It’s that time of year again! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to TPOL’S (Transitional Posts of Learning). They happen once a year, and are in many ways similar to MPOL’S. TPOL’S are the blog posts of all blog posts. They are where I talk and reflect on the whole year. So without further ado;
Destination Imagination
I talked a lot about teamwork in my two Destination Imagination posts this year. That’s because there’s a lot of great things to say about it. One thing i didn’t really talk about was the “leader” of our group. There wasn’t one. We were all leaders in different parts. Some of us were in charge of the script, or the songs. Obviously there was more than just the script and the songs, but I won’t bore you with the whole list. I’d never worked in a group where there’s just one leader before. It’s really nice because you don’t have the pressure of being the leader and making most of the decisions, but you don’t feel like you aren’t contributing enough. I think it also helped that we all got along well. We listened to each other well and didn’t argue about much. We did really well in our performance and in our instant challenge. Our second performance was much better than our first. We listened to what the appraisers said and made a lot of revisions based on the feedback that we got. Since we were willing to listen to the feedback the appraisers had for us, we did much better in provincials. I have learned new ways of working in a team after this project, and i now know how much you can improve if you really listen to feedback.
Cloning
I really enjoyed the cloning project, though it was frustrating at times. I found it cool to learn about cloning plants, because I’m personally interested plants and possibly becoming a landscaper. However, (as usual) there were some problems with my group. Not everyone was carrying their weight. We tried to resolve it within our group multiple times, but the two group members continued to not do any work. Eventually I had to go to mr gross with another group member to address the situation, because we knew we wouldn’t be able to get the project done by the deadline if the other two group members didn’t start pulling their weight. This project demonstrated that I’ve learned to ask for help when it’s needed. I’m glad that we asked for help because I’m happy with the final outcome, and how things were resolved.
Lego
The lego project was another example of challenging group work. There seems to be a lot of that in this program. With this project, I ended up doing the majority of the work. Again, i tried many times to resolve the problem on my own, but (just like with the cloning project) it didn’t work. I could’ve gone to mr gross again, but I knew that I could get the work done in time for the presentation. I also didn’t think that going to mr gross would really work this time. I ended up finishing the project on time, and overall Im happy with the final product. I feel like this is a good example of real life learning that will apply outside the classroom. Sometimes not everyone is going to contribute and you can’t always help that. The difference between the lego project and the cloning project is that I knew that we wouldn’t be able to finish the cloning project in time without help.
Comic book
I enjoyed this project, and learning about the treatment of shell shock. Before this assignment I had heard the words shell shock approximately 2 times. Both in Ottawa. So it’s fair to say that Ilearned a lot from this project. This entire unit was very important because we need to learn about the horrible things that happened in the past so we can learn from them and not treat people that way in the future.
We decided to make a comic book as a class, because our goal was to make World War One easier to understand and more interesting for kids in elementary school. We presented to the 6th and 7th graders at Cove Cliff Elementary. The first and second groups i presented to were genuinely interested in what I was presenting. It was easy and enjoyable to present to them because they wanted to know more and they asked questions. The 3rd (and final) group I presented to had a harder time understanding the topic, so they weren’t as interested in what I was saying. It was difficult to present to them, and it showed me that not everyone learns the same way, and that sometimes you need some background knowledge to enjoy things more. I also learned that it easier to present when your audience is interested in what you’re talking about. I will think about this for future presentations so I can try to get everyone interested.
I learned a lot this year about myself, and others. I made many, many mistakes, but I learned from every mistake I made. As I’m sure you know by now, one of my ongoing goals is to get work in on time. I am slowly getting better at this each term, but I still need to improve. I previously mentioned setting timers for myself, to work for 30 minutes, then take a five minute break. This method has been working well, but recently I changed it a little. Instead of setting the timer for the same duration each time I break the assignment up into smaller chunks, then I give myself a time limit. I just started doing this recently, but so far it has worked.
As you may know, recently I participated in the Destination Imagination regionals and provincial tournaments. In my last post I talked about regionals, and the process leading up to it. You can read more about that HERE. In this post, I will be talking about the process leading up to provincials, and how that went.
Regionals
As you may or may not know my group came in second place. We got scored on our performance, and different aspects of it. My group used our score sheet to prioritize what to work on. We decided that our main priority would be our set, because it didn’t work at regionals.
The Set
As I mentioned in my regionals post, our set didn’t work like it was supposed to, the cave didn’t roll up well, the drill fell off, and stuff behind the set fell over. So we decided to just scrap that set, and make a new one from scratch. Jessie constructed the new set. Lauren and I helped her paint it, and glue the cave onto the wooden dowel. When we painted the set we decided to keep the same design as before. However, we replaced the cave fabric so it didn’t bunch up when it rolled up. We also added a key ring into the end of the dowel to attach the drill to so it wouldn’t splinter again. Remaking our set was a big risk because we only had a few weeks between regionals and provincials. We barely had any class time because of spring break. So the set had to be made over spring break and it had to be done by the end of spring break so we could rehearse with it. Luckily our risk or rebuilding our set payed off. This set stood up easily on its own, had a working cave, and it looked great. Needles to say we got a much better score on our set, since it actually worked this time. I think the main reason that our set worked was because of the photo of Cole Sprouse that we taped to the back of our set.
Spectacle
Another main thing that we changed about our performance was our spectacle. In regionals, our spectacle was the first song. We decided to use props and masks, but that didn’t work very well, so we decided to change our spectacle. This took a long time to change, because we couldn’t agree on anything. We were originally going to change the spectacle to later on in the performance, in adventure awaits (one of our songs). Eventually we decided to keep the spectacle at the beginning, but we changed it a lot. Instead of using props we used dance, and instead of using masks, we used acrobatics. This gave us a much higher score, and it was much more fun to perform the dance. We scored much higher on our spectacle the second time.
Our performance!
As I’ve mentioned, our performance went really well! The set worked, (thanks to Cole Sprouse) the spectacle went smoothly, our songs worked well, and we only had to improvise once or twice. It was really fun to perform with my group. We did really well on our instant challenge, but i can’t tell you about that, it’s top secret information. We ended up coming first in our main challenge AND our main challenge. I had a lot of fun this year and I’m sad that I won’t be doing it next year.
Recently, we had our Destination Imagination regionals tournament. It was held at seycove this year. In this post i will be talking about our work leading up to regionals, regionals itself, and what we are going to change for regionals. I won’t be talking about the instant challenge, since we are not allowed to talk about them until globals is over.
The process
This year, I’m in the fine arts group (again). Our challenge is called “Change of Tune”. The task is to create a two act musical, in which music and lyrics are used to help tell the story. The first step was to come up with deals for our story.
this video explains it better:
Idea generator To come up with ideas for Destination Imagination, we wrote as many ideas as we could onto pieces of paper and cut them out. Once everyone was done, we spread out all the pieces of paper on the table and went through them one by one. We organized them into groups based on what they were about (ie. stage, story, setting, spectacle….etc), then went through! And got rid of the ones we didn’t like. I don’t think that we actually used any of the ideas from those pieces of paper.
Our story The idea for our story came from one of our practice instant challenges. The instant challenge was about getting stranded at an island and meeting a tribe that communicates in a different way than you do, and you have to figure out how to communicate with them. Our story change many many times, until we finally came to the conclusion that we would be campers, going on an adventure to find and reunite two halves of a stone.
The set If you have read any other blog posts from people in my group, you will know that we had many difficulties with out set. If you watched the video above, you will know that one of the challenge requirements is to use technical methods to create a set change. Our original plan was to have 1 big piece of fabric wrap horizontally around our backdrop. We had two wooden dowels on the side of the backdrop that the fabric fit in between. The idea was that when the rollers rotated, it would’ve rotated the whole set around to reveal the cave. Once we were done building the frame, painting the backdrop, and securing the dowels, we realized that it wouldn’t work. The fabric wouldn’t stay up along the top, because it was too heavy. We were originally going to fix it by tying it up with string, and unhooking it when we had to rotate it. However we quickly realized that it wouldn’t work.
Our next design
Our next design (which worked much better) was pretty different. We started by cutting out the cave from the rest of the backdrop, and hot glueing the fabric to the frame so it wouldn’t droop. We then moved one dowel to the top of the set. The idea was that we would spin the dowel with a drill, to rise and lower the cave. This actually worked when we were rehearsing, but the night before, we noticed that the wood was splitting at the end. Apparently the other dowel was also splintered, so we couldn’t use that one. So we just had to perform without a fully working backdrop.
Our new and improved hopefully working design for next time It was decided that the set needed to be fully redone. Frame and everything. The plan for the new design is pretty different. For starters, the set will be able to fold in half (to make transportation easier). We will also be repainting the backdrop on cardboard this time. To make sure the cave rolls up better, we will be getting grey fabric (the paint is what bunched it up). We are also inserting an Allen key into a new dowel to prevent it from splintering.
The performance
As you would expect, there were good, and not so good things about our performance.
I’m going to talk about some of the things that we did well first.
Improv
What’s a Destination Imagination performance without improv? During our performance there were a few times where people forgot their lines, or weren’t ready to say them. This may seem like a bad thing, but our team is great at improv. The fact that half of them were on the improv team last year probably helped with that. Rewatching our performance, there were a few points where it didn’t even look like improv, which I think is amazing.
Singing Watching other performances, and comparing them to ours, out of all the groups performing we were some of the only people smiling, while we sung. For the most part, we stayed on pitch, and on time.
The set
This is something that didn’t go well. As I mentioned above, it was splintering the night before, so it didn’t work for the actual performance. Luckily, we have plans on how to fix all of that.
This year I would say I definitely enjoyed Destination Imagination more. Our team worked really well together and didn’t fight (too much). I am looking forward to provincials, and working more with my team.
For my mPOL I have been reflecting on my experiences in PLP and thinking about what I do well and how I can continue to improve as a learner. In my mPOL I will be talking about my PLP experiences, and it would be impossible to talk about my learning in PLP without talking about my struggle to complete work on time. I am also going to talk about what I do well.
Group Work
I feel that my strongest skill as a PLP student is my ability to work in a group. I am comfortable acting as a leader in a group but I am also okay with letting others take the lead, as long as they are being respectful and are making sure that everyone’s voice is being heard. If someone in the group is being unfair, I speak up about it. I always do my best to take on a fair share of the work and take on extra when there is a need. I get my group work done on time as I don’t want to let anyone down. Sometimes I have to stay up late to get the work done, for example, the work at the beginning of metaphor machines. Or for my Star Wars project.
Of course, some group work has gone better than others. In the beginning of metaphor machines, I was frustrated by other group members who were not doing any work. I tried to get them to help, but they seemed reluctant . I decided that I wouldn’t force them to work, because I didn’t want them to think I was going to boss them around for the whole project. Eventually, as the project went on, the others started doing their share of the work, but by the end some people had still done more work than others.
Scimathics
I recently was told to not work too far ahead in math which is funny since I am always behind in my other subjects. I find both math and science easy and because I can stay on top of my work it doesn’t cause me any stress. I help my friends whenever they need it, especially in math. The math card game took me a bit longer to complete because I was putting a lot of work into the art involved. I was able to make some changes to my original plan when I was running out of time which worked out well because I was still happy with the end result even though I made some compromises.
French
French may not be part of PLP, but it is a part of my learning experience so I am going to talk about it as well. I am doing French online, but I started it three and a half months late as I was using my spare block to catch up on PLP work. I am happy to say that I have completely caught up on my french in one month. I find French really easy, so I can do it quickly once I get started, but I sometimes have a hard time motivating myself to get to work.
Humanities and Maker
This is definitely where I struggle the most.
I have trouble getting motivated with some of my work, which makes it hard to get started on it, especially if it is a big assignment. One example of this is my two revolution blog posts that I didn’t complete. At the time I was behind on the rest of my work, and I was still doing most of the work for my metaphor machine group, so writing two blog posts seemed like a lot of work. My Star Wars exhibition turned out well, and one of the reasons for that is that I was motivated to get it done on time, because I knew that I would have to present it to people no matter what I had. I wanted to be proud of the work I was presenting, so I worked hard(er) to produce high quality work. The exhibition blog post however, was late. A lot of people who handed the post in before me worked on it over Christmas break, but I needed to use that time to catch up on French.
Progressing forward
Moving forward, there are definitely things that I want to continue to work on. One thing I want to work on is becoming more motivated, especially on big projects that seem overwhelming. If it involves other people, I get the work done quicker, but if I am working on my own I am often less motivated to get the work done right away. For example, I was motivated to work on my Star Wars exhibition, because I knew other people would be looking at it. Or how I prioritize my group work, because I know how frustrating it is when someone hasn’t done their part of the work. Another thing I want to work on is being more comfortable speaking up to my peers about my problems with the group without worrying that I sound bossy. This is something that will just have to come from practice, and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.
In December, we had our mini exhibition. Last year our theme was the environment, but this year our theme was Star Wars. So naturally, every Friday leading up to the exhibition we watched all the movies, so everyone who hadn’t seen them before could watch them.
Creating an inquiry
Just like the winter exhibition and the blue sky exhibition, the Star Wars exhibition was based around an inquiry based question. This was difficult to do, because before there exhibition I had only watched three of the Star Wars movies. After brainstorming as many questions as I could, I chose my top three, followed by my favourite. Once I got my question approved, it was time to start my research.
How does the power of belief affect your ability to perform a task?
You may be wondering how this question relates to Star Wars. It’s actually linked to the force, and how you have to believe in yourself in order to use it. This question wasn’t exactly a yes or no answer, because most of the time believing in yourself does help accomplish a task, but not always. Sometimes you will fail.
Research
When it came to researching my question, it would be pretty hard to just get all my information off of websites. So I interviewed my hairdresser who used to be a Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN), so she knows about what I was researching. I emailed her dome questions, and this was her response:
Can you tell me a bit about the job you had when you were helping others, and some of your experiences?
The job I had that helped others was as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN). I provided support in community settings for adults living with mental illness. I was responsible for managing their medications, counselling them, communicating with their doctors and psychiatrists about their health and encouraging their independence with their daily living. I worked specifically with people who had bipolar mood disorder and schizophrenia and I was there to support them and keep them stable. Sometimes, their illness would effect them acutely and they would be in a crisis state and would then need to be admitted to the hospital.
What are some things someone could do to turn their “negative thinking” into “positive thinking” Turning negative thinking into positive thinking can be tough when your beliefs are deeply ingrained. It is easy to feel powerless when in a negative mindset. Journaling can help you recognize what thoughts you are telling yourself which contribute to your own mood. One way to empower yourself is with thought replacement. The idea is to write down your negative thought, followed by the feeling this thought leaves you with (ie: “I am a failure because I didn’t pass my test. I might as well give up in this course now.” Feelings: Defeated, depressed, like a failure, sad, hopeless, disappointed). Then write down a replacement thought that is reality based and the feeling this leaves you with (ie: “I can get my mark up by hiring a tutor to help me study for the next test and I will pass the course.” Feelings: empowered, hopeful, relieved). Realizing that you have a choice to remain negative and defeated or empower yourself to be positive and feel better are motivating reasons to do the work behind this thought replacement training.
Does believing in yourself impact your performance on a certain task?
Believing in yourself greatly impacts the outcome of your performance. We are always telling ourselves messages that effect our confidence. If we tell ourself that we will fail at something, we will become anxious and fearful. This negative state sabotages our performance. If we expect to fail, we surrender control and confidence and run the risk of fulfilling our beliefs.
On the other side, if we set our expectation to succeed at something, and we truly believe that we will, the determination and resilience to persevere through the process will set us up for a positive outcome.
Groups
Just like past exhibitions, we were split into groups for presenting our projects. This year we were split between the light side and the dark side. I was on the light side because my inquiry question was about the force. The light side had 20 people, grade 8 and 9. The light side had the PLP room to set up our projects and decorate. Within main group (the light side) we had 3 different subgroups; environment/science, (movie) tech, and philosophical. We based the placings off of inquiry questions. I was in the philosophy subgroup along with 7 other people. environment/science Jessie Melika Kailey Alivia Gabbie
Fraser Jordyn (movie) tech Owen Isabelle H Robin Sam Isabelle L
Kiera philosophical Kai Logan Emily Tamara
Emerson Luciano Grace
We decided that we would decorate the room as the rebel base on Hoth. The tech and philosophy subgroups were inside the rebel base, and the science group was outside the base. We separated each section with blankets, so it was easier to tell where each section started/ended. We also had an “Admiral snack bar” with different food and drinks, like Jedi juice and princess lays. For audience engagement we decided to put on a short skit every 15 minutes, and we also had a pin the lightsaber on yoga station. I was in the skit from the beginning of “A New Hope” because I was dressed as Princess Leia. We tried improv, but it didn’t work, so we just stuck to the scripted skits.
Creating
Of course, I couldn’t just stand in front of a table and talk about the research that I did. That would be pretty boring, and whenever I left my station (to do my skit or to help with pin the lightsaber on Yoda) there would be nothing for people to look at. So I decided to make a poster board and a box with a rock on top, (I’ll explain more about that later). The poster board was mostly so people could know what my project was about while I wasn’t there. I also had a “guessing game” on one side of my poster board, where you would read the description, then guess who it was about. When I was finished gluing stuff to my poster board I decided that it didn’t look like I wanted to. So I decided to paint stars on it, using white paint. The other display that I made was a cardboard box with a rock on top of it. The rock had a magnet on the bottom of it so I could move it with another magnet attached to a stick inside the box. I used this as a way to “demonstrate the force” to my audience. When I made this box I decided to use one of the lava rocks from Iceland, because they resemble “space rocks”. I added a white tablecloth to the box to give it a more finished look, and I added “The Force” to the front of the box with stickers.
The exhibition
At the exhibition we (the light side) decided to dress up. I dressed up as Princess Leia, mostly because my friends wanted me to do my hair in the famous Princess Leia buns, but partially because it was actually related to my project. I linked it to the fact that Leia couldn’t use the force until she believed in herself.
Overall the exhibition was really fun. It also went by a lot faster than the past two exhibitions. I presented to a wide range of people, but my favourite people to present to were the little kids who loved it when they got to “use the force”.
What I would do differently next time
Next time I would either make a better poster board, or not make one at all. My poster board was pretty boring to look at because there weren’t any photos on it. I would also spend less time researching, and more time building.
Wednesday November 1st was take your kid to work day. I went to my mom’s work for the day, she’s works as a landscaper for Blooms ‘n Botanicals. For take your kid to work day, the grade 9s at seycove had to interview 3 people, and write down their responses, but since we’re in PLP, we didn’t do that. Instead, (because our theme this year is story finding and telling through video) we filmed our interview, and we were assigned a blog post along with it.
My day:
Wake up at 8:00
Work from 9:00-12:30
Lunch from 12:30-1:30
Work from 1:30-3:00
Blooms ‘n Botanicals
Blooms ‘n Botanicals specializes in landscaping design and maintenance. “At Blooms n’ Botanicals we strive to create a colourful year-round garden or patio with shrubs, trees and plants that are best suited to your lifestyle and the environment where you live.” – The blooms & botanicals website.
My mom’s work
As I’ve already mentioned, my mom works for blooms ‘n botanicals. While I was at her work I got to help out. I didn’t do too many things, because in real life there isn’t an undo button. Plus I’m not actually trained in that job/job field. I just did small things, like raking leaves. I enjoyed raking up the leaves, probably more than most people would. I also pruned lots of plants. Pruning is getting rid of the dead parts of plants, and just trimming them down in general to prepare for winter.
Last year, during our advertising unit, one of the ads that we had to make was for a business. The business I made my ad on was blooms ‘n botanicals, so it was cool to actually experience what I was advertising firsthand.
Interviews
While everyone was eating lunch (including me), I went around and asked people if I could interview them. I asked one question for each person, and here are their responses:
This is difficult to answer specifically, because there are many careers involving landscaping, and there are even more “mini jobs” within those careers. Let’s start with the “bigger” careers within/involving landscaping. Some of my top choices would be a landscape architect, and working as a garden Center employee might be fun. When I was in grade 7, one of the projects that I did was on a possible career. The career that I chose to research was a landscape architect. So I know that being a landscape architect would be a good job for me. I can also see myself working as a residential landscaper, because I enjoy gardening, and I have had experience with it on multiple occasions because I like to help with the garden in our front yard. I also usually help plant the vegetable garden.
When we found out that imagination of 5 (my group for DI) was in third place we were ecstatic! We couldn’t believe that even though our vanishing act didn’t work, we came in third. We were happy to say the least, to be going to regionals alongside all of our classmates.
Prepairing for Provincials
Even though we didn’t get our scores at regionals, we did get feedback on our performance. Once we got back, on Monday we reread the notes and decided what to work on. We had to prioritize, because we only had ____ classes to prepare for provincials. We decided to change one of our team choice elements, from live music (singing with the ukulele) to a lightning bolt rainbow staff, because we got a very low score on it. We kept our other team choice element (costumes) but we decided that we would get a higher mark on it if we sewed them. Some of the fabric was difficult to work with because it was so fine. Luckily we didn’t have to change much when Sofia came back, all we did was give her the narrator part so Luca wouldn’t have to change in and out of her costume. We made some edits to the script (which I partly regret) to enhance our storyline.
The lightning bolt rainbow staff took a while to make, because; first we had to find a stick the right size for Syrah, then I whittled it, then over spring break, Alivia created the lightning bolt to go on top of the staff, after spring break, we covered the lightning bolt in white tissue paper and put a light inside, we wrapped rainbow tissue paper around the top of the stick, glued it all together, and we were done!
We also added a few props, and by a few I mean two. We added a sun amulet for citrine (me), and a wand for emerald.
During and after Provincials
We definitely did better job at Provincials. This could’ve been because we had more time to practice and improve. It also could’ve been the fact that we had one more person helping out “backstage”. Maybe it was just because we were more comfortable performing the second time around. Whatever the reason was, I know I’m very proud of my group and I for coming in second place in Provincials. Even though destination imagination was a fun experience, I think everyone (in my group at least) was glad once it was over.
Coming in second place means we could go to global stage, but we aren’t going, for multiple reasons, money being one of them.
If you’re wanting to check out my teammates’ blogs’ here they are;
Back in January we started the adventure that was DI (Destination Imagination). I have talked a bit about this in my SLC blog post. Basically DI is a competition between students, competing in multiple different challenges. This year we had six different categories, technical, project outreach, sciencetific, improv, fine arts and engineering. We were sent a survey about what our first, second and third choices were, we also put down one option that we really didn’t want to do. My first choice was the fine arts category, so I was really happy when I was told that I was in the fine arts group. The requirements for the fine arts category are; you have to have two team choice elements (something to show off your team’s skills and interests and make your performance stand out from the others), A colourful character, a colour that disappears and a vanishing act (where either the colour or something else disappears). I was definitely glad that Alivia was in my group, because I didn’t really know Luca Sofia and Syrah that well. After a few weeks however, we got to know each other more, and started to get along better.
(You can skip over this paragraph if you want.)
When we first started working on DI, our story was very different. Our original storyline was about a little girl and her grandmother. One night the grandmother read the little girl a book about a young girl (around her age) who went off into the forest one day. She found a box of gems in the forest on a rock and took one of the gems. As soon as she took it from the box, that colour disappeared! This book was actually written by the grandmother about what happened to her when she was a kid. She didn’t want anyone to know it was real though, so she said it was just a fairytale. The book had a “fake” map in it that the granddaughter decided to follow the map, to see if it was real. She eventually found the box of gems in the forest and took the yellow one. She was bringing it back, when she tripped and fell. The gem flew out of her hand and broke. All the sudden, all of the yellow disappeared from the world. When she got home, she was in BIG trouble. Her and her grandmother had to go back to the gem box and summon a colourful character to fix the gem. On their way to the gem box, they stopped by a village and they saw the effects it had on people in the village. Once they got to the gem box, they summoned the colourful character, who was actually covered in a cloak to make her look like a rock. The colourful character mixed various ingredients in a couldron to make another yellow gem.
We decided that it would be too challenging to preform that version of our story, so we basically started over. We kept the idea of the gems, and someone taking one, but that was basically it. We changed our storyline to, a story about seven colour gods, who all controlled their colours, plus something else related to their colour. For example; Blue kept the oceans and lakes healthy and fresh, and provided calm in times of distress. They lived in/by Summerville, where it was always summer, because the only god that could control weather was banned from Summerville for causing fifteen years of grey and darkness in the town, by covering the rainbow. She came back, stole the yellow gem, and yellow disappeared! Once emerald (the green goddess), citrine (the yellow goddess) and amethyst (the purple goddess) found charcoal (the white goddess who controlled the weather) they talked about what had happened, she said sorry, returned the gem, and became the official colour god of weather again.
to decide who would be who when we presented, we wrote down our top three choices of who we wanted to be, and everyone got their first choice! We had to adjust slightly once we found out that Sofia wouldn’t be able to make regionals. This was our original list of who would be what character; Melanie (me) as yellow, Alivia as green, Luca as purple, Syrah as grey and Sofia as the narrator. Once Sofia told us she wouldn’t be able to make it, we decided Luca would be the narrator as well as the purple goddess.
We came in third place in regionals! We didn’t get our ribbons however, because the computers weren’t working. We got our ribbons at provincials when we went up to get our awards for the second time we preformed.
I talked a lot about teamwork in my two Destination Imagination posts this year. That’s because there’s a lot of great things to say about it. One thing i didn’t really talk about was the “leader” of our group. There wasn’t one. We were all leaders in different parts. Some of us were in charge of the script, or the songs. Obviously there was more than just the script and the songs, but I won’t bore you with the whole list. I’d never worked in a group where there’s just one leader before. It’s really nice because you don’t have the pressure of being the leader and making most of the decisions, but you don’t feel like you aren’t contributing enough. I think it also helped that we all got along well. We listened to each other well and didn’t argue about much. We did really well in our performance and in our instant challenge. Our second performance was much better than our first. We listened to what the appraisers said and made a lot of revisions based on the feedback that we got. Since we were willing to listen to the feedback the appraisers had for us, we did much better in provincials. I have learned new ways of working in a team after this project, and i now know how much you can improve if you really listen to feedback.
I really enjoyed the cloning project, though it was frustrating at times. I found it cool to learn about cloning plants, because I’m personally interested plants and possibly becoming a landscaper. However, (as usual) there were some problems with my group. Not everyone was carrying their weight. We tried to resolve it within our group multiple times, but the two group members continued to not do any work. Eventually I had to go to mr gross with another group member to address the situation, because we knew we wouldn’t be able to get the project done by the deadline if the other two group members didn’t start pulling their weight. This project demonstrated that I’ve learned to ask for help when it’s needed. I’m glad that we asked for help because I’m happy with the final outcome, and how things were resolved. 
The lego project was another example of challenging group work. There seems to be a lot of that in this program. With this project, I ended up doing the majority of the work. Again, i tried many times to resolve the problem on my own, but (just like with the cloning project) it didn’t work. I could’ve gone to mr gross again, but I knew that I could get the work done in time for the presentation. I also didn’t think that going to mr gross would really work this time. I ended up finishing the project on time, and overall Im happy with the final product. I feel like this is a good example of real life learning that will apply outside the classroom. Sometimes not everyone is going to contribute and you can’t always help that. The difference between the lego project and the cloning project is that I knew that we wouldn’t be able to finish the cloning project in time without help. 
I enjoyed this project, and learning about the treatment of shell shock. Before this assignment I had heard the words shell shock approximately 2 times. Both in Ottawa. So it’s fair to say that I learned a lot from this project. This entire unit was very important because we need to learn about the horrible things that happened in the past so we can learn from them and not treat people that way in the future. 
We presented to the 6th and 7th graders at Cove Cliff Elementary. The first and second groups i presented to were genuinely interested in what I was presenting. It was easy and enjoyable to present to them because they wanted to know more and they asked questions. The 3rd (and final) group I presented to had a harder time understanding the topic, so they weren’t as interested in what I was saying. It was difficult to present to them, and it showed me that not everyone learns the same way, and that sometimes you need some background knowledge to enjoy things more. I also learned that it easier to present when your audience is interested in what you’re talking about. I will think about this for future presentations so I can try to get everyone interested. 
