So, you might be thinking it’s a bit weird for there to be a blog post in the middle of “physical distancing.” Well, in fact, it is! If you haven’t read my previous post, check it out  here. It explains how even the biggest hurdles can’t stop PLP! I think I’ll miss that, but onto the project. The one we just completed was kind of a joint projet between Scimatics and Humanities. You might be wondering how Science, Social Studies and English might all be in a project together, but it just involves some creative thinking!!! Some highlights of the project were learning how to pronounce “Dengue virus.” It actually came down to me telling my moms about the project, and then they were like “what on earth is “den-gue.” If you were wondering how it’s actually pronounced, it’s “deng-gei.” Yup, it’s a weird one. Well, lets start from the beginning. I’m going to try and alternate Scimatics Milestones and Humanities, at least until they start being joined.

First, the Driving Question(s)

What is the historical significance of your explorer? (Guess which subject this is for? You got it, Humanities)

How do cells and diseases interact? (Yup, and this is for Scimatics.)

Now, I think these are both really hard questions to answer in just 1 blog post… so, we made comics! Here’s mine:

If you would like to access the images instead, here’s a slider:

Anyhoo, I still do need to answer the driving questions in this post. But first (totally not procrastinating) lets review some Milestones and how I improved and learned along the way.

Milestone 1: Project Start and End Mindmap (Scimatics)

I think that overall, in the Scimatics side of this project, I really learned a lot. I didn’t know all that much about how cells and disease interact, and why we get disease and things. I also found doing research on the Dengue virus incredibly fascinating. My mum wanted me to to tuberculosis (that’s the type of disease she studies) but I think it’s really cool how the Dengue virus is transmitted via a mosquito.

Milestone 1: Osmosis Jones Movie Story Spine (Humanities)

If you haven’t watched Osmosis Jones, click here for a quick summary. The reason we watched this movie was because this was how our comics were going to look. We would be talking about the journey of an explorer on the outside, and then on the inside a journey of our virus progressing. This Milestone was writing out the story spine for Osmosis Jones.

Milestone 2: Comic Book Charts (Humanities)

This next Milestone was one of my favorites. It consisted of reading comic books, and then analyzing them. Since we were going to be making our own comic books, these were to show us how. We learned all about panels, gutters and speech bubbles. The comic books I read were: Marvels Captain America, and Batman the Killing Joke.

I have to say, Batman was a bit disturbing.

Milestone 2: Disease Wanted Poster (Scimatics)

I also really enjoyed this Milestone. We had to make a disease wanted poster, where we described our disease, symptoms and where it’s found. This was just some preliminary research, and I really enjoyed it. I like learning more about things I’m interested in. Here is my poster, I’m quite proud of it:

Milestone 4: Storyboard (Joint Milestones from now on)

Now this Milestone… I want to say that it took at least 6 hours to do. Something that drives me crazy is how the things I want to draw look in my head, and then on the paper… not good. Anyways, this was not my favorite Milestone, but it made making the comic a whole lot easier. The way I made my story board was 1 box for about 2-3 panels of my comic. I am happy with how well I describ

ed it, just not how it looks:

 

Well, onto the last Milestone! THE COMIC!!!

I am so proud of this Milestone!!! It all looks the way I want it to, and it all makes sense. I show what I learned for Humanities about Diogo Cão. Diogo is the explorer I chose. He is the first person from Europe to “discover” the mouth of the Kongo river, or estuary. I also show what I learned for Scimatics about the Dengue virus, and how it interacts with cells. If you would like to see how it looks, just click on the first image of this blog post.

I think the Milestone that really helped me get to this point was the first Humanities one, Osmosis Jones. It showed me how to alternate between the outside world and inside Diogo‘s body. I’m really happy with how my comic book turned out. Throughout the whole project, I was just thinking about how I would make it work. Sometimes, when there is something that interests me, I just can’t stop thinking abut it and coming up with new ideas. You might have guessed this, or I think that I previously mentioned it, but I really like writing. You can probably tell from the amount of writing on my blog, but oh well.

To answer the Humanities driving question – What is the historical significance of your explorer?- I had some trouble. I didn’t understand how to categorize what is worth remembering. Then, we had a whole class on that and there was more information. There are 5 different categories to help:

• Importance – were people affected?
• Profundity – were they deeply affected?
• Quantity – did it affect many people? 
• Durability – how long were the people affected?
• Relevance – does it help us understand the past more?

Diogo Cão’s explorations were pretty grand. After all, he did make it to the mouth of the Congo and show Europe that there was more below them in Africa. I think that Diogo matters because he “uncovered” part of the world. He placed padrãos in 2 new places, and left evidence of explorers for us to uncover today. He helped people discover the depth at which explorers explored.

Now the Curricular Competencies! 

Questioning and Predicting: All Milestones and Steppingstones are completed to the best of your ability. (Scimatics)

I think that with this Competency I didn’t do to badly. I found that researching a virus to be really fascinating. I like reading loads of information on something that I’m interested in, so I found the Khan quizzes and lessons entertaining. I think that I struggled a little bit with my drawings of cells and diseases, but all in all I’m proud of how I did with this competency.

Scientific Communication: Bacteria/virus characters interact in a scientific way with body cells in the comic book. Correct vocabulary and accurate diagrams are used. (Scimatics)

I think that because of all the research I did in this competency, I did pretty well. I’m happy with the way that my virus interacts with the cells of my body. I’m not the best drawer like I said previously, but drawing non-fiction (blurb like) things, that look accurate is kind of fun. There’s no improvisation, because everything looks a certain way!

Evaluating: Symptoms and logical outcomes of the chosen disease are included in the story. (Scimatics)

I did not want Diogo to die from the dengue virus, so I chose a type that does not often kill people. I followed the correct course of the virus progressing, and thought about how it would end. Dengue virus is not contagious, it’s caught from mosquitos. Because of this, the virus didn’t get spread. I thought about having Diogo take the mosquito onboard the ship, but the likely hood of it biting many other people would have been very small.

And that’s all for today! You might be wondering about the humanities competencies, but they’re up above with the driving question!

-Kate