Welcome back! In science recently, we’ve been learning about a whoooole bunch of different things. The driving question is “how does electricity shape our society and how can we generate it more sustainably?” . We had very many projects. Here some of them are.
Energy Infographic
Honestly, I was questioning if we ever did this, until I went and fetched it in Canva. So we made an infographic that shows people different ways that you can generate electricity. We got to chose, so I chose hydropower. You had to show the advantages, disadvantages, where it is commonly used and the sustainability of hydropower.
Electrical circuits + the game.
You probably already know the different types of circuts. Parallel, open, closed all that. So then we had to make a game. We were to each bring in a shoe box to make a dupe of the game Operation. Except that instead of getting shocked, we don’t want to turn on the light. Here is my game:
Answering the driving question:
Flash back, how does electricity shape our society and how can we generate it more sustainably?
I think electricity is important to our every day lives. It powers our houses, schools, work. It helps us use things like computers, phones, TV’s, Nintendo Switches. But I guess some ways could hurt the environment. To make it better, we can use solar power, wind and water (hydropower).
Welcome to my blog in 2025. New year new me. Or should I say new year new blog post. How great. Anther one. Anyways, I’m pretty sure this is my first post on a winter exhibition. Let’s get into it.
Driving question
For this project the driving question for this project was:
What factors precipitate ‘revolution’ and how have they shaped the modern world?
Animal Farm
Our last humanities project was on a book called Animal Farm. Animal Farm is a book released in 1945 about a bunch of farm animals who go against their farmer to create a society where they can be “equal” and “free”. If you want a full summary you can probably just search it up. We had to read the entire book. It was a super boring book and I had to summarize some chapters I didn’t understand. Anyways, I’m pretty sure that’s the book that started us on learning about revolutions.
Animal Farm Infographic
After we finished reading Animal Farm (while taking notes along the way) and we did our first assignment in relate to the book, an infographic. If you don’t know what an infographic is, that sucks for you. Just kidding. An infographic is a visual representation of information or data. I didn’t do a very good first one, so I had to revise it. Here is my finished infographic:
The French Revolution
Mr Harris assigned 5-6 people per- group, together. Once we sat down in our groups, surprise surprise. We got assigned revolutions. I was in a group with Eloise, Liann, Elsa, Samuel and Evelyn. We got assigned the French Revolution. If I haven’t already mentioned, this whole thing is for the Winter Exhibition. I think the teachers did a draw and chose the gr 9’s to do revolutions or something. Idk how this will help us in the future but whatever, it’s already done.
So for my group, the first assignment on the French Revolution was another infographic. What we had to do was research everything about the revolution and put it in infographic form. Here is mine:
After we made our personal infographic, we had to make a group one. So the group one took ideas from different personal infographics. I know a paragraph of mine was used somewhere. We also all used ideas for the layout and design. Here it is:
If you dont know what the French Revolution is here is a little summary:
The French Revolution was from 1789-1799.The revolution began with the Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, as a response to King Louis XVI’s mismanagement of the economy and disregard for the Third Estate. The National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, enshrining the principles of liberty and equality. Radical Jacobins led by Maximilien Robespierre, seized power and killed King Louis XVI, leading to the Reign of Terror. A guy named Napoleon Bonaparte eventually rose to power. This marked the end of the French Revolution and a beginning of the Napoleonic Empire. The French Revolution, impacted so many people and the society. This shaped modern democracy, politics, and society today.
The Metaphor Machine (Rube Goldberg Machine)
For our main Winter Exhibition piece, we had to make a Rube Goldberg machine from scratch. We started off with a wood sheet. We painted it and got to work. In each revolutions there is at least 10 important parts. So we had to find 10 different parts of the French Revolution and make it able so that a marble can run, and things can move. We had a month to make and have this machine ready to present.
First things first we had to plan it out. This is our draft of what it would look like:
Here is our machine coming together. It’s so funny looking back on it.
We had to plan and gather all the materials we were to be using. For Exhibition day, we brought in some food. Evelyn made cookies that looked like the French flag and I brought in 2 big packs of chocolate croissants. Surprisingly all the food was gone by the end of the night. A guy named Cole Webb decided to eat half of a pack😒.
The night of exhibition went really well. It worked 75% of the time and all was well.
Conclusion:
I had some fun but I don’t look forward to the next exhibition. I mean at least I learned something from this project that I will probably remember. Looks like sleep is calling, we’ll talk later.
Welcome to my presentation of learning. I am the expert of my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for improvement. Thank you in advance for listening and offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.
Main Focuses:
In agency I chose to tell you about “resilience”
In preparation I chose to talk about “outside of school”
And in communication I chose “with peers”
For resilience, I know I definitely give up easily and become discouraged when someone gives me a setback. Most of the time I try to finish what I started, but I do give up sometimes.
Last MPol I was talking about how I wanted to be more organized and manage my time better. I think I definitely improved on that. It’s just taking a lot of time. Thats why for preparation, I chose to talk about outside of school.
Lastly, with peers. I engage when Im in a group and come up with ideas. I will accept feedback, but sometimes I wont change what I already have and forget about what feedback they gave.
Destination Imagination (DI)
A couple months ago we got put into groups for something called Destination Imagination. We were in groups of 5. We had to present something that had art in it. We decided to make a colosseum. It wasn’t massive. It was just a little fold out that we could all crouch behind. It was kinda like a drama presentation. Here are my teammates blogs:
I think DI made me more comfortable with preforming. The hard part about this was remembering my lines. One of my group members had no clue what theirs were and I relied on them to know mine. I also had to learn them in 2 days while I was in Whistler. That was very stressful. On top of that, I was very sick and could barely speak.
Science:
My favourite experiment so far was definitely the Petri Dishes. We collected bacteria from surface areas with Q Tips,wiped them on the Petri Dishes and let the Petri Dishes cook over the weekend. We came back on Monday and took a look at our bacteria. Personally, I chose to swab my iPad and phone. In the end they both had ALOT of bacteria. I learned that I should definitely use a Lysol wipe and wipe my screens more. I would definitely do this project again.
However, our most recent work in science has been on vaccines. After learning a whole buttload about vaccines, we had to make a poster on vaccines and the myths around them. For example, here’s mine. I chose to do it on how the Covid vaccine doesn’t cause autism.
One last thing we did in science was learn about the cells in our immune system. These were the white blood cells, B cells, T cells and macrophage. We also learned about what they’re fighting off, the pathogens.
After learning all that, we had to make little immune system cells. I did mine on Paw Patrol.
Humanities:
As you already know, we took a long drive down the Oregon coast. This is PLP 8 classes first field trip (field study) that we’ve had. The field trip was a week long. Most of my friends have gone to Keats Camp for a week during the summer. But I’ve never done that before. So this was my first time being away from home for a week. One of my worries was not being able to contact my family if something goes wrong. Every couple days, I’d call or text my mom and tell her what we did that day and all that good stuff. I was glad we were able to stay at the hotel first because you realized what you didn’t download on the way there and could do that before bed. I wish we stayed longer at the hotel because I looooved who I shared a room with. I also really liked taking a trip to the ice machine. The ice machine reminded me of Gemma and I’s midnight runs to the ice machines. Those are good memories.
About a week after we came back from Oregon, we had a Spring Exhibition. We were put in groups before we left to Oregon. I was in a group with Brooklyn, Sawyer, Emilia, Robin and Oliver. I think we did pretty well for the time that we had to make it in. We did something like beer pong. You got 3 tries to get the ping pong ball in the cups. If you did you get a 2 Bite Brownie or a cake pop that Emilia made. I think we should’ve found something that drew more people to our ads. Most of the people went straight to the food. But I guess I would rather food over looking at ads.
Conclusion:
Im very happy that grade 8 is almost over. I think one thing I could do next year is check Showbie more often. Next year, Im looking forward to foods and to do more in science.
Welcome back to another post! This one is about science and vaccines.
The driving question was “how does our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public heath?”
Experimenting with Petri dishes!
This was probably my favourite experiment so far. We got to swab an object, wipe the swab on the Petri dish, and wait! The waiting part was a little bit hard, but the results were crazy. So, I decided to swab my iPad and my phone to see which one has the most germs. I touch both of them on a daily basis. Who knows. I predicted my phone to have more bacteria, because it is a smaller surface area, and more people touch it. The results: they were equally as dirty, and it was kinda gross to look at. I would definitely do this experiment again.
My Field Journal.
My field journal was used to keep track of the Petri dish, my hypothesis and the bacteria growing. We had to be VERY specific with our observations otherwise it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Immune System Cell Cards
So a week or two after doing the Petri dish experiment, we started learning about our immune system and all the cells that are inside you that help to fight off germs and diseases. We had to make character cards for the t-cell, b-cell, macrophage, white blood cell and the pathogens (germs and diseases). I drew a couple of the paw patrol characters. Here they are:
Why Don’t People Get Vaccinated?
Moving on to the next thing we learned, vaccines. The thing that we mainly focused on was, why don’t some people get vaccinated? Some reasons are: the vaccine was made rushed, the side effects, gives you autism (the one that I chose to do) and that it puts a micro chip inside you. Most of those reasons are pretty stupid, so I decided to make a poster to show that it doesn’t.
The End!
I learned so much in the past few months in science. It is very important to be educated on these things so we can get knowledge to pass onto future generations.
Hello. This is my mom and dad, Kristina and Lauren and I think Jared’s here too.
Introduction:
Thank you for coming to my mPOL. I am the expert of my own learning. I am also responsible for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We can discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and offering feedback that I could use to improve as a learner.
One thing that I’ve seen that my classmates do that id like to improve on is not leaving work till the last minute. I try to get it done before it’s due but sometimes I’ll hand it in like 5 or 10 minutes after it’s due. I’d also like to work on organization. Im not an organized person. Things doesn’t really help me so sometimes I just write a checklist of everything that I need to get done and that works better.
An example question that we had the option to answer is “did all the work you completed this year meet your standards?”. I’d say no. Some of my work was rushed and I had to redo it. Some of my work was in a group but some people take over. All that kinda stuff. The work that I’m most proud of are my window notes that we did in humanities with Ms Willemse. I think it was good for me to do because you got to relate to stuff that happens and I’m very good at relating. Here are my window notes:
There we go.
Humanities
In humanities I liked writing poems and reading The Outsiders. I like the language arts part of it. Socials on the other hand… is not my favourite. Learning about the world, places in the world, the past is kinda confusing and hard to understand. I think over time I’ll start to like it.
The Learning Plan that we did a while ago
I dont really remember when we did this but we did. It’s a learning plan. One thing we did was set goals and see if they were accomplished by the end of the year. My goals were to complete my work on time or even hand assignments in early and work on my time management.
Work Habits
So… as I was saying earlier im not the most organized person and that I have to work on that. I was also saying about how I use a checklist and check off the work I finished. I like to work really hard, get stuff done, then take a 10 min break and get back to work after that.
The Basics
Revision… So whenever Im bored, looking through Showbie and see a revision emoji, I’ll redo it. But normally my grades get lost in my emails. When I redo it I see what I did wrong and change up some things.
Teamwork… I like working in groups but sometimes that can be hard. There is always 1 or 2 people controlling the group so sometimes people in the group get left out. I like getting in there and helping, but once in a while I will let other people do more of the work.
Responsibility… Im not very responsible. I get most of my work in on time but then sometimes I just forget.
