Month: June 2024

Tpol time…🫣

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Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on 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 growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.

Tpol

Welcome to my TPol blog post! I will be working on reflecting on my PLP journey so far. Enjoy!

Teamwork/Everyone Doing Their Best Work

Other people:

At the beginning of the year, I had already met most of the people in the grade 8 PLP program. I think at least 50% of the kids were from Cove Cliff (my elementary school) and the rest of them I had met or seen at least once. But even if they were class mates or acquaintances, I hadn’t really worked with them. Team work and group work is very hard and I didn’t have a good idea yet of what it really is. The difference was, now I was forced to work closely with these people every day, collaborating on things as simple as creating a team name or as complicated as the spring exhibition that we just finished. Near the beginning of the year, group projects were so hard for me. Now I recognize that this was because I didn’t know the people in my group as well as I do now. It helps an amazing amount when you know people better. The Oregon field study trip took this idea even further. Now we all understand one another better and this will definitely show in upcoming projects. Knowing how to work with someone, what to expect from them, how to be able to get more from them so they can do their best work…  From coming up with rules or ideas you know will help them focus, to making sure that you give them opportunities to understand the project and put their own stamp on the project. Maybe more than I was originally comfortable with. 

Me:

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to other people. I have learned how to give myself what I need to do my best work on projects. I know I have to focus, and what I can do for myself so that I am able to do work that i’m proud of. For example, I cannot stress enough how long it took for me to be able to even start writing this paragraph, just because the dogs were barking or the music I was listening to wasn’t the vibe I was going for. I know that I need to create the right learning environment. I need to make an outline or a rough draft so I know where I’m going before I begin. I need to take breaks, and eat food or I wont be able to pay attention. 

Growth Opportunities

Planning But Being Flexible 

I’ve learned to plan but also be flexible. I also know now that that often the end product is not so similar to what I imagined in my head. When I begin to do something, though it may take me a while to start, once an idea gets screwed into my brain, it keeps growing and growing until it is either unrealistic, or too perfect. One example is the spring exhibition. Ella and I had an original idea of creating a 1:2 scale of an entire cheese factory. We planned on dressing up like factory workers that we saw when we visited the Tillamook Creamery. I had no idea that this original concept would grow into our tiny clay cheese display and our rubber glove cow udder. I think I have more work to do on my patience. More time spent on outlines and planning, while knowing I have to be flexible and that the project may change over time.

Going Deeper:

Another thing that is a major struggle for me is taking feedback. I have a hard time revising things I have already worked hard on, I think a part of my brain is lazy and wants to stop working when something is “good enough”.  I still have a hard time taking the extra steps, adding depth to my writing if I am not interested or in the right mindset to continue on working. I usually begin things like blog posts by just retelling, telling people things they already know, and summarizing things the way they look in my head. I need to remember to constantly add more detail and not just review what happened. I need to write not about what happened and more about my unique point of view and how it effects me as a person. Once example of this was my Science Keynote. ‘Swab the School’ was a project we worked on where we swabbed different places around the school and observed the bacteria growing in the pitting dish we transferred the germs into. If I am being perfectly honest, this project didn’t really interest me in the beginning. I didn’t really want to know what is happening on the handles of doors, or the faces of mirrors. I needed to push myself to want to understand the project, and when I did I was able to excel at it, and complete the keynote well. That is a perfect example of when pushing myself the extra step really did make the difference.

Engagement and FAIL:

One other thing that I have been working on is engagement. From the outside, It may seem like I am a very engaged and energized person, because I am, but sometimes, my laziness gets in the way, and I really just want to give up. This has happened many times during my PLP journey, from just thinking about this Tpol, to presenting it now. One of my favourite examples of this happening was my Destination Imagination project. We went to the first challenge with a pile of trash- I am not exaggerating. I can barely think about where we started without cringing. After the first competition, we all wanted to be done and we wanted to give up so that we wouldn’t have to do another Destination Imagination competition. We had already done it, and failed miserably, so why would we ever do it again? I’m not sure if you remember, but our transition was crazy. I am so incredibly proud just thinking about it. We built a whole new working giant pinball machine like we had originally imagined the first time around. This is solid proof of why we need to remember to take second chances and why it is so important to stay engaged all throughout both in school and in life in general. I need to keep in mind that failing is ok and can lead to something better!

Agency

Ownership and Responsibility:

Agency is a challenge for me but it is also one of my favourite parts of PLP. I love having responsibility, it is so rewarding to take control of something and succeed, it is very fulfilling to complete something you did, that you are proud of. One part of this that I know I have really grown in is the ‘Asking for help’ portion. I know that in the seventh grade, and even just earlier this year, I would sooner run for the hills than ask someone that I didn’t know too well for help. Now that I know my teachers and peers better, I feel so much more comfortable and confident asking for help.

Asking for Help/ Helping Others:

One example of this was when I missed a few days of school visiting my cousins in California, and I needed to catch up on what I missed. I ended up asking multiple classmates about what I missed, and was able to reach the same point as my peers quickly.  I also have found that I really enjoy being helpful to others. When we’re working on a project that I have a strong grasp on, I’m always one of the first to volunteer to help others, even if I’m not finished myself. It feels Also, when our PLP 8 class went to Oregon on a field study, and Tyler and a few of my other classmates didn’t come with us, I called Tyler often, to update her on our day and keep her in the loop.

Driving Question

How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?

I believe that all of the things that I have mentioned throughout this post are evidence that showcase how PLP has prepared me for next year. I am aware there will be many differences between grade 8 and 9, but I am prepared to use the skills I have learned to help me through the new year. Problem solving, Teamwork, Agency, and more are skill I have began to learn this year, and that I will continue to polish throughout my years, not only n high school, but in life.

Outro

I am definitely ready for grade 9. I feel like I’m in a great place after I have overcome so many challenges, but I still have a lot of work to do. I have been working in so many things this year, from taking feedback, to keeping up a steady attitude, and even how to deal with failure. I am excited to continue my PLP journey, as well as my High School journey during the next 4 years. Thank you for listening/reading my presentation of learning!

Spring Exhibition!

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Intro

On Thursday June 13th, 2024, I completed my very first spring exhibition. I worked in a group with Julia, Madeline, Ella, Griffin, and Marcus, and our focus was “Discovery and Learning”. We worked together to create an immersive experience, meant to take you through some our favourite stops of our Oregon field study. We separated into three groups within our group, each focusing on a different location. We chose to talk about Fort Stevens, the Yaquina Head Tidepools, and the Tillamook Creamery.

Oregon

Our driving question for the PLP 8 segment of the exhibition was “how does language fuel adventure?” and we modelled our work around advertisements for Oregon. We adventured all over the Oregon Coast for our May field study and we kept track of our travels and experiences within the book below. Feel free to explore my Oregon journey by reading through my field study book!

Tilamook Creamery

Ella and I worked together to create a presentation about the Tillamook Creamery and how the cheese is made. Near the end of our Oregon trip, we visited the Tilamook Cheese Factory and Creamery and it was a highlight for me. To share what we learned, Ella and I made three dimensional models out of clay describing the process of making cheese.  We showed all the stages which are: milk, curds, salting, forming, packaging and then shipping.  My favourite piece that we made was a miniature package of Tillamook cheese made with plastic wrap and a tiny Tillamook cheese label. We also wanted give people the experience of what it would be like to milk a cow. We made a fake cow udder using a black rubber glove with multiple small holes poked in all the fingers and it hung from a wooden stand. This activity attracted people to our table because it was fun. We took people through our station, first showing them our cheese diagram, and then our udder. We would offer them a cupcake or a piece of cheese on their way out. Ella and I dressed up in hairnets, and aprons, similar to the clothes we saw the workers wear at the cheese factory. We also dressed up a wooden model in a similar outfit and sat her on top of our makeshift cow. I believe this project was a success, and I was so happy with the way our hard work turned out. The PLP teachers also called us out during cleanup, saying that our Tillamook Cheese project was one of the exhibition projects to see!

Tide Pools

Madeline and Julia worked together to create the second part of our project. They created an interactive tide pool, similar to the ones we saw when we went to Yaquina Bay. Madeline and Julia crafted a presentation around the animals inside of the tide pool, and told people about what it was like to go to the Bay, and what they learned. They made starfish and sea anenomies and painted them to look very realistic. They dressed up in waders and sunglasses, acting as the tourists and tour guides we met when we went to Yaquina Bay. They dressed their little wooden model the same way, and positioned him holding a little tiny starfish. This was such a fun activity, both in the real Yaquina Bay, but also the makeshift version of it that we made for this exhibition.

Fort Stevens

Griffin and Marcus worked together to create a model of one of the rifles we learned about when we visited Fort Stevens. They recreated a 200 pound parrot rifle, which looks like a cannon, but is labeled as a rifle because of the notches inside of the barrel. Fort Stevens had 8 of these rifles which they placed strategically, so that it could aim 180 degrees. They made a small version of the rifle that could also spin around 180 degrees, and also dressed a model of a person that they named Vincent. Poor Vincent lost a few limbs over the course of the project, but was still going strong by the end.

Ads

We also created ads that are meant to promote different locations Oregon. We made them using the programs Canva and Sketches Pro, and chose the font BLOC from Canva. We used natural green colours, and did our best to make them all feel cohesive and aesthetic. We chose those colours because we wanted to create a feeling of tranquility and nature to those observing our ads and presentation. We worked on them when we got back from the field study, and we showed the ads to people after they learned about cheese making. We used the same font and colour scheme in our presentations and outfits to connect all of our work.

Teamwork/Interactive

If I had to choose the most important elements in our exhibition project, both teamwork and interaction with our audience helped our success. During this exhibition, I learned about how the more interactive and interesting your project is, the more people will enjoy coming to see it. Believe it or not, adding the cow udder was a pretty last minute decision. This added element took our exhibit from good to great, and it made me so much happier and confident with the end result. Because it was silly and fun, it broke the ice with the audience and made our exhibition more successful because the audience could participate in our project. Teamwork was obviously a huge part of this project, but I also can recognize that having teamwork skills is not just being able to work with people, but being able to recognize how to help people work better with you. In my group, there were self-starters who would try their hardest no matter what, but also people who would only apply themselves if they were interested in the topic. I pitched the idea to add a topic that I knew they would enjoy, so they would become more engaged in the work. I really believe that this was a big reason that we were able to all work so well together and create a great end result.

IMG_4496

Outro

I learned a lot in this exhibition, but my favourite learning piece was how much interacting with our exhibit changes a project for those looking at it. Interaction can take a boring lecture and turn it into something engaging and exciting. Involving the audience always makes things more interesting, but it also transports them into a different mindset and helps them learn and connect better with the project. Asking people to milk a fake cow udder is awkward, and funny and strange. Things like this push people out of their comfort zone and start conversations. These small interactions and details open people up to learning, and forces them to pay more attention to what we are talking about. It helps them actually want to understand. This was the trick we used to attract more people to our exhibition, and what I will continue to use ideas like this throughout my school journey.

Small but MIGHTY!

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‘How does our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public health?’

Intro

Over the course of the last month- with a pause when we went to Oregon as a class -we have been learning about cell biology and our immune system in our science class. We have swabbed the school, created character cards for parts of our immune system, and created advertisements against Anti-vaxxer claims. I really enjoyed learning about all of the little things happening ours us, and I hope you will too.

Driving Question

‘How does our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public health?’ This was our driving question throughout our project. We answered this question slowly throughout the project, but I got the clearest answer while we learned about anti-vaxxers, and what they thought might happen if they got vaccinated. To many people, they would rather believe what they want than the knowledge of cell biology, which prevents it from contributing much to their lives. On the other hand our knowledge of cell biology has impacted many people so much, from life saving vaccines or other medicines and medicinal products. There are still people now, devoting their lives to learning more about cell biology, which will help it contribute to more lives in the near future.

Anti-vaxxer Advertisements

One of the things we worked on, one of my favourites was making advertisements that undermined and explained why you should/ should not not get vaccinated. I made three different pieces of a media campaign, all comparing a silly idea to another silly idea- not getting vaccinated. The first one used a quote of Donald Trump connecting vaccines to Autism, and then I compared the quote to one of him calling himself incomparably gorgeous… you see where I’m going? The second add compares marrying your cousin to not getting vaccines, you could do either… but you shouldn’t. The last- and my personal favorite was comparing the chances of an army of evil frogs taking over the world to the chances of getting Autism from a vaccine, neither of them are going to happen. I chose to format my  ads this way, because I know that I personally pay more attention, and care more about anything if it sparks an emotion, in this case, amusement, or laughter.

Character Cards

During the early stages of this project, we got to make character cards of different parts of our immune system, all with a consistent theme connecting the drawing. I chose to make all of the cells different Clue characters, Madame white (white blood cell) Professor Plum (Macrophage) Madame Scarlet (T cell) Dame Peacock (B cell) and Colonel Mustard (Antibody). I drew them all in sketches pro, tracing the shapes of the immune system part that they represent, and then adding aspects on top that related to the character that they were also supposed to represent.

Swabbing the School!

The other thing that we did within this project was swabbing different parts of the school, transferring them to a petri dish and then observed them over the course of around two weeks. I chose to swab the girls and boys bathroom sink handle, door handle, and mirror. I guessed that the girls sink handle, and door handle would be cleaner, and the boys mirror would be cleaner. I was almost consistently wrong. I was incorrect for the mirror, the boys had larger more consistent bacteria and the girls had smaller less crowded clumps of bacteria. The boys and girls sink handle was pretty much the same, with tons of bacteria all over the petri dish, while the door had a consistent amount of spread out bacteria covering the petri dish. The bacteria had a range of colors in all of the petri dish, from red, to yellow, to blue to white, and even some green. This was honestly one of my least favourite of the assignments within this project, with less hands on work, and more observing and jotting down notes and pictures. I did enjoy seeing how bacteria could grow, even though it freaks me out to touch a door handed or a sink now…

Outro

This was my favourite science project I have done in a while, I really enjoyed making all of these ideas into more personalized, fun versions while still making them educational. Thanks for reading!