Greeting my friends, we’re back at school; we just finished our first project, and you know what that means. It’s time for a blog post!

In this post, I’ll guide you though how diversity in the Canadian military improves the effectiveness of the army that keeps us here in Canada safe, and how we managed to express what we learnt in this project. So if your interested, keep reading!

This was a very big project, even spanning over two subjects! yes, you heard that right, this was the first joint project between Humanities and Maker and think it actually worked really well, but more on that later. The driving question we were trying to answer first this project was ‘Why does the world need more “Canada”?’

We started by learning about:

• Globalization: The process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.
• How canada works towards peace & protects itself: We learned a bit about Canada’s military and peacekeeping operations, as well as all of the the alliances it’s in.
• Diversity in canada: …and how it benefits all Canadians
• Canadian Literature: how to analyze it and how it showcases Canadian identity

We were also tasked with watching the national every day, a Canadian news network to keep ourselves informed and then we were tasked with choosing one important thing that just happened or is happening in the world and lead a discussion about it. Here was what I found:

Thinking Thursday.pdf

I think that my discussion went rather well, and It felt good to have a meaningful talk about some of the awful things going on in the world right now.

At the same time, in maker we were learning how to create a good podcast, and how to structure a story. We worked on how to edit audio clips, record clear audio, create music for a podcast and how to create a good podcast cover art.

My intro music:

My cover art (I made two versions):

Then, in humanities we chose a topic to write our final essay on. After a bit of brainstorming I decided to write my essay on diversity in the Canadian military and how it increases effectiveness within the Canadian armed forces.

First I had to create a thesis, and this went though many different iterations, and was probably one of the hardest parts of this entire project. Here were some of my drafts:

Thesis brainstorm.pdf

Then it was time for research. A lot of research. we even did an in class lesson on how to find reliable sources which I did actually find very useful. After I had my sources, It was time to begin writing my essay. I went though many different versions and iterations of my essay, changing grammar, spacing, spelling, formatting, and even entire sections or paragraphs. It was lot of work, and if we did it again I would definitely change how I wrote some of my initial drafts. I think it was a very good experience though, as I learned how to find sources hat supported my thesis which I think will be very important for me going in to higher grades. Currently I don’t have access to some of my earlier versions, but I will update my blog when I do. In the meantime here was one of my first drafts:

The Importance of Diversity in the Canadian Military.pdf

my next draft, now with proper formatting:

The Importance of Diversity in the Canadian Military .pdf

And with some polishing touches and final edits:

The Importance of Diversity in the Canadian Military v5.pdf

And then it was done! It was a lot of work but I was happy with my end product. It did really help me understand what it meant to be Canadian and what Canadian identity is. Then we began adapting our script to fit our podcast, first we put it into the three act structure:

And then we recorded our podcast! there was a lot of challenges to overcome, from microphone issues or speaking clearly to making it engaging, but I felt in control throughout the whole process and was pleased with my final result:

Or if you don’t have Spotify:

I was very with how it turned out, even if did take me an hour to figure out how to move the audio clips from my computer to my iPad.

I do actually feel that I learned a lot of valuable things throughout the course of this project such as how how to find evidence to support my claims, how to write a thesis, and how to edit a podcast as I talked about previously. Though our literature studies I also learned what Canadian identity is, and how a collective identity is created.

So now after all that work, why do I think the world needs more Canada? Well, I think that Canada sets a good example for the world in many things, and that if the rest of the world did things more like Canada, the world would be a better place.

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you also learned something or found this interesting, and I hope to see you again! Bye! 👋

Why did I do 12 hours of 3-d modelling for a careers class? It’s a mystery.

…unless you read this spectuaroulous blog post!

        [spec-tac-ur-arol-us] = spectacular + marvellous

Hello! it’s once again me! this time, we going to be taking a look at the first PGP project of this year: Atomic habits! Our driving question for this project was “How can small changes in my habits shape my success this year, and beyond?”

Centred around the self-improvement book ‘Atomic habits’ written by the author James Clear, we explored his strategies for creating good habits and breaking bad ones. We used many methods from his book to do this, but everything was centered around four main rules.

1. Make it obvious
2. Make it attractive
3. Make it easy
4. Make it satisfying

These were the rules we learned for creating good habits, but I also tried to implement throughout the rest of this project as I will touch on later. While reading the book we also had some tests just on the content of the book. Yes, you read that right, paper! every PLP kids worst fear.

We also did a little bit of work on who we want to be and our learning intentions for this year. Then we created our artifact, which was something we came up with and created that showcased what we learnt in the book and how we were going to implement it into our lives.

I decided to create a slightly odd marble run/habit tracker hybrid that used marbles to track your progress on your to-do’s. Here is the final 3-d model:

My artifact represents a couple things from the book. It was created using design principles that were the same as those for forming a habit in the book: easy, obvious, attractive and satisfying. It also uses the paperclip method (A visual method to see completed work) of a very visible indication of what has been done and what needs doing. It can/will help me manage my time and have a clear visual indicator of my work as talked about in the book as well as a few other things:

• Reducing friction
• Immediate reward for good actions
• Designing my environment for success

It was also very fun to design and went though many different iteration of each part. Revision as always.

Concept design:

And the finished product!

I also have a time-lapse of me designing a single part. (half an hour real time for reference):

I think that this project was very helpful for me, as it did help me develop some methods for forming good habits, but it also taught me about my own mindset and how I work much better when working on something I find fun or care about. I do genuinely feel more competent and in control after this project, so thanks to the teachers for that.

As for answering out driving question for this project: Small changes in my habits can enable me to live a better, more controlled life where I am organized and in control this year and beyond.

Thank you very much for reading as always. Goodbye. *BWweDeloOop

Hello, and once again welcome to (I need a better intro, suggestions welcome) my final post of Grade 9! It’s crazy that a year can go by this fast, and yet this slow. Here were some of my thoughts on this year.

This year I learned a lot, both about academics and about myself and my needs, and that is what I want to show with this post, where I will highlight what I did well this year, areas for growth, and how I think I did and what needs to be improved on some success behaviours from this year. 

I had a few really big achievements this year and a lot of things and techniques that I’ve learned as well, here is what I thought I did well this year.

Because of our overall theme; storytelling throughout the moving image, that is what I’m going to focus on for this section. I think the project that I learnt the most from this year was our field school in Alberta which taught me a lot about about the real world and problem solving. In terms of filmmaking, the most meaningful projects were running a remake which helped me improve my revision skills by remaking our video, and then this idea of revision was improved upon with our thriller in Thrill Us, where we expanded upon our filmmaking and storytelling skills while also having fun with friends.

 I think that my best project for storytelling was Frankenstuffies, where the entire project was based off of our world building and storytelling skills. Also in the story creation department was WWI-Con, which I think was one of my best projects this year, and one that accurately represents my growth and improvement, with meaningful research and planning, good end result, and interesting presentation.

My comic book:

These are some other things I felt that I did well this year:

• Destination Imagination: This really tested my teamwork skills, where I was trying to manage our entire group and create our final product. It was also great for my presentation and public speaking skills, and I was incredibly happy with our first place finish
• Let’s get Riel: this one was really fun i felt like it was executed really well, both on the teacher’s side, and also on mine. I enjoyed the writing and was well organized and all that made the project very manageable for me.

And I think that these are some areas for my growth as a learner next year at school and in life:

• Using correct tools: Using the best tool for the job, unlike using superimpose for my advertisement in grade 8, and not using comic life in grade 9 / using the tools provided to me.
• Better organization: Having a spot for notes & work so nothing is lost, and no time is wasted trying to just find my work, which I feel like will help me in general with all the work we I will be doing in grade 10.
• Focus in and out of class: Staying on task, but also taking breaks to maintain productivity. I struggle with this a lot sometimes, and finding out how I focus best would be super useful to me, and something I will be working on.
• Teamwork: Although most of my group projects this year worked out well enough in terms of a final product, most things other than that didn’t really work for me this year, such as D.I. and Metaphor Machines, part of this was who was in the group, but I will also try not to take lead or control of a group as much and make sure everyone plays to their strengths.

Making these changes to my routine and work will help me be able to produce quality work not just throughout next year, but also the years to come after. 

And here are the three success behaviours that I want to focus on:

• Agency -> Goals and self-assessing: I think that this is something that is important to work on, because setting meaningful, realistic goals will be really useful to me all though life, and being able to look at and critique my own work in the name of improving it, is in general a really important skill. Over the summer, I will set three goals for myself that will be realistic and related to my hobbies, and check in on my own progress over the break.
• Outside school: I do have a lot of extracurricular activities like piano, soccer, band, and my hobbies, and it can be hard to keep track of everything and maintain balance, but I think I did okay on this, but with room for improvement.
• Balance: This plays into the previous section, and in terms of balance, usually it’s not too big of an issue for me, but it can become an issue when band concerts and exhibitions are close to each other, and I think that I way that I can improve this balance in general, is when I have a lot of downtime, starting or preparing something that will make the school element easier in the future. This could be starting a blog post, or organizing something in advance.

Overall, it’s been a pretty good year, and I’ve learned a lot, and had good times with with my friends. Thanks to everyone who helped me get though this year!

See ya’ next (school) year! Till then; bye! 👋

It’s that time of year again, time for mPOLs! There has is a lot of things to reflect on so far this year, and many opportunities for growth so guess what? I’m going to tell you about them, because that’s kinda the point of mPOL’s. Welcome to another post:

During this school year, I have faced many challenges, broken many barriers, and learnt. A lot. I’m here to tell you what exactly that I have learned, and what I can and will improve upon through the rest of this school year. 

I’m going to start by talking about some of my strengths and success so far this year. I think that one of my best projects was my thriller that was created in our Thrill Us project!

It was definitely an improvement in quality from my Run! Remakes:

I think these projects really drilled the concept of revision into me, and I learnt a lot about videography and storytelling. We also had to create a storyboard:

It was a very fun project, and probably my favourite so far this year:

Another project that I think I grew a lot from was Metaphor Machines. It was a hard project that required a lot of group work and design skills. In the end, we had a relatively good end product for exhibition, but it wasn’t great. However many of the skills that I learnt and practiced in this project also transferred into Destination Imagination later on.

In D.I. I had to many things to play my part, and try to produce the best solution out of my team. Because of expanding my skills in earlier projects, I was able to create a solution in time for the first tournament, and then using the revision skills that PLP has taught me to upgrade our solution, and place first in the next tournament. I was really proud of our group solution, and how we preformed, and we were rewarded with wins in both the team challenge and the the instant challenge, and I think this is a great example of my growth as a learner so far this year.

I was also proud of my work in the “Rise of the Frankenstuffies” project, and the video created as our final product. I had a good work ethic, and produced a better result than I have on some other projects. I enjoyed working on the stop motion aspect, as this is something I enjoy, and have past experience with.

These skills were also aided and used in science this year for projects such as “Seeing Double” and “chemHistory”

Moving forward in this school year, I will try to improve on a few things:

I want to improve my organisation, and work ethic. I touched on this in my learning plan for this year, when I said that I wanted to “Work on distraction management more”. I also wants to speak up in class more, and work on building a growth mindset.

I will make revisions to my learning plan, so I have a plan to achieve the goals above, and I will also take steps going forward to make these changes such as:

• Organizing my notes and work in craft
• Managing my time by using to-dos and time blocking
• Sharing my ideas with the class more by working on confidence
• Using methods such as the pommodoro timer to stay on task when doing homework

I hope that you enjoyed reading about my plan for growth as a learner for the rest of this school year.

Why did I end up putting a staple into my hand for school (It wasn’t intentional)? Welcome to a new project! Destination imagination 2023-2024.

We had to complete the technical challenge: To create a pinball machine with 3 modules, and complete a pinball round, which also presenting a story about a hero’s journey. It took a long time and we struggled a lot with some parts of the team dynamic, but after a lot of brainstorming and work, we managed to get our machine ready for the first competition. However I did end up accidentally stalling my hand with a mechanical staple gun shooting industrial staples. Yay. 4 hours in the ER.

I can’t share details of our machines, because there will be another competition soon. It ended up going okay and some stuff broke, but it mostly worked and we placed 3rd in our category. I will provide more of a complete reflection after the next competition. Thanks to the team members who helped when then were needed.

Now that may seem like an absurd title, and I am here to tell you now, it is! Good guess. So if you would like to figure out stuffed animals relate to World War I, read on!

This project was called Rise of the Frankenstuffies, focused on media creation with an element of World War I. Some of the competencies we focused on were communication and thinking. The driving question was “How do we as writers make our message clear and engaging to an audience?” We began by creating our Frankenstuffie, which was kind of fun.

We also learned a load about sentence structure and lots of other ways to improve our writing. This included the hero’s journey; a way to structure adventure stories, that is present in many popular movies and books

We also conducted a novel study on the book “Leviathan”, a story about an alternate version of World War I with giant mechs and genetically engineered creatures which improved our writing and story-telling skills, and gave us inspiration for our frankenstuffie.

We then did a lot of initial character development, plot outlining, and we also devoloped the theme statements of our story.

I won’t give you the theme now, because of something later in the post. You’ll see.

For our next section of the project, we created our story frame, deciding on what part of our story we would focus on.

After this we wrote our story, which was hard, but I learnt a load about writing and editing a story that I can implement going forwards. Here was my story:

After this we had to transpose it into a video! We started by creating a storyboard.

and then we made the video!

(This took 4 days)

Tell me what you think in this padlet:

https://padlet.com/James_st/frankenstuffies-story-4s2ze3bfsqwp5pok

thanks for reading!

Louis Riel: was he a hero, did he belong in a mental asylum, or both. If you want to find out, just read this handy dandy blog post!

We started our history project by learning about the timeline of events, with our driving question of “How has the portrayal of Louis Riel changed over time”, and then doing some sample writing in the form of a postcard. This was mine:

Afterwards, we began to learn about more of Riel’s life and accomplishments, including where he studied, where he lived, and what he did. I’m not a stalker, I promise. It’s just history. It’s in the curriculum!-

…After taking notes on who he was, we had to take notes on how others viewed him.

We delved into the many portrayals of Louis Riel, including statues, primary sources, a heritage minute made by the Canadian government, and a video where Louis Riel is a duck. I’ve learned that its best not to question it.

Now that we knew who he was, and how he was portrayed, we had to learn how to communicate that to other people.

We began to learn about Frayer models, synonymes, antonyms, topic sentences, elaboration, paragraph structure and much more. We then developed our topic sentence for our multi-paragraph composition (short essay), and that was actually really hard.

First draft:

Louis Riel was a controversial figure in Canadian history who initiated change.

Second draft:

Louis Riel was a determined and ambitious leader for the Métis people, who was a controversial figure in Canadian history because of the of the change he initiated in the Canadian government.

Third draft:

Louis Riel was a determined and ambitious Métis leader who initiated change in the Canadian government, whose portrayal has changed as a result of a shifting collective worldview

After that, we had to actually write something! As a PLP student this was unexpected (kidding), I actually found it quite fun. After we had completed a first draft, it was time to remember why we are in PLP, and get a reminder on revision…. Yay. I got feedback from my mum, my peers, and my teachers. Here it was:

It was actually fun, and I learnt a lot about analyzing sources and formatting my conclusions, as well as revising things and overall writing and it felt like a great baseline for more advanced future projects. I hope you enjoyed reading about my project, thanks for doing that!

Did you ever think you would be spray painting cardboard glued together for a school project? I didn’t, but it happened anyways, here is that story.

It all started with a revolution. Literally. This exhibition we were putting on was not going to be easy, so we needed to learn a lot in both maker and humanities, and it started in humanities.

We began learning about revolutions and how ideas drive change (driving question):

We learnt about Crane Briton’s theory of a revolution and its four stages:

I honestly found this stuff really cool, how Crane had found a pattern in all of the chaos of a revolution, he even wrote a book about it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Revolution#:~:text=The%20Anatomy%20of%20Revolution%20is,French%2C%20and%20the%20Russian%20revolutions.

To show what we learned about the working of a revolution, we created a diagram to show all of the different stages of a revolution, here is the one I made:

I made it in the style of a recipe, and it is all hand drawn (except the text), and I am really happy with how it turned out. After that we had to chose a revolution to focus on, we were able to pick our top three, then the teachers would put us into a group; I ended up in the French Revolution, which I was happy about.

After we had done a lot of research on our revolution, we were tasked with creating an infographic to show to others to teach them about our revolution.e this went through multiple iteration as we refined, redesigned, and had our projects seen through peer’s eyes. I hope you learn something from this infographic, like I did from making it.

Version 1

  Version 2

It goes over the stages of the revolution, and also a brief timeline.

After this, we started a novel study on the book animal farm:

https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Animal_Farm/yDQJ6y2LSX8C?hl=en

…which is an allegory for the Russian revolution, and we held many book chats talking about the book and I think we learnt a lot from it, I enjoyed most of the book as a book as well.

Then we learnt about metaphors; our final medium for showing our learning. We did some basic learning about what they meant and how to use them, and then we watched some videos and brainstormed about Rube Goldberg machines. I used to watch a lot of videos about similar contraptions, but before we started creating one for our winter exhibition, I had no idea how hard it was. 

In the first week of building, we were all assigned roles, I was the engineer, and it was my job to make sure that everybody machines worked with well… physics. You wouldn’t have believed how often they didn’t. I was mainly helping others with their section for that week.

The next week, I had to work on my part, as it was the first section of the machine, and needed to be complicated as soon as possible, so I got to work, but just like with our boxes from last year’s winter exhibition, I learnt that “building” isn’t as simple as that. You can envision something all you like, but you can’t plan for sitting in corners for hours at a time, with 49 other kids talking, just trying to get these two pieces of cardboard together, but one broke, and the other looks weird, so you cut some new ones, but they are too big, so you trim them, but then you are out of hot glue, and when you find more and finish the job it looks awful, so you borrow the spray paint, and go outside and paint it, it dries, and you add it to your machine… and it doesn’t work. That’s what it feels like.

Once some things were starting to work, we had to try and connect them, except we didn’t have access to the space where it was going to be which made things difficult, and then we found out that we also had to make a documentary. Yay?

Trying to sort everything out with the machine, and making a documentary made things a lot harder, especially as I was the editor of the video. My section of the machine was a metaphor for the meeting of the estates-general, where all of the three estates of France (clergy, nobility, and the commoners) had a meeting about how to get France out of debt.

Once my group members had sent me all of the clips and the storyboard (which I admit I didn’t follow very well) though our group chat, and we had watched some short documentaries in class and learnt about them, I started putting them all together, while trying to balance everything else too, which was difficult, but this is what I came up with:

It isn’t my finest work for sure, but I think it came out alright.

Then after we were done building everything, making everything, setting up, getting food, and decorating our area (which took a long time), we were (kinda) ready for the exhibition!

The exhibition didn’t go to well unfortunately, things fell and group members didn’t come back from breaks and morale and energy were low. But like all things I learnt from it. I have a petter idea of preparation, and I have some Ideas for going into the next exhibition at the end of the year. But I am still proud of what we did, and what we made.

But back to the driving question of how do ideas drive change? I thought about this for a while and eventually came to my conclusion of: ideas drive change because an idea can be many things, but overall I think it is an opinion on a situation, and those opinions and thoughts are what people sometimes want things to be, and then they take action to try and make those things real.

Thanks for reading.