Archive of ‘Scimathics’ category
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.
https://youtu.be/NU-MOVMn750
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.
We just recently fined a fun project in math, where we made a card game. Yes, i did just use the word fun to describe math, but it was a very fun project.
The process
The first step in this project was to make the rules of the game. My original set of rules ended up being too complicated, so I simplified them. Originally I was going 
to have characters with likes and dislikes on some of the cards, then i would have a deck of cards with pictures on them, and if three of the pictures on the cards in your hand matched your character’s likes or dislikes, you got a point. I don’t expect anyone reading this to understand that game, so I changed it around a bit. Instead of having character cards, I had cards with fruit on them. There are four cards that are bigger than the rest, and those cards have a number in the top right hand corner. Each player gets one of the bigger cards, and uses the five cards in their hand to try to get to the number in the top right hand corner. Once I finalized the rules, I started to design/draw the cards. This definitely took the longest, because my cards are very detailed. I used sketches pro Tayasui Sketches Pro by Tayasui.com to “draw” the pictures on the fruit. When I say draw the pictures on the cards, I mean get a photo off the internet, trace over it, then erase the original photo.
The rules
2-4 players
There are four main cards that are bigger than the rest of the deck. Each player will choose one of those cards at random. Each player will then be dealt five cards each. The number at the top right hand corner of the bigger card is the number that you are trying to get to with the cards in your hand. The objective is to use the least amount of cards possible to get to the number on your card, but you have to use at least two of the cards in your hand. You can use addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponents. You can only use the numbers in your hand, and you can only use each card once. Whoever had the lowest amount of cards each round gets one point. However, if you use exponents to get to the number on your card, you also get a point, even if you use more cards than another player. So if you use exponents, and you used the least amount of cards, you get two points for that round. You can play as many rounds as you like, and the person with the most points at the end of the game wins.
What I would do differently next time
For once, I dont have a ton of stuff to write here. Overall I did really well on this project. I did have critiqued throughout the project, but I fixed those things as I went along. By the end my only critique was to make the cards thicker, and to write out the instructions. I did both, and handed it in by the deadline. There are still a few things that I would do differently next time, like drawing something other than a pea pod. The pea pod was the hardest to draw, and it was the hardest to arrange on the cards. It also didn’t/doesn’t really make sense to have 3 of the cards have fruit on them, and only have one card with a vegetable. I think I would just make all of the cards fruits, instead of half and half (half veggies half fruits).
Most of the time when someone thinks about science, they don’t think about sitting at a desk and writing stuff. They think about doing cool experiments with chemicals and explosions, but we can’t do that without learning about how to safely work in the lab. So naturally, our first unit in science is “safety in the lab”, and as I’ve already mentioned in my Calgary LPP, our theme for PLP this year is finding and telling stories, in video form. So naturally, we were given an assignment to make a video about safety in the lab.
We were in groups of three. I was in a group with, Tamara and someone else who doesn’t want to be named, so since they played Sam the safety wolf, I will call them “Sam”. When we were making the video, we had to make it with at least 3 things that we had learned so far this year. In my group, we decided that we would have a mascot named Sam the Safety Wolf, and that Sam would be narrating the video, explaining the rules of lab safety. My friend Tamara and I were acting out the narration on screen (along with Sam the Safety Wolf).
During class we wrote the basic script, so when we were filming it went quicker. We filmed our video at “sam’s” house after school. We set up “sam’s” iPad on a desk, so spew could all be in some of the scenes. This wasn’t the smartest idea though, because it made the video more boring to watch.
https://youtu.be/CLPJUVOf2qY
Work
“Sam” did most of the work, in terms of organizing everything, and planning what we were going to do. Tamara and I mostly just helped with making the video, and planning out where we would stand and what we would use as props. We filmed the video in one day, after school at “Sam’s” house. Once we were done recording all the scenes that Tamara and I were in, we had to leave, because Tamara is allergic to cats, and “Sam” has two cats.
Things I would do differently next time
Camera angle
As I’ve already mentioned, the video didn’t have very interesting visuals, because it was just one camera angle. If I did this project again, I would make sure that we had different camera angles, so you can enjoy the video while you watch it.
Work distribution
Looking back on the project, the work distribution wasn’t very equal. “Sam” did more of the work then me or Tamara. Next time I will try to contribute more of my ideas ideas into the video, so others don’t have to do as much work.
Winter exhibition
I know I talked about the mini winter exhibition in my last SLC, but this time I want to talk about a different part of it. For the exhibition I was the DRI of my group. This meant I was in charge of keeping my group organized, and going to the teacher whenever we had a question, request etc. To be honest, I don’t know why I signed myself up for this position in the first place, if I can barely keep myself organized. Our group had *some* difficulties with agreeing on stuff, and actually COMMUNICATING. But other than that it was fiiiinne I definitely learned about leadership skills during that *fun* time. I think it was worth it, but I wouldn’t exactly want to do it again. Even though I will probably have to.
Oregon
Oregon, like many other things this year has taught me more than I thought it would. You know, I’m starting to see a pattern with our work. It taught me about being responsible for my things. Girl Guides HAS taught me about this, but not as much as Oregon has. With Guides I’m only really responsible for my clothes, sleeping bag etc. With Oregon however, I was in charge of my passport (only for short amounts of time luckily), and I was in charge of money, and how I spent it. I also had to keep track of my iPad and Apple Pencil. Oregon also helped me become a lot closer to my friends.
DI
Destination Imagination was… fun? I don’t know how to describe my experience with DI, we (my team and I) definitely experienced some challenges along the way. Most if which I explain in my DI BLOG POST. 
If I were to quickly sum it up though, I would have to say the main problem was the work distribution. I’m not going to mention any names, because that’s not important. Some people did more work than others, and some people put in more effort and energy. DI taught me to see things from different perspectives, I’m not just talking about the main challenge when I say this. I’m talking about the main challenge, the instant challenge, and seeing the problem of work distribution from different angles.
Math
Math is a subject that comes somewhat easily to me. So far anyway. Since it doesn’t usually take me long to pick up on how to do something in math
, I usually help others. This sometimes means that I don’t finish all the textbook work, but that’s mainly so we get the idea. I actually enjoy helping people with math, which might come as a surprise to some. I think it mainly comes from my nature of wanting to help people
Notebook/sales pitch
I think the notebook and sales pitch taught me more about group work than it taught me about actual history, and how to pitch an idea to someone. It taught me about how to deal with *difficult* group members, and people in general. It taught me to pick my fights. But most importantly, it taught me to stick up for my friends, and for myself.
Science paints
I haven’t presented this project yet, so I can’t exactly tell you how it went. 
However, I can tell you about the slightly disgusting process. First we ground up some different coloured pigments. That was the fun part. We ground up Verdigris, Oak gal Ink, Red ochre, Charcoal, and Violet. That’s not the part I’m going to tell you about though. I’m going to tell you about our “fun” experience with making the pigments into paint. The less disgusting way of making them was to mix an egg yolk with the pigment, then slowly add water. This way was fun, because it didn’t smell like fish eggs. The second way of making these pigments was to grind up fish eggs with our saliva. It made the entire classroom smell like “soft but satisfying” salmon eggs. It also made our hands smell like eggs.
Areas for further improvement
I can definitely improve on many things. For example handing my work in on time, staying on task, not being a complete perfectionist when it comes to my school work. Last time, I focused on being a perfectionist. I haven’t accomplished much on this because, like I mentioned before, this will take quite a while to accomplish. I plan to be better at this by the end of next year. I will also work on balancing my work time with my spare time. I have already been working on this by setting a timer to work for 20 minutes, then taking a 5 minute break.
Biggest accomplishment?
If I had to choose my biggest accomplishment this year I don’t know what I would choose. 
There’s all of the in school awards, like my seyhawk award, or my outstanding grade 8 instrumentalist, or my trophy, medal and ribbons from DI. There’s also my outside of school awards and accomplishments, like my medal from my first ever tap competition, getting into pre-TapCo, doing a front tuck in trampoline, and. Then there’s my in school accomplishments. This includes coming to PLP, being a DRI of my group for the winter exhibition, becoming a mini teacher in math, and making all of my amazing friends here.
I haven’t blogged about scimathics on my learning portfolio yet, so why now you may ask. Well we’ve been doing a lot of cool things in science and math and I figured it was time I told you about them. Also we were told to, but that’s not the point!
What is scimathics?
Scimathics is a combination of science and math. It is taught by Ms Klauses. She calls us her lambs/plamps/little lammies.We have scimathics every day because it is two blocks combined into one. I explain how this works more in my Day one Day two blog post.
At the start of the school year in scimathics we (PLP 8) were introduced to The rightness of being wrong. In September I wasn’t completely used to the idea that being wrong can be right but as the year carried on I became more comfortable with it. Now that I’m so comfortable with the idea of the rightness of being wrong when I’m in my other classes I am less stressed. This doesn’t mean that I put less effort into my work, just that if I fail or get something wrong, I don’t get as disappointed and I know that I can learn from my mistakes. This also ties into growth mindset and fixed mindset and learning from your mistakes.
What have we done this year?
Lemme/Llama
Our lemme project, or as Ms Klausen called it, our llama project was mostly about the Pythagorean theorem. We learned about the spiral of theodorus. We started out outside where she challenged us to first make a triangle using only three cubes. She then challenged us to create a curved line using straight lines, on a piece of paper. Then we were challenged to do the same thing, only this time we had to add right angles. I didn’t figure out how to make a curved line with right angles, but once she showed us the spiral of theodorus, I understood.
My door is a bore no more
for this project we got into groups of three and had to increase the surface area of a door by three fold. Even though we were in separate groups, we had to work together with the other groups to make sure that when we were done, the total surface area of the door was increased by three fold. To increase the surface area, we built 3D shapes out of paper and taped them to the door. Before this project we were working with surface area and volume, so we knew how to calculate surface area. At the end we wrote an engineering report on it.
Minecraft earthquake proof project
For this project we made an earthquake proof structure using Minecraft. We were in groups of two. Our main objective was to add earthquake proofing features to a 100×100 building. We had to choose an earthquake prone region of the globe and base our architecture off of the kind of buildings they have in that certain area. Tamara and I chose Ancient Greek/Rome. We painfully placed all 10 000 blocks down for the floor, 968 blocks for the pillars, all 429 blocks for the arches, 10 100 blocks for the roof and 260 blocks for the Y beams. If you think that was a lot, there was also the HUGE amount of blocks we had to destroy for the ocean that for some reason we decided to build, (it was actually so our landscape looked more like Ancient Greece). You know, that and the fact that we had to redo our structure about 6 times due to complications with running into mountains, rivers and TNT exploding too close to our building (that may or may not have been my fault). We made half of the building the same as how they were originally built, and added earthquake proofing features to the other half. Once we were done, we made a video explaining how our earthquake proofing features work.
These are all of the main projects that we have done so far. I will continually update this post as we learn more.
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.
This is definitely where I struggle the most.
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.
