Monthly Archives: June 2023

PGP, Reflections

Finance/Exhibition Post

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Hey ya’ll, and welcome back to the blog! 

Today’s post is about the finance project we just finished in PGP 10. This project was all about finance and becoming “financially literate”. The driving question in this project was: “How do I support my career life choices?” I support them by marketing myself through media that describes my values and what I can contribute. Moreover, by learning about the world of finance and becoming financially literate. The final products for this project was making business cards and resumes. 

The first concept we learned was the world of financial literacy. We watched several videos and did activities as a class. The 5 terms of financial literacy are: budgeting, improving credit, saving, borrowing, and investing. One way that we learned about this was when we watched “Moneyball” in class. Moneyball is a baseball movie about a poor team that tries to assemble a winning team though stats and numbers. It’s one of my fav movies and has a really stacked cast. We ended up writing a reflection explaining how the movie demonstrated financial literacy:  (insert craft link here:)

Another key part of this project was our stock market simulator. In this simulator, we were given a certain amount of (fake) money, then we would invest it. The person in the class with the most money by the end would win a 20$ gift card from Mr. Harris. There was also an award for whoever invested the most “environmentally friendly”. Along with the simulator, we kept a weekly journal of our stocks. (Here’s a link to my reflections:) I didn’t do all that well in the sim, as I only made $176. When investing, I took into account environment slightly, but I mostly invested in high blue chipped stocks like Pepsi and AMD. Looking back, I should’ve done more research on my assets and kept a closer eye on when it spikes or drops.

After doing all this work it was time to show it off at the Spring Exhibition. 

Our set up was an “office” style theme.

In the office there was separate divisions based on the topics of our podcast, so I was in the music division. At our respective desks we presented our business cards, and we pitched our podcast to the people who stopped by. This was an interesting layout and something unlike any exhibition I’ve been apart of. It was pretty busy, by the end of the night my voice was gone lol. Here’s a photo of Zach and I at our station:

 In summation, I found learning about finance to be practical and something that is useful for the future. Even though I didn’t do great in the simulator, I still learned lots and found the right strategies to use (better to lose fake money than real money). The exhibition was a blast and it was fun to dress up in our snazzy gear. 

Thanks for reading guys!

Reflections

TPOL 2023

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 Hello teachers and parents, and welcome to my TPOL, transitional presentation of learning. In this presentation I’m going to mention my growth and learning this year and how that’ll transition to grade 11. This year has been one heck of a ride, and I’m excited to talk about it with you!

The driving question for TPOL is: “Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?” 

I think I’m ready because of the adversity and growth I’ve gone through this year. From the highs of our time at Disney, to the lows of our power of imagination videos first drafts. This year I’ve focused a lot more on my growth than in past years and it’s really showed. From my main role in Romeo and Juliet, to my hype tik tok’s with Zach in front of the castle: (export_1678289528883

 “Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

Now to start it off, I’m going to talk about my growth in Humanities.

In humanities this year we’ve explored some new topics, such as the gold rush, Shakespeare, and the Indian Act. And with each topic that we learned, we found a cool way to demonstrate our learnings. We wrote stories, crafted short films, and created collages. 

The first skill I improved this year was my writing abilities. In the gold rush project we were tasked with creating a fictional story about the gold rush in BC. At first I was hesitant about my abilities and had little to no confidence in myself. I made many drafts and got critique from Ms. Valedictorian, a.k.a my sister Kaia. Before writing was something I dreaded, but now it’s something I genuinely enjoy. The second aspect of my learning that I improved in Humanities was collaboration. I showed this in my Romeo and Juliet project. This project was interesting to say the least, it had everything, from reading and writing to acting. There were some awkward moments in there for sure, (I acted as Romeo..) pretty self explanatory there. Nevertheless, we created a quality film that we were all proud of!

My favorite project in humanities this year had to be Power of Imagination. This was our Disneyworld project where we were tasked with creating a video that showed the psychological benefits of Disney parks. This was our first ever out of loon lake learning advance, and it was one for the ages. From our hotel room, to the early mornings at the park, this was an experience I’ll never forget. To complete our video we had to carefully plan out our shots to make sure we got everything. We conducted interviews with strangers to get their take on our topic. This was a chance for us to work on our interview abilities and being able to talk to people we don’t know well.

Now I’m going to talk about my growth in PGP. 

This year was our first time having PGP, it’s our careers credit for PLP. In this course, we learned how to improve our habits, market ourselves, and how to become financially literate. 

This year us students had to juggle our 3 PLP classes during term 2, so it was important to have a consistent schedule in order to stay on track. As part of our PGP class we read a book called “Atomic habits”, it’s all about creating effective systems using the good old 7 habits. To make sure we kept on track with our reading we created a reading schedule, my plan was to read 15 minutes a day. I learned lots in this project and skills that I can apply anywhere in my life. 

Recently, we’ve been working on finance and marketing in PGP. We did this “stock simulator” where the person with the most revenue gets a gift card. I didn’t do all that well, but in the process I learned lots about the market and when to buy or sell. Along with this simulator, we worked on marketing ourselves for potential employers. We did resumes, buiseness cards, and cover letters, all key concepts for jobs. I found this to be really fun, as it’s stuff I can use for the future and in my career beyond high school. 

Now I’m gonna talk about Maker 10.  

For maker this year, we made Tik Toks at Disney, and made podcasts. I would say it was my favorite class of the school year, as we had free choice for all of our projects, and I had lots of fun!

One challenging part of our project: “ making effective personal design choices”, was shooting the videos and preparing good first drafts. As I mentioned earlier, we created these videos during our time at Disney World, and we had to carefully plan out and schedule where and when we would shoot. Some of our videos were dances, and some were vlogs. Before we left for Florida, we created rough drafts for each of these videos. This gave us a good idea of what to expect and how to be ready….. Of course things weren’t perfect in our videos, in my “room tour” video we forgot to get rid of a garbage bag that was in one of our shots. Nevertheless, we made the most of it and edited it until we were satisfied. 

Another key project we did was: “Using design to influence others for good”. We created podcasts on topics of our choice, I did mine on vinyl records. We presented these at our recent spring exhibition, along with our business cards from PGP. The whole point of this project was to talk about something that we’re passionate about, not a topic that’s assigned to us. Similar to our Disney project, creating our podcasts took lots of planning and scheduling, for interviews, and for release dates. In the process of crafting and refining my podcast, I learned lots and my passion for vinyl records grew. The exhibition was a huge success, lots of people were interested and gave it a listen!

Learning plan:

 Here’s my learning plan goals from the start of the year:

As you can see I set a pretty high bar at the start of the year. One thing that I hadn’t really done in past years was push myself really hard, I was usually fine with accomplished grades. But this year I chose to change that, and I applied myself more, and was open to further feedback from teachers and peers. Recently in humanities, we did some writing pieces for our “Lies and Incongruences” project. For each piece I could never get it quite right and often found myself revising each and every assignment, which felt dreadful. I took the feedback positively and I made my paragraphs even better! 

In summation, this year has been a blast and I feel as though it’s been my best as a PLP learner. From our first out of country field study to returning to Loon Lake, this year had it all. PLP has become a trait of who I am, and a community that I’m proud to be apart of. I feel as if I’ve grown lots, and have been able to review and refine some of my skills and abilities. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoyed my TPOL!

 

Humanities, Individual Project

Lies and Incongruences Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog.

Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve been working on in PLP 10. It’s called Lies and Incongruences, and is about First Nations in Canada.  The driving question in this project was: “How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time?” It can do this by demonstrating the realities and truths about our society. Also, we can connect to other past events and compare and contrast our ideas. The final product for this project was a art collage, digital or physical that represented the idea of truth and reconciliation. 

For keystone 1, we were tasked with reading “the Marrow Thieves”, by Cherie Dimaline. This book is a dystopian future where all Indians are refugees from the white people. It is directly tied to the residential schools of Canada’s past. Along with keeping up with our reading, we had to do a weekly journal that contained our thoughts and ideas on the book. We also did “contributions” where we created something that embellished the theme of the past chapters. 

 Near the end of the project, we did a full reflection on the book. Here’s a link to mine: Reading Journal

In keystone 2, we began to connect art and test with one another. There were 3 parts to this milestone, History and art, Contemporary issues and art, and civil dispute and art. For each of these assignments, we had to research a topic that interested us, then create a reflection. 

(Here’s a link to each of my reflections)

Outside of the classroom, we did the “blanket activity”. The blanket exercise is a activity that teaches about colonization in Canada. The program was created in response to the 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and is used as a teaching tool across Canada. This activity really opened my eyes and I made many connections.

It took lots of critique and revision to complete my pieces, it was quite the grind. But it was all worth it in the end, cause I had created quality, sophisticated work. 

Then it was time to craft our final art collage……

I chose to do mine as a physical piece of art. I based mine off the place I live, the Indian arm or “Say Nuth Khaw-yum”. Indian arm used to be a hunting ground for First Nations people many years ago, and holds deep roots in their culture.

For my draft, I cut out my poem from earlier in the project into magazine letters. I then put them on an image of the arm.

That was the first layer, I then layered a duplicate image with First Nations art on top:

This art will be part of our PLP spring exhibition, an event where we present our learning to friends and family. I can’t wait!

In summation, this project was interesting and I learned lots about Canada’s dark past. Specifically in the blanket activity I heard some shocking facts about our government and the way we treat First Nations. I actually enjoyed the reading and the plot was really interesting, it was unlike most school novels that we’ve read in the past. As for my art, I’m proud of it, and I’m hyped to show it off during the exhibition!

Thanks for reading!