This unit has been a real whirlwind. It involved Humanities, Math, and Science. The driving question of this unit was ‘How do Ideas Drive Change?’

 In Humanities, we learned about several concepts, such as steampunk. We did a novel study on Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, which is a steampunk book. I also wrote a blog post about how steampunk affects our society. 

However, the most important things we learned about in Humanities were revolutions. There have been many revolutions throughout history, and Amelia, Kyle, Niklas, and I were assigned to research the American Revolution. Since I’m American, I know a thing or two about this specific revolution, but it was still really interesting to research. We studied the events that led to the revolution, like the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, important battles, like the Battle of Bunker Hill, turning points in the war, like the Battle of Yorktown, and significant events caused by the war, like the drafting of the Constitution. 

The science and math component of this project was all about circuits! We used this program to see how different circuit elements (batteries, lights, wires, resistors) reacted to each other. Then, we created circuits that we used in our machine. In our group’s machine, for example, we used a lightbulb turning on after a circuit is completed twice. The first light represented the Declaration of Independence, and the second light represented the Constitution. 

We put together a machine that represented the American Revolution, using what we learned in Humanities, Science, and Math. You can see the machine run through, and learn more about the American Revolution, by watching the video at the start of this post. This video is only our first draft, and there are many improvements that we would have liked to make. However, the program we were using to edit it together, iMovie, messed up in several places and we were unable to continue. There are a few places in the video where it’s difficult to understand the voice-overs, the music should be replaced, and it’s a little long. Other than that, I think you’ll enjoy it!

Since we studied so much in this unit, it would be hard to sum it up in just one blog post. However, I think that having that much curriculum in one project really helped us stay on track and move in the right direction. I really enjoyed this unit, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it!