“I have nothing but my heart, I have given it long ago to my country.”

These were the last words of Louis Riel as he waited to be hung. A pivotal figure in Canada’s history, Louis Riel has been portrayed in hundreds of different ways throughout history. This project was all about how.

To answer our driving question “How has the portable of Louis Riel changed over time?” We wrote 3 paragraph compostions. You can read mine here.

It wasn’t just that simple however. This was a revison heavy project for pretty much our whole class. I started with two paragraphs the first and third ones. I got really stuck on the middle one because it was difficult for me to connect the two time periods I was talking about, and there was still so much more that I wanted to talk about. Eventually however, I got it done. Then I handed it and got these revisions back.  I corrected them and then handed it in again.

This project was so much more than 3 paragraphs though. Before writing our paragraphs we learned how to write a paragraph. There were a lot more pieces to it then an  I expected, but it turns out I  knew them already without knowing I did. This the paragraph I wrote to practice on the heritage minute by Historica Canada.

Blue -topic sentence

Green -explanation

Yellow – evidence and examples

Red -concluding sentence

Here’s the heritage minute as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fLnJp-Rjow

The main competency for this project was analyzing. I think the best example of this was the whiteboard activity we did early in this project on 3 art pieces.

The first was by Lemay and Gaboury

The second by Miguel Joyal

And the third by John Nugent

This was a short project, much shorter than our previous one metaphor machines. It was a challenge to hold myself to the high standers I hold to learn in the richest way possible in a short period of time. Add over 17 hours of extracurriculars a week and all my other classes and I was set up for a stressful month. However, with stradegies a lot of time management and my family members support I managed to produce an answer to this driving question that I’m more than happy with and I’m exited to transfer this learning into all of my later projects. My goal for all my projects it to do better and I did on the last one and I think I accomplished this on this project.

Until next time,

Neko

How revolutions, complicated structures and hot glue became PLP 9 exhibition project.

Welcome too (imagine a drumroll)……

METAPHOR MACHINES. The grade 9 PLP exhibition project combined filmmaking (from maker), revolutions, and Rube Goldberg machines into a project none of us will ever forget. Split into groups and assigned revolution we were given the task of researching our revolution and then using métaphores to create a Rube Goldberg machine.

Group projects… love them or hate them we all have to do them at some point in our lives. A group can make or break a project (literally our machine broke multiple times because of fighting). But what was that machine? Why were we building a machine in our humanities class? Why were they fighting (please let me know if you have an answer to this one I can’t seem to figure out why they thought being physical was going to solve anything).

Rube Goldberg machines are machines that complete a very simple task ( turning on a light, ringing a bell etc.) in a very complicated way. These are usually made of household objects that you can find anywhere. Some are cool (especially when they work). Making Rube Goldbergs takes a lot of perseverance, they rarely work the first time and it can take a while to get it to work every time. But how does this relate to the French Revolution????

Humanities
Before I get to that let’s take a look at the French Revolution. First things first I’m glad I wasn’t there. It was a very chaotic and bloody period which inspired many other revolutions (check out my classmates Izzy, Kennedy, Kai, Baz, Quinn and Aiden’s blog posts for more information on those.)

We learned about these revolutions through Crane’s theory of a revolution. He thought that all revolutions work in about the same way with different ways that each one shows up. To learn more about this take a look at my explanation of cranes theory (I used the recycling process as a metaphor) and my infographic about the French Revolution.

So we took these revolutions and after learning about them, Rube Goldberg machines and metaphors we were tasked with making blueprints for our revolutions that were metaphors for our revolutions in Rube Goldberg form.
Here’s mine

Then after we got into groups we presented our ideas and discussed each plans strengths and weakness before designing made blueprints for the the machines we were going to be building. First, we picked the most important events to include and then we brainstormed metaphors for all of them. Side note these were going to be MASSIVE, like 2x2ms.Then we got to building which I’ll talk more about in the maker portion

Maker
At the start, we were only building in maker, and it was going… slowly. When you have 8 people working together on the same thing no matter how big it is, communication is really hard. Everyone had their ideas about how it would look and how they were going to build their part. As the team manager, it was my job to guide everyone to stay on track and stay motivated. If I described the building process in three words it would be this: frustrating, eye-opening and satisfying. TIP TO THOSE WHO DO THIS PROJECT NEXT: you need way more hot glue than you think and stick to your plan.
Throughout this whole process, we were documenting these whole this to make a documentary that goes into the building process a bit deeper.

Exhibition night.
My feet hurt just thinking about this. Here are my top 2 learning moments from the day of the exhibition

1. Accepting that it wasn’t going to work and that that was ok. Our teacher Ms. McWilliam is always telling us to look at the forest instead of the trees, the bigger picture. I realized about halfway through the evening that it wasn’t going to work and I was surprisingly ok with that because this project wasn’t about Rube Goldberg machines, not really. It’s about change and understanding that change. Though it didn’t work, I still learned a lot about the French Revolution and film making and teamwork.

2. WOW I learned a lot. When people asked about the revolution I shocked myself at how much I knew. I could completely explain our revolution without a script or notes.
3. We’re still a team. I won’t lie our team had rocky patches. But we were all in it together. During the exhibition, we felt like a team instead of the group we had been in before that. (Learn more about the difference between these 2 things in my Loon Lake reflective post)

Loon Lake, The Place I Became the Little Mermaid

So, through all of this, I finally have an answer to the driving question of this whole project (which as I write this was introduced about 3 and half months ago)

How do ideas drive change?

A single idea can catch fire and ignite an entire revolution. When French people heard of the revolution in America they started their own, and they then inspired Haiti. Change is constant we cannot escape it just as we cannot escape ideas. They will be with us wherever we go. The French Revolution is an example of how when we think for ourselves instead of just going along with what we are told, we can change the world for better or for worse.

See you next time!
Neko

BOO! Look I scared you, or at least I tired. This is what we were trying to do on our second maker project of the year thrill us! Through this project, we learned all about how to make a successful thriller movie, through hard work and learning from mentor texts.

First, we were introduced to the thriller genre and the important things to include in a thriller movie. There are so many but the ones that stuck out to me were:
– the Three C’s crucible (making sure that the character can’t get away from their problems, Contract (an understanding with the audience that something will happen) and Clock (a time crunch)
– Red herrings
– Plot twists

Next, we watched mentor texts to learn from them. We then each wrote two paragraphs from a mentor text of our choice. Even though it wasn’t my favourite, I picked “Laundry”. I wanted to push myself by choosing to try reflecting on something I wouldn’t have normally picked. Here you can watch laundry.

Here’s the reflection I did.

After this, we were ready to make our movies. I worked with Kennedy and Hazel to create our film “The Note”. We first made a schedule for filming and I was like “Great this will work we will finish this exactly as we think we will on the schedule”.

Spoiler alert: we didn’t

As we started filming we realized that continuity is not as easy as it sounds when you’re making a film. We lost a whole day of shots because I was wearing my glasses in them. then of course my sweater went missing a key part of my costume. But, we kept working and editing and collaborating and eventually came up with this as our final product.

Overall I think this project made me stretch as a learner. I would much rather write a scary story than shoot one. But as I continued pushing myself and asking questions I realized I could do a lot more than I thought. through collaboration so much is possible and I’m proud of what my group and I produced, even though it was a struggle to make.

Until next time ( Watch out for an awesome winter exhibition/humanties/maker MEGA POST next week!)

Neko

How do the choices we make set us on our future path? This is the question my classmates and I set out to find the answer to on our week-long trip to Loon Lake in Maple Ridge, led by Pinnacle Pursuits. Before I tell you what I think the answer is, let’s look into the big idea and the competencies we were also learning about on this trip and how I showed my learning in all of them… Little Mermaid Edition because I lost my voice and couldn’t speak for the whole trip.

The big idea of the trip was from careers “ Our future paths reflect the personal, community and educational choices we make. I think a lot about this on my own almost daily. How are the decisions I’m making now impacting my future? On this trip, I thought of this a different way though. I normally think of this in quite an academic way (what courses to take what grades I should get etc..). This trip made me look at the bigger picture, instead of just me, how are my actions impacting the people around me? I didn’t think about this in one specific moment but rather the whole trip. My classmates (my community) are the people I am more or less stuck with for the rest of high school and we have to be a team if any of us wants to succeed whatever that means to each person. All of us have to CHOOSE to be a team instead of a group. My voice being gone didn’t affect this for me too much.

Processing
“ I can think critically, creatively and reflectively with a variety of strategies to process ideas and further my understanding.” I’m really strong with this competency. I have grown a lot within the time I have spent in PLP. That said, it is hard to use a bunch of strategies when you are in the same setting overlay, the classroom. There are so many ways we can think and some work better outside. That’s why it was so great that we worked outside for so much of this project. 2 I want to highlight are the low ropes course and the scavenger hunt activity.
In low ropes, we worked in groups (the beavers are the BEST!) To overcome a variety of obstacles. One was a kind of loop where everyone needed a spotter to go through it. Everyone had to go through it eventually. This was one of the last activities so we were already more bonded as a team. We had to think creatively; in ways we hadn’t before to make sure everyone had a spotter and everyone got through in the shortest amount of time. Guess what? It worked. We beat our first time by a full minute and got the fastest time Brandon (super cool dude from Pinnacle Pursuits) had ever seen.
In the scavenger hunt, we worked in groups of four to find locations and solve puzzles at these locations. There we so many of these and I learned at all of the stations but I think the best example of this was the water station. At this station, we had to transfer freezing water in pipes (with no bottom we had to block them with our hands, and once we had water we couldn’t move). Since we were the first team we had to come up with a strategy. It seemed like an impossible task. One of my group members came up with a strategy that helped us complete the activity. I never would have thought of this myself.

Losing my voice affected this activity. I couldn’t talk at all so I had to find other ways to communicate which was hard. I’m used to taking a leadership role in these activities but I could and though I was frustrated in the moment, after reflecting on it I’m glad it happened the way it did because I got to experience the activity in a completely different way. This activity mostly impacted my reflective processing.

Analyzing
“ I can identify analyze and represent supportable conclusions having evaluated relevance authenticity and bias.” I think this one is really about thinking things through and not jumping to conclusions, keeping an open mind. This I focused on at the start of the trip, trying to leave whatever biases I had in my mind. I didn’t know what was sign to happen at Loon Lake and it was really hard not to go into this experience with a negative mindset because I am a naturally cautious person and I haven’t always had the most positive experiences with some of the people in my grade. I’m so glad I did look at the positives on this trip though for many reasons: I became much closer and more trusting of my classmates after emotionally open activities, trying new things like the high ropes course made me feel brave, learning new things with Jono from pinnacle Pursuits, and since I got sick and wants all to be there the first day, since I was positive I didn’t let that ruin the experience for me. I also didn’t let not having a voice get in my way, instead looking at the bigger picture and how I could grow from that.

Decision making
“ I can evaluate ethical implications and make complex judgements while identifying and respecting diverse communities” I feel that this topic is best represented by the crossing the line activity we did as a class. To protect the privacy of myself and my classmates I will be speaking in very broad terms. In this activity, we sat in silence on one side of the gym together. There were two ropes across the gym and we were asked to walk across the room if we related to a statement said Jono who sat in a chair on the side in between the two ropes. After everyone had crossed were were asked to look at who was and wasn’t with us and think about how that made us feel. At the start, the statements were pretty surface level but they got more and more intense and fewer and fewer people were crossing. During some statements, only one person walked across. Many of us were in tears by the end of the activity. After we sat in a circle and were asked how we felt and to ask each other questions I am so proud of my classmates and their bravery, sharing their personal sorties. I learned how empathic a lot of my classmates are. By the end of this activity and the discussion many of us were crying and hugging each other. though this activity hurt I am so glad we did it. It was probably the most important thing we did on this trip.
Something we learned from Jono in the group sessions we did was the difference between a group and a team. A group is just a bunch of different people with different motives and personal opinions and while a team still has that they also share an end goal and work together fairly to complete it. By the end of this activity, I felt we had become a TEAM.
This activity is also what made me decide on my transfer goal, goals we all made at the end of the trip to ensure the team building we did didn’t go to waste. After this activity, I had a newfound compassion for my classmates. I am often quick to judge and once I have an opinion of someone it usually sticks. After this activity though I felt that my opinion had changed about a lot of the people on my learning team. My transfer goal was to “Keep an open mind when working with and interacting with my classmates because you never know what’s going on.”

This leads me to the answer to the question. The choices we make are always impacting our futures in more ways than we can imagine. The Best way we can set ourselves up for success is to be aware of the way we impact others. 85% of what distinguishes star performers comes from emotional intelligence so we need to focus on this for a good future.

Overall I think that Loon Lake was a big success for all of us. None of us could have expected everything that happened and it was great that it happened that way. I truly feel that we have transformed into more understanding and emotionally intelligent people. Thank you so much to our teachers and parents for supporting this trip,
Neko ✮

On my Bring Your Kids to Work day I was hosted by MMe Rae (a family friend) and her class at Dorothy Lynn’s. I learned a lot from this day including how much work goes into being a teacher, and what skills are necessary to be a good one. A lot of the things that are important if you’re a teacher are also important when you’re a student like collaborating and time management (which now that I think about it are probably important to all jobs). It was nice to go back to my old elementary school to see all my old teachers and it was really valuable to see this profession from another POV (pizza was a bonus).

I created a video about this day as well. I interviewed Tova which was cool, and it was a much longer interview than I anticipated but I wish I could have added it. This shows some of my learning from this project. At the beginning of the year, I would have found it really hard to cut any of it and now that I have experience making videos the process was a lot smoother. I added a voiceover which I think added to the video (much better than just having photos and music).

I will apply the learning (both from making the video and the actual day ) by keeping both in mind. I’ll apply the learning from the video to my technical skills because now I know how to add visuals to just audio in iMovie (really more complicated than it should be). I’ll keep the learning from the actual day in mind when choosing a career obviously, because now I’m half interested in teaching. I’ll also keep it in mind when interacting with my teachers because I know how much thought and effort goes into each lesson and activity.

Until Next Time!

Neko

We recently made a remake of the short film run in maker. We shot our first draft over a week, replicating each shot. We also tried to recreate the sound of the original which was really hard! No ones first drafts replicated it perfectly and so after class critique sessions we re-tried shooting it. Our group reshot the whole thing within the two 20 minute class periods and I’m really proud of that. Unfortunately the group member that was supposed to put together the video didn’t finish it in time for it to be handed in mon time.

I think that the main idea of this project was to prepare us for the rest of it. We worked on skill we will sue throughout the rest of this project like angles, working together and preparedness. We also worked on critique as a class when we watched everyone’s first drafts.

The critique we got was really helpful. After watching everyone’s videos it was clear that everyone was struggling with similar things (timing, sound). I could see our progress as a class as out critique sessions happened.

After these sessions we went back to filming. We switched the main actor and location. The original location was really hard to shoot it because we’d either have other people or the school. We also made all the clips longer because the original wasn’t long enough.

We had many successes in the project and many stretches. We did well with teamwork everyone contributed. We also got all of our shots really quickly so we got it all done in class time. We stretched with the audio and getting it long enough. We didn’t reference the original enough so it didn’t line up properly.  We also didn’t finish the second video because a group member didn’t finish it and didn’t ask for the clips until it was too late to complete it in time to hand it in in time. Because of this I don’t have the finished one but here’s our first one.

Until next time!

Neko

Hello!

Stories are everywhere. They make up almost all the ideas we share with one another. Without them we couldn’t even communicate with one another. Even this blog post is a story.

We recently took a trip to the Canadian Rockies. It was for two projects, one in humanities and one in Maker. In Maker, we learned about how we can use the moving image to tell a story. We learned this through 4 videos. We also focused on the questioning competency which was visible EVERYWHERE, which was surprising to me. Speaking of questions, the driving question for this project was “How Might I use the moving image to tell a story?”. Here’s what I learned from each video.

At home Video
This was the first video I made when trip 1 was away. It Centers around what interests me. I think this shows the questioning idea through the fact that I had to question myself to be able to make it, and it shares with others about me since it’s published online now. I’m proud that I made this in a short period of time and that it’s still good quality. I think I also really reflected who I am well while keeping the video interesting with different shots, and visuals. Next time I would add music to push it to the next level.

Investigative

This is the video I worked the hardest on. I pushed myself to create something I could be proud of. This shows the questioning idea because it was all about questions. The whole point of the video was to ask questions to a variety of people to get an answer. I showed this through my interviews. I’m proud of the quality I was able to produce, it has a voiceover, music, and a bunch of shots. I’m also proud that I didn’t get really mad at myself when I had to do revisions (as outlined in my learning plan). I grew in the process of making this. Next time I would fine-tune my thesis before leaving. I found it hard to make my video later when I realized that I asked the wrong questions at the moment. I would also make sure I got good quality video and audio from all my clips (that’s why I had to revise), I lost a lot of really good content because of that. This tells the story of our humanities project which you can read about here.

Silent

This was probably my favourite video to shoot, I liked making it and my group was great. The skill we used the most for this one was filming on-site, which we learned in class before leaving. We used close-ups, sound effects and exaggerated facial expressions to tell a story. This shows that questioning idea, through sharing ideas is the most important. It took a lot of teamwork to come up with a story spine for this video (like an outline of what’s going to happen.) I’m proud of how quickly we got our shots and planned out where the shots would be when we got to the ghost town. We also adapted the story once we were which required us to think on our feet. Next time I would add more closeups to make the feelings of the characters clear. This tells the story of two thieves trying to steal the necklace of a wealthy woman, and failing dramatically.

tik tok

I changed my mind this one was the most fun. I filmed this with Ailie throughout the whole trip. We filmed at almost every stop, though not all the clips made the cut. My favourite one is the one on the boat! See if you can spot it…. This one also shows teamwork, we had to find each other quickly in the crowds so we could get the clip before we moved on to the next stop. I’m proud of all the cool backgrounds we got into the video and of how we got so many shots even though we were really busy on the trip. Next time I would try to have all the clips have the same ratio of us to the background so that the transitions are smoother. The story of his video is how we went to all these places!

All of this has led me to my answer to the driving question (it’s How might I use the moving image to tell a story? Just in case you forgot :D)

I can use the moving image to tell a story in a bunch of different ways. Videos should have a clear beginning middle and end, good audio and visual but that’s just scratching the surface. It’s also important for good videos to ask questions and make the audience FEEL something, to take them on a journey.

Until next time!

Neko

We are forever connected to the places we visit and live in. They impact almost every facet of who we are. Without place we are nothing. 

This September we set out on a field school to Alberta with a question in mind, the driving question of our project: How has the Geography of the West Impacted us? After returning and reflecting I think I finally have the answer to that question. Here’s how I got there.

We kept 4 main ideas in mind on our trip Communication, Listening and speaking to a variety of audiences, The physical environment shapes change politically, socially, and economically, and and process.

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All of this (the ideas, the trip and personal reflection), has led me to my answer to the driving question. For a reminder, the Driving question was How has the Geography of the West Impacted us?

The geography of the West impacts us because it is the reason we are where we are. The Rocky Mountains connected BC to Canada and without that, we wouldn’t even be Canadian Citizens. The CPR is an important part of Canadian history because it is still relevant today because it still keeps people connected, through the historical sites, the ideas it brought and the country it connected. Everything we see is connected to geography, from where our school is to our hobbies, we just have to open our eyes and look.

Until Next Time!

Neko

I HAVE RETURNED. After a very fun summer I have returned to my blog to show you  all what I’ve worked on over the summer (aka Sumer learning). This summer we worked through the What do you really want? Book about goal setting and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  The book wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be and I throughly enjoyed reading it. I especially liked the goal getters in action part which showed other kids and how they accomplished their goals I found it inspiring. I set a goal to read a book a week every week until November 30 but you can read more about that in my book. We all created goal trackers to track out progress over August and share out learning. I so without further ado here is mine 😁.

“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.”

Let’s start with humanities.
At the start of the year, humanities was my favourite class. I really enjoyed all the projects we were doing and even though I got a little loud sometimes, I could handle it. That changed the second semester. I found myself dreading the class because of the amount of Oise. It was very hard to escape even with headphones because we did not have many work blocks.
The people in this class made it very hard for me to produce the best work I could, especially with all the noise in the class. This was the most difficult with the random groups we are put in. I would often find myself having to get people to stop talking very often so we could finish activities.
I tried my best to combat this by wearing headphones when I could listen to music and finishing work fast so I could maybe read after.
Through all of this, however, I managed to have a very successful year in humanities project wise and here are some examples of that success and why I’m ready for Humanities 9. I went over many of my projects from the first semester in my mpol so I will be focusing on semester 2.

We did many projects but for the sake of this blog post, I will focus on 1. Which is the Consequence of colonization.

I enjoyed this project a lot more than I thought I would. Though it was repetitive from our other project blue eyed brutes this is an important topic so I was ok with that.
The end project for this was a video and I surprised myself because it turned out much better than I thought it would.
One of the things I was really proud of with is project was y time management. I had a busy week the day that the last assignment was due so I did it earlier and I would have thought to do it at the start of the year. This was the day we worked on it in class I was able to help everyone figure out what it actually had to look like, and I was happy to help everyone.

One of the other things I was proud of with this project was asking for help. This is something I’ve somewhat struggled with, having a perfectionist mindset. During the art chart part of this project, I freaked out a bit because I couldn’t find the spot on basecamp, but I asked friends for help and that was really successful.

Science
Science really surprised me this year! In past years I have not liked it because of the amount of repetition of topics but we did branch out a bit more this year and it was really interesting. I especially liked the first project we did which was called small but mighty. I loved learning about all the different jobs that the cells have to keep us safe!
Ms. Kadi made it very interesting and engaging I loved her little comics!
I also really like the drawing we did for this project, I did all the Wednesday characters!
I did struggle a bit with this project through. For part of it I was in Rome and other places in Europe and it was hard for me to find the time or eagerly to do all the assignments when I was away because I was doing so much learning there already! I found myself overwhelmed when I came back to make a final poster but it turned out well and I’m very proud that I got it all together!

I also struggled with the scratch program for our atoms /game project. I had to restart my game twice because the programs weren’t working or the tutorial was moving too fast. I eventually found a really good video that slowly showed me how to do it. I ended up with a successful matching game.

Since this class was the same group of people, it was also very loud. I was luckily able to leave the room one time because my brain just started like really getting overwhelmed. I couldn’t just do the noise anymore. Especially sending you the back. Still very proud of all the stuff I have completed in science this year and I hope that our class is better next year.

Field study!
In May we took a trip to the Oregon coast. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed myself. This really showed the real-world learning part of PLP. I really liked getting to know everyone better and it really added to our learning. I thought it was really successful for me. I’m proud of the way I acted in my interview I think I was very professional and kept the conversation going.

The project that went along with his field study was more difficult for me with a perfectionist mindset. This is because we had to make so many drafts. It did go better than it would have a couple o months ago, and I did expect to have a couple of drafts but the amount I got shocked me. I would overthink everything I did, and then get massive amounts of negative thoughts about myself.

Habits.
This is the part I’m most proud of this semester/year. At the beginning of the year, I was not very organized and really struggled with focus. I have adapted the way I work in class and at home to help myself. One of these things was going to the library. It really helped dot leave my house with intention. Part of this was my negative brain saying that I was stupid if I didn’t get anything done but I tried my best to be kind to myself and in this instance it was helpful. Though the focus is still a struggle for me especially with the noise around me, it’s really improved.
I also used things more which made sure I didn’t forget anything.

Overall, I’m very proud of my progress this year. My mindset has improved and I’ve kept my grades up with the transition from elementary to high school. I think I am ready for grade 9 because I grown so much this year, have gotten almost all rainbows and continue to have a learning mindset.

Byeee!

Neko