This year has flown by. I enjoyed every second of it because it was just so much fun. Before I registered it, I was in Oregon having the time of my life! There was so much that happened in this project, and in this post I will be telling the story of how the spring exhibition came to life.

HIKING QUARRY????

As you may know, this project was all about advertising. We hiked the rock as a class, and when we got to the top, our assignment was to ask strangers why they came on the hike. Most said either because they saw it on instagram, or they heard about it from friends or family. After we collected that information, we had to take a picture of the peak for our advertisement we were making. This is the picture I took: 

When we finished our hike, we went home and we tasked with making a first draft of an advertisement for Quarry rock. We all had to make an original catchy slogan to go with our ad. My slogan was ‘Life’s Better At The Top.’  

This is my first draft of my Oregon ad. My feedback was that it was ‘missing something.’ I thought for a while, and came up with an ad that looked like this. 

This is my first draft

This is my second draft

I had added pictures of us along the hike, although my teacher and peers then thought it looked too crowded, which I agreed with. I pondered about how I should make it more eye catching when it hit me. I changed the shape! Everyone thought my ad looked so much better  in this format.

This is my final draft

I think this advertisement hit the right spot. It has contrasting colours, a catchy slogan, and some other photos to get a viewers eye. If I were to revise this once more, I think I would make the letters of my slogan a thicker solid font, so it has more of an effect on being bold. Other than that small change, I think that this ad was a good start to my journey of creating ads!!

OREGON

I won’t put too much information in this section, because we did so many fun things and learned about the coolest things. If you want to read more about our field study along the Oregon coast, then you can flip through my adventure book! 

In our adventure books, we added information about the places we went, videos of us trying new foods, zip lining, and having the time of our lives! I found it a bit challenging to keep up with all the places we went because every new place had a new page.

EXHIBITION TIME

As soon as we arrived back home from Oregon all focus turned to the Spring Exhibition. We were all put into groups around 5-6, and were assigned a theme. My group consisted of; Madeline, Ella, Cece, Griffin, Marcus, and me! We were all tasked with making individual ads with a consistent font, theme, and layout. This is mine: 

We also all had a colour pallet that we were sticking too. It was mostly dark forest greens, and deep blues to go along with natures colours. I think our colours really represented Oregon well because I saw a lot of those colours while I was in and along the Oregon coast. After everyone had a 👌 in Showbie, we got the go ahead to start building our stations and our merch. Our merch was created by different people in our group, and all the articles of clothing, or water bottles had ‘Oregon’ somewhere on them. Our group slogan we created was ‘Oregon, discover your potential.’ Here are some examples of our merch my group and I designed together:

GROUPS

Within our group of 6, we decided to focus on 3 main attractions we stopped at. Because our theme is discovery and learning, we chose the Tillamook Creamery, Fort Stevens, and the Yaquina Head Tide Pools. Ella and Cece were responsible for the Tillamook station and they chose to make a milk the cow diagram and a diagram of how the cheese gets made. Griffin and Marcus built a cannon and had information to go along with it, and Madeline and I created a touch pool, where all the sea animals could be touched and felt in the pool (they were all fake). I think our stations were a huge success and everyone really enjoyed them. 

After putting so much of our time into making our ads and our station a success we were done! All that was left to do was clean up. I think that our entire Spring Exhibition presentation was a success, and I loved that my group and I worked so well together in this project. 

SO, HOW DOES LANGUAGE INSPIRE ADVENTURE?

This was our driving question for this project and here’s my answer to it. 

Language can inspire adventure because it can be verbally communicated to excite someone into wanting to do something or it can be something that is written such as an advertisement. As we have been working on creating and designing our very own ads, I have learnt the principals for using colour, font, and other things to make my ad stand out and be unique and original to me.  I think a slogan is a great way to use words and make a person want to be involved with whatever the ad is saying or telling you to go. Adventure can be a fun way of getting out of your comfort zone and becoming a new version of yourself. I think language can be used in a fun and creative way to persuade someone to go on an adventure. Language plays a massive role in inspiring someone to do something or go somewhere.

THANK YOU FOR READING

Thank you so much for reading my post all about our Oregon trip and the Spring Exhibition. This is my final post I will be making in grade 8, so here I come grade 9, and good bye grade 8! ☀️

Driving Question 🏎️

Every project in PLP is led by a driving question. Our question for this project was ‘What were the Consequences of Colonization?’ Throughout the project, as we spent more time thinking /about the driving question, our line of thinking went to ‘What ARE the Consequences of Colonization?’ 

Craft

We started our project off by enrolling ourselves in learning about the helpful app Craft. This wondrous creation has helped me so much, and I wish that I had started to use it earlier. Craft has taught me to be organized, even if I want it to still be aesthetic.

Keynote

It was decided that our answer to the driving question would be presented to the BCFP grade 11’s through a Keynote presentation we would put together in groups of 3. My group consisted of:

Tyler

Siena

Click on the links to visit their blog to see their answer to the driving question and how they thought the project went!

Yet again, this project was connected to worldview. We learned about worldview in our very first project of the year, and most projects since have been connected to worldview.

Watch Tyler, Siena and I’s presentation here!

I thought our Keynote went reasonably well, and the grade 11’s seemed interested enough. Our main feedback we got on our 2 presentations we made was the same both times: SLOW DOWN!!! We thought the second group we presented to we were going slower, but apparently not! It seems when you are nervous or you know the information really well, you talk fast, even if you aren’t!

Algonquin People

The Algonquin people were the specific Indigenous group we chose to focus on. They originally occupied western Quebec and Ontario. They lived in Wigwams, which were kind of like Teepees, although Wigwams were much more stationary, while Teepees could be transported with visitors. The Algonquin people shared their knowledge through storytelling, and they believed in a supernatural being.

New France

Samuel Du Champlain was the man who came and pretty much started New France. He started by building one settlement, but his men kept working, and they started to build more and more. The early European settlers depended on the Indigenous to survive because they were living with different resources and on different land.

Individual Keynote

After my group and I presented our Keynote to the grade 11’s, our teacher told us we then had to make an individual keynote. I think this assignment was a way of finding out if we knew the information through and through without cue cards or anything. We could only use presenters notes, and we needed to make a 2 slide keynote with 3 words per slide, although we could add as many pictures as we wanted. My individual keynote presentation was my final answer to the driving question.

Conclusion

Overall, I thought that this project went smoothly, and I wouldn’t make any major changes in the layout. I enjoyed working with my group members, Siena and Tyler, and I thought we all contributed evenly. Group work is still something I have a bit of trouble with because I like doing all the work, and getting it done ‘my way’ but the more experience I have with it the better I become at working with my peers.

Thank you for reading and stay posted for more!

Have you ever tried using AR maker? The app is hard, frustrating, and rewarding. 

My Final AR Maker Video

Watch my final AR Maker video here!

European Exploration

These past 5 weeks, we have learned about the cause and consequence of exploration. We read about the motivation of European exploration, early trading, and of course, the cause and consequences of exploration.

Storytelling

 The driving question for this project was,  how can we use storytelling to investigate what  sparked global exploration and understand its impact? We can use story telling by making a story! We all made a AR maker video to do with this project. Mine tells the story of a girl called Anika. Anika desperately wanted to set sail with her father, and explore the world. One day when her father was leaving on a voyage, she decided to sneak her way along. She made it to the middle of the ocean, when a big wave hit her and knocked her overboard. Anika washed up on the shores of the land they called ‘Newfoundland’ (New Found Land). She somehow transmitted a disease called small pox to the people of the Americas. The disease grew and grew bigger, and it became exceptionally dangerous. Years later, her father reunited with her when he was on a voyage to the Americas. The two of them lived happily ever after in the land called the Americas. 

AR Maker

AR maker can be extremely confusing and hard to operate. You need to press place in a specific area, and make sure that you do not lose sight of your little friend in the white placing box. It was a very frustrating app at first, when we were making our practice stories. My story was deleting over and over, and I was done with the app. I then just kept moving forward, and was glad when I finished.

Small Pox

 I think my story shows my knowledge very well because I demonstrated how the Europeans transmitted the disease ‘small pox’ into the Americas. The disease lasted for many many years,  and was highly contagious. Small children and women were most likely to contract the disease, while men were just the little bit more immune. The more people were exposed to small pox, the more their immune system built up, but the disease could still harm them harshly. Later, a vaccine was created to stop small pox, which helped a lot. Although people were taken care of, there weren’t enough hospitals for everyone, and thousands sadly past away from it.

Reflection

Overall on this project, I am proud of what I have accomplished, and created. I did get some revisions, but I took them in well, and used them to fuel me to make my next draft better. At the end, I got all 👌, and I feel good about that. In the future, I think I could’ve gotten the whole project done faster, but it’s all okay, because it is done and I am proud of the work I have produced. Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peeled for my next post!

Do you like poetry? At first I wasn’t sure I did, but this project might have changed my mind. Read on!

At first, when I heard that we were doing a project on poetry, I wasn’t very happy, or excited. I have never enjoyed poetry, because I find it hard to write about most things, especially myself. 

Favourite Part

My favourite part of this project was the About Me video and poetry in my poetry book. I enjoyed making it because it was a good starting point that helped me with the rest of this project. Another amazing help was the very first project we did in grade 8! This was because we learned all about our worldview, which we needed to write the poems. My MindNode helped me as well because I had brainstormed about the 7 pieces of worldview.

Hardest

My least favourite part of this project was writing the found poem. I found it difficult to find the right book to use, and then choosing words out of it. Despite my struggles, all the poems were pretty fun to create.

Easiest

In this project, the easiest poem for me to write would probably be my sound poem. I had to connect and base all my poems off of my worldview. Our first project this year was learning all about our worldview, so I knew a lot about it coming into this project.

Driving Question

Our driving question for this project was “How might I write poetry that I enjoy and shows who I am?” this project was not my favourite, but I fought through it to write what I think are lucid poems. All of the poems we wrote are connected in some way to our worldview. My worldview is how I see the world, my beliefs, knowledge, values etc. At first I found it hard to express myself through my poetry, but throughout the project, I became more motivated to spending time to make my poems the best they could be, rather than just being good enough. The farther we got into the project, the more I enjoyed it. 

So what poems did we write?

Here are the poems that we wrote:

– Simile Poem

– Extended Metaphor Poem

– Sound Poem

– Haikus

– Found Poem

– Experience Poem

– Imagery Poem

– Self Portrait Poem

For all of these poems we created a document in pages for the terms. For each term we wrote what it meant, and an example. 

Reflection

Throughout this project, I feel like I became more aware of my surroundings and what is happening around me. I am very proud of how much I have grown and learned with this project. Although poetry still wouldn’t be my first choice, I enjoy it a lot more than I did before we started this project. This has helped me in lots of ways, but mainly focusing on things that I wouldn’t normally pay attention too. 

Thanks for reading and keep your eyes peeled for my next post!

Through group work, hard work, and lots of tears we have come to an end with our stressful exhibition.

Do you want to know why the lead up to this exhibition was so demanding? Read on to find out!

Exhibition

As we are grade 8s this year, we just had our very first exhibition. An exhibition is when the PLP students present to our parents, relatives, and the public. This year the grade 8s were split into 5 groups, and we were presenting a set of 3 tableaus. The three tableaus were based on medieval, Renaissance, and contemporary times. A tableau is a group of stationary figures representing a scene.

Medieval Tableau

The first tableau we presented was medieval. This was our planning for the medieval tableau. We have planned out everything from the drawing, to who’s playing each part. Once this drawing was done, we could start making props, and writing the script. Each tableau had to consist of 7 aspects of worldview; geography, time, values, beliefs, economy, and knowledge. For geography we did a horse, which represented how people used to travel. They could explore new places, and know where they are so it could be recorded on a map. Time was shown through a sundial we created. A sundial was the main use of telling time in the medieval times. For society, we did knights because they were a key part of the kingdom, doing their part to protect everyone. We chose a king for values because the people of the kingdom valued the king to lead them well. The king lead them into battles, and made big decisions for them. For beliefs, we did a cross the king is holding. The people in medieval times were Christian’s, and believed a lot in that. Knowledge is shown through a map that the king is holding because they relied on maps for where they were traveling to. The last one is is economy, and we have shown that through the expensive fabrics that the king is wearing.

Contemporary Tableau

The contemporary tableau was the hardest for me. I have no idea why because we are living in contemporary times at the moment. Just like the other 2 tableaus, we had to use all 7 aspects of worldview. Our voting booth is displayed to show society because these days we have the opportunity to vote for whoever we like. Our voting booth also shows values, because back in the medieval and Renaissance times, women were not allowed to vote, but nowadays we are. Geography is shown through the food truck as the truck can move places to serve its food. Sven is representing beliefs because he believes that he would be the best choice for someone to vote for him. During elections, you see the people who are running have signs on the side of the road, in peoples lawns, or even people holding them! Time is displayed with the clock,because clocks are how people tell time today. Economy would be shown through Ella. She is ordering food from the food truck on her phone, because lots of people do that these days. For knowledge, we also display it with the voting booth. People need to use their knowledge for who would be the best pick to vote for. Here is the photo from the exhibition.
Renaissance Tableau

Renaissance Tableau

For the Renaissance tableau, we had to incorporate the same 7 aspects of worldview. Forgeography, we reused the horse from the medieval scene, because it represent how people travelled. For time, we made a clock, because in the renaissance times people had thought of clocks, although the clocks told time by striking bells. We reintroduced the king into Renaissance times as well, because the king ruled the land, and they were valued by its people. The king would also hold a lot of power in the monarchy. We showed values through a food wagon because people valued food, but the wealthier people in the society were able to purchase more food. The wagon filled with food would be brought a long when they were travelling, pulled behind a horse. For beliefs, we made a bible that represents how many people were Christian, and a cross that the king was once again holding. The wagon would also show economy because wealthier people would be able to believe in more things. Lastly, we showcased knowledge as a painter because painting would require a vast and knowledgeable mind.

Renaissance Artwork

We started off by making our renaissance art chart and photo. This art chart took a long time, but it was worth it because it payed off. The Renaissance photo we made was created in Superimpose just like the medieval one I did. This photo took lots of work as we had to add each photo from our Renaissance art chart. The art chart I found was harder than when we did the medieval one, because it was harder to find the photos to include in it. However, I got it done,and it turned out well. I think next time I could work on making it less crowded because it looks as if everything is just smooshed into my artwork.

Renaissance Paragraph

Once we had completed this part of the project we wrote a paragraph to describe it. We focused on our topic sentences, and improving our writing from the medieval paragraph we wrote. My feedback on my medieval paragraph was describing my topic sentence in more detail, and I think I have achieved this in my second paragraph.

Power Play Post

We recently completed our Power Play project that focused more on the medieval side of things. The Power Play project has linked and helped us in this recent project because we learned many new things to help us with understanding this project. The many assignments we did helped us prepare for the learning ahead with this project. Here are some examples of things that helped me.

This was the Haudenosaunee project we did. I had trouble with this, which is why I was successful. I got a revision, because it didn’t clearly show my learning. I will not add the explanations I had to the pictures, because they are too long, but I will explain how it helped.

Revisions are probably the best thing that can happen. Of course you don’t want to get them all the time, but once and a while is good. When I got this revision, I was upset because I didn’t understand why. I reread the assignment, the criteria, the document, and I still couldn’t find anything wrong about it. I really wanted to get a check on this, so I just started all over again. Once I had read it multiple times, I really had an idea of how this could improve. I added way more detail, and then rewrote my explanation. This taught me if you put lots of work in, it will pay off, and you will be grateful.

Triptych

As a part in our preparation for the tableaus and exhibition, we had to create a triptych. A triptych is a three panelled piece of art that shows three different things. Usually, there is something similar that carries out in all of them.

Snack

In the exhibition, we were required to have some sort of snack for the audience. We decided to have cookies. My mom volunteered to make 100 cookies. I am very thankful that she did this, as it helped our group tremendously. Carmyn nicknamed them ‘snowballs’ which worked.

Conclusion

This was the most stressful project yet. We completed assignments, made props, wrote scripts, and worked super hard. I thought that every single minute we put into this exhibition payed off. I am super proud of what my group and I have accomplished. Thanks to everyone who have helped us make the exhibition possible.

Keep your eyes open for the next post! Thanks for reading!

4 weeks of reading, 4 role sheets, hours of writing lyrics, and I end up with a music video.

In Humanities, our first project was called It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. The driving question for this project was “How can a text help me understand myself as my worldview is changing?” We explored many different assignments within this project, which all worked towards the music video we created at the end. 

We started reading The Outsiders to begin our project, and I was pushed into the world of Ponyboy. I wasn’t particularly interested in the book at first, we were meeting the characters and learning how they lived, but more I read, the better it got.    

Role Sheets

After we finished reading 3 chapters, we did a role sheet. The role sheet was a way for our teacher to make sure we were reading, and we discussed it with our group in class that day. We reflected after each discussion, and then handed it in to either get feedback, or get a check mark meaning that you did it properly. 

One of my favourite things we did in this project was my MindNode. Lots of people said it was hard but I liked it. This app in one I will definitely use in the future. It’s a mind map, where you can add on to it, but the app organizes it, so it’s easy to read.  

I worked for a long time making sure I had no spelling mistakes, and that it all made sense. I love how I can make it look super neat, becasue I don’t like handing things in that are messy. 

Meme

We  made this meme that was supposed to represent our groups’ western worldview. I do not think that we did a good job on this because it doesn’t really show our understanding of western worldview.

This was our description:

This meme shows western worldview because in our world our bank accounts are reliable. Some people are a lot more stressed knowing that their money is not safe, but the cat face shows that we are happy because our money is safe in the bank.

 Venn Diagram

This Venn diagram was something I did for the setting reflection. We brainstormed what is different about the 1960’s and now, and what is the same. I then explained how the text of the novel is still relevant today by writing this short paragraph.

The text is still relevant today because there are still gangs, and lots of violence. There are 434 gangs in Canada, and most of them are violent. These kids/adults need help, because some of the reasons they run away are that they lost their family, or their family is mean and doesn’t appreciate them.

Sites:

Where I got my information.

But wait! Do you want to watch my music video?

First I will go through the steps to making the music video.

At first, we didn’t know that we were singing in a group, but we did know we were singing by ourselves. I DO NOT like singing, so I wasn’t very pleased about this. We hopped on the long twisty rollercoaster of making our song lyrics. I had trouble with this. I don’t know what it was, but I found it very challenging. I started off by printing the lyrics out to REM’s song It’s the End of the World as we Know it, and then I counted the syllables in each line. I thought long and hard about my transition from elementary to high school. I began with rhyming words, and then seeing if they sounded good together. 

Surprise!

I was ecstatic when I found out I didn’t have to sing by myself! Right away, the 3 of us combined our lyrics into one really good song. In my group, I was with Robin and Samual. As soon as we finished our lyrics, we jumped right into recording the song. We used an app called GarageBand to keep our vocals and the background music in.

Music Video Madness

Making the music video was stressful because there were a lot of different components to think about and include. We had to make our lyrics, record our group singing, and then add all of the photos in for the video part. It was a lot, so I had to find a way to make it seem like there was less. I just focused on what I could do in the moment, and not worry about everything else ahead of me. Once we had our song recorded, we  it into iMovie where we added all sorts of photos. The video was about our transition from elementary to high school, so we had photos of graduation, with our friends, baby photos, and more. 

The Best Part!

Although it took a lot of work, I am proud of the final outcome. In class we got to watch the Outsiders movie. We had to do a Venn Diagram while we were watching that was my Worldview against their Worldview. The movie was ok, but the book was definitely better.

Conclusion

This project went well for my very first project. Something I could work on would be keeping track of my work better. A lot of the time I was behind, so in the future, I will use Things more to manage my work. I think that our music video turned out really well, and I am proud of it. I have learned lots of new things while in this project such as using  like iMovie, GarageBand, and MindNode. I learned how to input recorded song lyrics into , and then record vocals on top of that. 

Thank you for reading! Keep watching for the next post!

Julia