Junkyard

We just finished one of the first projects this year, and this blog post is going to be my reflection on it. In this project, we learned about ecosystems, the earths spheres, bioaccumulation and biomagnification.we also learned about all the impacts that humans have on these things.

what did I learn?

I learned about many different environmental concerns in our current society, and more importantly I learned about the different things that I have listed above.

I’ll start with bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Bioaccumulation is when one small thing, like a fish, consumes a kind of micro plastic. Then, later, a larger organism like a shark comes along and eats that fish. Since the shark eats hundreds of those fish a day, it now has a hundred micro plastics in it. That description was kind of bad, so here’s the GIF I made to visually represent it. IMG_4232

biomagnification is a little different. Biomagnification is when the higher up on the food chain you are, the higher concentration of contaminant you have inside of you.

Speaking of food chains, let’s talk about them.

I’m sure you’ve heard of food chains, but you might not have heard of the different pieces that make up a food chain. Producers (e.g, plants) make their own food, meanwhile consumers eat producers and other consumers. Decomposers work to decompose the waste that the producers leave behind.

here’s the masterpiece I made to show how food chains work:

Reflecting: what could I have done better?

something I feel I could have improved on for this project was my participation. I was absent from a lot of classes (I can’t really be held accountable for this but still) and I didn’t make many notes. Next project I will be sure to actively involve myself in class.

Extra stuff we did in this project

The ultimate design challenge was a project we did to test our designing and math skills. In this project, we learned how to calculate the surface area and volume of many different types of 3d shapes, and learned how to build, model and design using a 3d modelling app on our iPads. In this blog post, I will be explaining and reflecting upon my learning in this project.

Our goal for this project was to create and object in an app called Tinkercad, and then do various measurements of that objects surface area and volume. We had to either maximize surface area or volume, and then put it in a presentation to show to the class. The object that I created and measured was a solar panel.

And don’t think I forgot about the calculations I had to do for my object. Here are the slides I used in my presentation which include all of the information needed.

Reflecting back on this project, something I would have done differently was spend more of my class time working on this project. Failing in this area led to me having to do a lot of my work last minute. Another thing I would’ve done differently would have been to make a more interesting object, because in my opinion a solar panel is pretty boring. In the future I will be sure to use my class time more efficiently and learn from my experiences and mistakes in this project.

This blog post is on one of my school projects, which was about taking photos in order to express creative communication. We did multiple activities to build knowledge and learn how to express emotions through moments frozen in time.

(Model is Mackenzie)

The first activity we participated in was an introduction to angles and how we can use them in a photo to give off a certain emotion or feeling. Four of the angles that we learned about (and the ones showcased above) were side view, birds eye, close up, and long shot.

In order to capture a side view angle photo, position your model so that you can see the side of their head and body (as shown above) a side view photo can symbolize many things when given the right context.

the next angle is a birds eye view angle. To capture a birds eye view photo, position your camera above your model in some way. My birds eye view photo wasn’t the best example, so here are some others

Birds eye view photos are good for making things feel smaller.

the 3rd angle I am writing about today in this post is the “close up” angle. This angle is good for getting in the moment or capturing someone’s features. To create a close up-style photo, position your model so that you are all up in their face. Then you can capture the moment.

the 4th and final angle we learned about was the long shot angle. This angle shows a subject (your model) standing well far away from the camera. To capture a long shot, position your model somewhere, take your camera and walk far away from them. They can move themselves to stand in whatever position you want them too, and when the shot looks good, create your photo.

This project we are working on currently was supposed to teach us about how we can construct creative communication, hence the name, Constructing Creative Communication.

So far, I’ve been in the Carr group, in which we were supposed to become a new age Emily Carr, and put ourselves in her shoes to draw, paint and create using the power of a pencil, or more specifically, the power of an Apple Pencil. We created various different drawings, explored shading, texturing, and creating 3d shapes. We imagined our Ideas onto paper using apps and tools like our pencils and Sketches Pro. We explored using Colour, how we can make colours pop, and experience first hand a whole new world of creativity. As we dive into the wonderful world of Carr, we will reflect on shading, colouring, 3d, texture, composition, exploring our ideas, and finally we will put of our newly learned skills to the test and see how much our drawings have improved.

The first thing that we explored was using pressure with our apple pencils, we did this by increasing pressure on our iPads with the pencil, causing the size of whatever brush we were using to increase. We used this mechanic to convey emotion. Thicker lines in a certain style could seem angry, while softer looking lines couldconvey a sense of solemnity, or calmness.

Using this mechanic, we created block letters too express ourselves with. 

Our block letters were meant to show our interests, and express the things that we like, or things that are symbolic to our personalities.

My block letters here are already showing whoever is looking at them that art and creativity are some of my values. Another thing about this that is obvious is the Nonbinary flag showing on the “t”. 

Though some of these aspects about me are obvious, some are more abstract, like the squiggly lines that symbolize how I am a bit of a dense and complicated person. Or the lines going in any and every direction, which symbolize that my brain is usually either in the clouds or all overthe place.

The second idea that was investigated was doodling. We learned about how doodling is a very powerful tool that some of the smartest people on this earth use or have used, and we learned how we can use doodling in the educational way that I am talking about right now, AKA: sketch noting. In my opinion, sketch noting is very engaging and useful. It isn’t hard to do, and makes remembering things like lectures or ideas so much easier. We were told to create a sketch note on 1 of 3 topics. We could either do one on a TED talk that talked about the advantages of doodling, a day in your life, or a book summary. My doodle note was about the TED talk, and gave a brief explanation on the topic and what it was talking about.

This sketch note is lacking in organization, but it succeeds in using images, different text sizes, and unique fonts to explain the topic.

It mentions the topics used in the TED talk, and has a few quotes from it.

It explains the main idea, which is that doodling has been perceived and wrong or bad for a long time, but in reality doodling can help you retain info with ease, and gives you new inspiration and ideas.

I also created a doodle/sketch note that showcases different images and fonts that could be used in a sketch note. 

The next topic we reviewed revolved mainly around different means and methods of shading to make a drawing more realistic, and make it seem 3d. We experimented with light sources, and drawing 3d shapes. We practiced shading and using different methods, like cross hatching, hatching, smudging and cel shading to make objects seem 3d. We started by creating a value scale, which if you didn’t know, is a scale of light to dark. It helps artists with shading so that they know which shade to use for whatever part of the shape they are drawing.

(I drew this)

The next exercise we did for this activity was to “build a bot”, in which we used our newfound understanding of 3d shapes to create a robot that featured various 3d shapes, including one of the types of shading that we learned about.

I gave my robot some very bright colours, and plenty of arm joints. I like his face and head especially.:] i don’t have a name for it yet, but i assure you that i will definitely come up with one eventually. 

I have decided I will name him grass. His feet mow lawns. (I’m writing this at 11:46, my brain is beginning to derail.)

We also learned how we can use perspective to show an object in different ways, and have it represent something different from a different angle. We were told to create a practice perspective drawing, and we learned how and where to draw things into the foreground, background and middle ground. We also learned how to position things on the horizon line/vanishing point, and we learned a method for drawing tiles and not having them look funky and ruining the realistic atmosphere. The way to draw tiles would be to create lines leading up to the vanishing point (like floor boards), and then making diagonal lines to one of the sides, coming off from where the floorboards were started. After that, draw horizontal lines where the vertical and diagonal lines meet, and it should end up looking something like this.

This is the final drawing I did. It includes color in the shading and plenty of 3d objects. Here is a slideshow of my progress with it.

This is the conclusion too my blog post, mainly because it’s 12 in the morning and I should go to sleep. It’s time to put the chalk down for tonight. See you all some time in my next post, peace out ✌️😵‍💫

How does the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates cause observable changes and effects?

This was the driving question for our latest project, where we had to learn about tectonic plates and create a game revolving around them.

I was in a group with Mackenzie and Francis. Our board game had multiple concepts revolving around tectonic plates. Our rules here will explain all of them to you: 

From this project, I learned how to present a board game and I learned about many of the concepts surrounding the theory of plate tectonics. Before this project, I didn’t know anything about subduction or fault lines or anything in between. This project has helped to strengthen my leadership skills and improved my ability to work in a group. I learned to be able to spread out work evenly when working on a group project, and built my knowledge on plate tectonics. I had a lot of fun designing the game board and rules and also being able to play other peoples games. Out of all the games I got to play, the most entertaining one for me was the game made by [KEENAN] and [CAMERON].