You could call me “The Canadian” now. I know more about Canada then Google. Yeah that isn’t even close to true, but I know a lot more about Canada, and what it is to be Canadian. 

I just finished a big project about Canadian Identity, and I got to have a lot of choice in what I want the project to be. The Driving Question was “Why does the world need more Canada?”. I got to choose how to showcase Canadian Identity, and why the word needs more Canada. 

Before I could get started on anything I had to figure out how I wanted to showcase Canadian Identity. There are almost infinite ways to showcase Canadian Identity, with each giving us a different look into what it is to be Canadian. Something I have always been interested in was different militaries and wars, so that’s what I did. 

The first goal we had to achieve was writing an essay about our topic. 

Writing this essay was pretty much when I was gathering all the information I needed. I broke it down into three different categories, NATO, the UN, and Canada’s military doctrine. The first two focus more on Humanitarian efforts, and the last one dives fully into the military. Each one of these build their own evidence for different points and perspectives.

Now that I had all the evidence ready I was able to start to focus on the final project, the podcast. The Podcast had many different moving parts that built it up. We were learning how to use Garage Band in Maker, and writing scripts with time stamps in Humanities. These were the pillars that were going to support our podcast. 

Now that I had all the pillars ready I was able to start working on the actual podcast. I had my script built into different 10-20 second segments. This meant that I could just record a bunch of small segments, and stitch it together. This made the whole process easier because I would only need to redo a small part if something is wrong. 

Before we could finish the podcasts we needed a intro music so everyone made a jingle. We then voted and decided on one to use. We then did the same thing for a cover art. We now had the final parts to finish the podcasts.

Once we finished the podcasts, and they had gone through a few rounds of revision, we handed them in. They were then put on Spotify by our teachers. 

Reflection

So what did I take from this project? Other then the physical things like knowing how to use Garage Band, I also built upon my Core Competencies. 

Independence was something that came up a lot during the project. This might just be because  it’s grade 10 now but I found this project had large parts that were just up to you to complete. There was no Showbie spot, only the due date that the teachers told us. There was much less guidance with meant that I got more independence, and thus got better at it. 

Another core competency that came up was time blocking or managing workload. We had a lot of different moving parts that all needed to come together at the right time. This meant that I needed to be on top of my work, and not get behind. Just like before I improved in this too because I kept working on it throughout the project. 

Summary

So what is the simple takeaway? This project has been a influential project and has set me up for future projects. I have build upon skills that I wanted to, and build new skill sets that can support me through the rest of High school.