Month: March 2024

šŸŒŠ Bon Voyage!

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šŸŽļø How can we use Storytelling to Investigate What Sparked Global Exploration and Understand its Impact?

Ā šŸ¤” What is Exploration? šŸ’­

Imagine eating a big plate of pasta with lots of tomato sauce and cheese sprinkled on top. Imagine if I told you that if exploration never happened you probably wouldnā€™t be eating that? Exploration introduced so many new things to the Europeans and the Indigenous peoples. Sounds like a win win right?! No, not at all. The Europeans brought things such as guns and knifes and kettals that made life easier for the Indigenous people, but they also brought sicknesses like smallpox which nearly wiped out all of the indigenous population. The Europeans got things such as beaver furs which they shipped back to Europe to make hats. They used something called imperialism.
Imperialism means a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means. It connects to colonization because it allows for the Europeans to colonize other peoples land.

Causes of Exploration

Valuables

The Europeans wanted to to trade to increase their wealth.

Power

Since if everyone knew that they had conquered land, then they would listen to them and they could spread their ideas.

New foods and animals

They wanted to bring back food that would be very rare and make it more common so everyone could have it and they brought animals back to Europe to put on farms so they could breed them and use them for food.

Trade

The Europeans wanted to trade for valuables such as beaver skins.

God

They wanted to share Christianity with the rest of the world and they thought it was their job to share gods word. They wanted people to share their worldviews.

Technology

They wanted to find and obtain new technology such as tools and ideas.

People

They wanted slaves and people that they could take advantage of for not just trade, but to use for farming.

Glory

They wanted money and recognition from their country and they would give their land to their king and he would make them famous as well as give them power and wealth.

Navigation

They wanted to learn how to navigate the seas better from people who had lots of experience with it.

The Story

We had to write a story about the age of exploration and the Europeans going over to North America and how it impacted and affected the Indigenous people. We planned it out using a story mapā€¦

Then, we got revisions from our peers

DI Reflection Keyboard

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Rose, Bud, Thorn Reflection

For the end of DI we had to do a reflection on what went well, what we could improve on, and what went badly. It was a way to reflect on something that had many bad and difficult things and good things that we can celebrate.

Rose šŸŒ¹

For the rose, we did a good job of the props and the detail and time that we put into it. We painted it with lots of care and we out most of our work into it. One other main thing that we did a good job at was making the costumes. The hand that fell off was also a pretty good touch but we can definitely work on it. The last main thing that we did a good job at was the moving element, which I made using Mr Harrisā€™ fan. The appraisers complemented it and thought it was very good.

Bud šŸŒ±

For the thing that we can learn from and grow from would be being prepared and ready long before the competition. We were rushing to get things done and half our group didnā€™t know their lines, or didnā€™t care enough to care about learning them, so I think we can work on being prepared and having more drive to win something in the provincials.

Thorn šŸ„€

Something that made me frustrated and that can be changed was our lines and the script because it was slow and most of our group either didnā€™t know their lines, or didnā€™t care about it at all. Someone in our group kept on not showing up to work on DI and they constantly broke props and pieces for the set. We can change that for provincials by being more prepared and we have to talk to group members that arenā€™t doing anything or trying very hard to work towards goals as a team. The props kept on breaking because one of our group members kept on ignoring us and walking around the props clumsily. One of our group members also was supposed to make everyoneā€™s costumes and that was their one job, but they didnā€™t do it and blamed it on us for not making it. But overall, we need to work together as a group better and try harder to win something at provincials.Ā 

Atom Chase – A Video Game Based Off Neutrons

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šŸŽļø Driving Question:

The driving question for this project was:How can we model our knowledge of the atom in a fun and creative way?

What Did we Do?

There were many things that we had to do to complete this project, we had to figure out how to use scratch, thankfully I had done it when I was like 8 and I somehow remembered how to do the basics. We had to learn about atoms one the periodic table and how when different atoms and properties are mixed it can make a different product. We had to apply that knowledge to our game and we had to show that we learnt something from the experiments and tests that we conducted.

How Did We Make The Game?

We constructed our video game using scratch and at first it was difficult and hard, but then I got the hang of it and started to make some progress whenā€¦ the IMPOSSIBLE happened. I got logged out and my whole entire game deleted and I had no way of fixing it. I was devastated. I had to start from scratch (no pun intended) and I decided to read through some instructions carefully but also have more ideas and input of my own into the game.

Trial and Error

For this project I had to try different things that I thought would workā€¦ but they didnā€™t most of the time. It was difficult and there were times when I wanted to stop and do something else, but I couldnā€™t, I had to find a different way to make the code work the way I wanted it to. I decided to search up tutorials on how to use scratch and how to make the sprites and code work the right way.

My Game!


You are trying to collect 10,000 elements and each one is worth 100 points. You are running away from a nucleus that is chasing after you. There are 3 of them. It communicates to my knowledge of atoms because I show the structure of the nucleus and atoms and what an element on the periodic table looks like.

Revisions and Reflections

We Had to get our game to get reviewed by two other classmates, this is what they said: ā€œIt worked smoothly and it looked really good, and it had a good premise and the idea was good.ā€
ā€I wish that there were multiple levels.ā€ Overall, I think that it definitely introduces a more exciting and fun aspect of science to coding and even though it was stressful to make, it was a great way to demonstrate the concept of coding and science together. Thank you for reading and have a great rest of your day!!šŸ˜šŸ˜€