applying and innovating: how can I co-operativly design projects? This competency is used in; Milestone -4 individual lazer design, milestone 5- final laser model, and milestone 6- the blog post. This competency is about having an accurately planned, labeled, built, and measured laser triangle. This competency also talks about all group members contributing equally. Yet again I would also like to add milestone 3, the law of reflection group experiment, to this competency because that was a group project that corresponded with the values of this competency.

 Now its time for my goodbye statement.

This project was really fun and I obviously couldn’t have done it without my group. Big thanks to Claire, Ariane, and Theryn.

As Always, Brooke.

A game about tectonic plates? How boring…

Ever heard of a tectonic plate? I bet most of you have. But do you know the science behind it? 

As you may have guessed, we learned about tectonic plates for the new project we were doing. The end product of this project is a game about plate tectonics that uses probability to determine outcomes.

We made a list of every question we could imagine on the topic of “How does the movements of Earths tectonic plates cause observable changes and effects?” Here are the questions my amazing partner Cooper and I came up with. You may notice some C’s and O’s and those mark closed ended and open ended questions. 

You also may have noticed that there are questions marked 1,2, and 3. Those are were our top three questions that we came up with and wanted answers to. 

We then started our project start mind map using an app called MindNode. I added the mind map categories of QFT top 3 questions, random questions, key concepts, plate tectonics, game ideas, and tectonic game vocabulary . 

 We did a lot of exercises that built our knowledge of plate tectonics so that we could include the key concepts in our game. We learnt about plate boundaries and faults, the layers of earth and mantle convection, and tectonic disasters. Many workbook sheets were completed to ingrain in us the science behind the movement of tectonic plates. That part of the project was a science curricular competency called; Evaluating: Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of evidence. I really like learning about cool science concepts so that competency was really enjoyable for me.

We also did work on game probability so that we could calculate the odds of certain events occurring in our games. The use of probability falls under the curricular competency of; Understanding and solving: Develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving

Meanwhile all of this time my partner Cooper & I were thinking of ideas and rules for our game. After many ideas and lots of refinement we finally got our game rules written down. We started a cycle of testing certain aspects of our game then refining the rules, testing and refining, testing and refining. 

Questioning and predicting: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest. – Using our newfound knowledge of tectonic plates, we had to prepare for game day, the big end to this project. Game boards were made and pieces were gathered. Dice, cards, and spinners, Oh my! We printed out our final game rules and laminated a ton of cards. And after all of that preparation we were ready for the final test of our game.

Did we do it? Did we make a fully functional game about plate tectonics? I’ll let you decide for yourself. Here is a link to the final game rules: Nothing Left Rules

I usually would have put the driving question at the start of this post but I felt that it fit better here. The driving question was “How are thematic and mathematical elements used in game design?”. I think you can figure this one out by now but just in case you can’t; Our games had to use probability. Dice, cards, spinners, etc. Probability is a mathematical element. If you think about commercial games that are for sale, how many of them use some sort of probability? Probably 90%. Same with thematic elements of games. Our games were based on tectonic plates. Some games have sciencey themes like aliens or viruses, others are murder mystery’s or worlds made of candy. You might think that making a game is just using dice or cards to get a piece from one side of a board to the other, but now I know that there is a lot more that goes into the science and planning behind games.

This was a fun project. It was really cool to be able to learn about something new (tectonic plates) and be able to apply that knowledge into something bigger (a game). I learn best when I am interested in the topic and this project definitely made me interested in tectonic plates and the mystical planet called earth. I grew as a learner in this project when I asked questions, found the answers, and was able to use the answers to aid my game. However I did not do this project alone. I would like to give a big thanks to my amazing partner Cooper, we worked extremely well together and I couldn’t have done any of this project without him.

As always, Brooke.

Am I a screen addict?!?

New quarter, new class. Our first scimatics project was rather short- Just for us to get a feel of what scimatics would be like. The driving question for this project was “What fraction of our time is screen time?” From my calculations, I spend just over 1/4 of my week on screens.

In this project, we made a spreadsheet that calculated what time we spend doing things like screen productivity, entertainment, exercise, sleep, etc. We started right away on making the spreadsheet so that we could track a complete week. Most of us did not have a bunch of previous knowledge with the Numbers app so we learned some really cool tricks on how to use numbers and how to customize cells. The competency that went along with this part of the project was Understanding and solving: Visualize to explore mathematical concepts.

Another one of the competencies we were learning was how to represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms. We were showed how to add pie charts and graphs to display the data we collected in different forms. The goal was to find as many ways to display the data as possible. I made 6 pie charts, 4 bar graphs, and 1 line graph. 

We also did lots of homework practise sheets to strengthen our knowledge of fractions, decimals, mixed numbers, and percents. I was pleased to find out that I’m actually pretty good at working with fractions because I know that those skills will help me in the future. I used the competency of applying and innovating by being productive and using my class time wisely. My table partner and I talked often and helped each other out when we got stuck on a question or task.

I really enjoyed colour-coding my screen time tracker and it was super fun to try to find different graphs and charts to make. I was glad to find out that I don’t spend an incredible amount of time on my screens but I would like to try to bring that number down a bit. Also I’m not entirely sure what I was doing on Thursday but apparently I had a lot of screen time that day. Anyways, thank you for reading my short reflection of my Screen time tracker 2020.

As always, Brooke.