School

Long live the Queen!

megumib

It is elections time! Which sounds like a perfect excuse to talk about todays topic: the Canadian government. For those of you who don’t know Canada runs as a parliamentary democratic government with a constitutional monarchy. The work is divided between our provincial, federal and municipal governments. But how much of our current system do we really need? One of the more talked about topics is the constitutional monarchy and whether or not we still need the Queen as the head of state.

So why is it that this is a debated topic? Well many people have begun saying that because the Queen is a figure head, she is not needed in the affairs of our country. In places like Australia the campaign to become a republic is growing as well. So the question is should Canada follow suit? Well, in order to figure that out how about we start with; what does the Queen do anyway?

The Queen has representatives that hold certain responsibilities in our government. In Canada we have the Governor General and the Lieutenant General. Their main jobs are to open and close parliament, and to approve of bills passed through parliament. The most notable thing the Queen has power over is to dismiss a prime minister or to dissolve the parliament.

Current Governor General: Mary Simon Job: - summoning parliament - prolonging parliament - dissolving parliament - reading throne speech - giving Royal Assent
Current Lieutenant Generals: 10 Job: - Ensuring there is a premier - Appointing member of Executive council - Approving government decisions

As far as power goes that’s all the Queen does. And half of it is just in her name. She really is just a figurehead. So here’s the argument: Canada is an independent country and doesn’t need to have a monarchy especially when they live overseas.

Ottawa is where the House of Commons is. Buckingham palace is in London.

To many, this is a pretty valid argument. However, few consider the consequence of such actions. Having the Queen as our head of state doesn’t actually hold much consequence for us – we have most of the power and we get to keep international relations. We are not the only country with the Queen as our head of state, so keeping it as such helps to maintain future prospects with these countries. This in turn improves our trades. It would also cost a lot in order to fully remove the U.K from Canada. Also everyone knows who she is. Her face is hung up in schools and businesses. There are movies and songs dedicated to her. Why break tradition when all it will cause is confusion? The outcome would not be worth it – leaving us with strained relationships, a whole lot of money problems and a divided country. With the amount of problems already surfacing within Canada, there’s no justifiable point for this to happen for the foreseeable future.

 

One more thing that stops this from happening. It is practically impossible for Canada to remove the Queen as our head of state.

…Yep! Turns our a bunch of years ago when we first made the Queen head of state, we also made it really difficult for us to change that. In fact, out of all the countries with Queen Elizabeth as head of state, Canada would have the hardest time removing ourselves.

So is this really worth it? No! Although some might disagree at this point there isn’t a real reason for anything to happen. If we really wanted to be apart from the U.K this change should have happened years ago. All in all a constitutional monarchy works for us and has worked for the past 40 yrs. We have a system that works so I see no reason to change it. How much do you guys know about our Queen? If you have any cool facts or questions? feel free to leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!

Now that that’s cleared up maybe we can move on to things within Canada itself? Like maybe… what’s the most important democratic principle? Check out Holly’s blog to find out!

 

 

Disney land and “fake” happiness

megumib

Disneyland is an escape from the everyday cares of reality. That is the illusion that Disney sells. Disneyland is a manifestation of that illusion. And people bought it. Disneyland was created after WW2 and people wanted to forget about the conflicts and violence. So what better way to escape then a fun filled fantasy theme park? People were all over it. So what was so appealing about these rides? Let’s talk about one of them in particular. The Mad Tea Party. A ride for all ages and one that didn’t change over the years. Why? Because people couldn’t over think it. There is practically nothing controversial about spinning teacups. As such it was one of the only opening rides that hasn’t changed. They did move it from where the Arthur King Carrousel is currently to next to the Alice in Wonderland ride. However, other than a few safety changes, the ride itself hasn’t changed over the years. Thanks to it’s set-your-own-pace kind of feel, the ride is always busy and has at least a 10min wait time. The adaptivity of the park has kept it as a fantasy filled utopia that provides an escape from reality to this day.

Math games!

megumib

Hi guys! Today I will be talking all about math! I know right? So exciting! Well, that wasn’t entirely sarcasm. More specifically I will be talking about a math game that I made for school. This was defiantly one of the better projects that I had for school and was very fun to do! Let’s get into it!

Our assignment was to create game that used the laws of exponents, without requiring the players to use a calculator to do the math. In order to do this we were put into partners an I got the amazing Asha! We created a game called plot twist that was a very basic visualization of exponent equations. Here are the rules:

We got plenty of class time and we restarted our game 5 of 6 times with many, many drafts. Finally we came up with a product and presented it to a different class getting them to try our game. Everyone either loved it, or hated it and there wasn’t a lot of people who had an opinion in between. I thought that it was interesting but I’m glad that the majority liked our game and more importantly, understood how to play it. This assignment really tested my knowledge about exponents and really made me think about how to convey that knowledge to people who know nothing about it in a fun and engaging way.

Before we started this project I did have a little bit of knowledge on what exponents were but I still needed to do more work to understanding how they worked. In order to do that I developed a few questions on what I needed to know. Both on what exponents are, and how to do this project. These were called the need to know questions. After this project I know understand how exponents work on a much deeper level than if I were given worksheets. This project also helped me improve my ability to explain something to another person, who had little to no knowledge about it.

In conclusion, I think that this was a great opportunity that really stretched my imagination and made me think. It was a great way to learn about exponents and get an chance to incorporate a little fun!