Month: June 2024

My 2024 tPOL!

samuelb on

tPOL

“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.” This year has been crazy, my first year in PLP and I’ve already learnt so much. I’ve learnt how to learn and think creativity, work in groups, and how to be a better learner.

DRIVING QUESTION 🏎️:

How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade? I will be answering this by showing you the projects I have done this year in regards to my learning. I will be reflecting on three different success behaviours that I feel like I have or have not done a good at and why.

Accepting Feedback

This is a category I have lots of experience with from this year and especially after our last project where we made ads. Our ads got critiqued and revised so many times I thought we would never finish it. At the start of the project, I was hesitant to make changes on my work and I didn’t think anything was wrong with my first ad. It didn’t even hit me on how much better I got at making advertisements until I compared my first ad of quarry rock, to my Oregon ad. I’m good at this category because I’m good at changing the right parts of the work and improving it because I always want to improve on my work until it’s the best it can be. I don’t always excel in this category though, there are definitely some things I struggle with such as taking the feedback and applying all of it to my work. For example, Ms McWilliam gave me feedback on may ad and told me to change my font and the photo to something more exciting, I changed the font and not the photo so I want to work on taking all of the feedback but then expanding on it and then adding my own stuff in when I’ve done what they’ve said. I think that criticism is very helpful (if it’s constructive) and it can make your final product so much better if another person has their own opinion on it.

My Oregon ad

 

My Quarry Rock ad

Integrity

This is a category that I’m good at because I always make sure to never copy and paste things and I write, draw and create all my own work. Sometimes I take ideas or thoughts from others and tinker with it to make it my own idea or creation. I feel that it’s very important to do your own work and create your own things because when your in the real world, you’re not going to know how to do your own work because you never did it in high school. I respect all of our PLP norms that we made at the start of the year. Sometimes I forget about them though and need a reminder about them. Other than that though, I think that this is a strong category for me. An example of when I have used integrity is when we were preparing for DI I made sure that me and all my group members were following our norms and using all our own work. The hardest part about integrity in my opinion is admitting you did something wrong and improving on it. I am trying to work on that so I can become a better PLP learner.

Working for DI

Ownership and Responsibility

This is a category that I’m not that too strong at and I’m trying to build on inside and outside of school. I have many examples where I need work on this but also some where I have done well at. In our project small but mighty, we had to make books that documented our experiment. I wasn’t there for one of the days and when I got back I swept it under the rug and forgot about it. I realized it was due and then I rushed to get it done, and since I left it to the last minute, it was rushed, there were spelling errors, and there were multiple mistakes on it. We got a chance to go over it again and make it better and I owned up to it and made the most of it and tried to improve it while taking critique from other peers. It made me realize that you don’t always have to make a masterpiece every project, and what you take away from is the most valuable thing about it. Another example of this is when we were doing DI. We had a very tight deadline for it and our group was falling behind, me and some other group members had to do extra work. Even though this wasn’t my strongest category, I still managed to stay up and be responsible to make our DI group do well. This category is very important for my next years in PLP and as a learner so I will make sure to focus on this because if I am to succeed, then I need to put my focus on the things that I need to work on the most.

Field journal observations

Things I Feel I’ve Done Well At:

My Oregon Book!

When we went to Oregon we had books on book creator that we had to fill out and put in everything that we did and saw. We filled it out with the museums we went to, and we had to answer the questions in the book. I am proud of this because I put in things that I was proud of and it demonstrates how far I’ve come as a learner.

My Scratch Game!

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. We Had to get our game to get reviewed by two other classmates, this is what they said: “It worked smoothly and it looked really good, and it had a good premise and the idea was good.”
”I wish that there were multiple levels.” 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.

Strategies and Habits That I Will Use :

– Setting reminders on my iPad and Phone to help keep track of assignments and due dates.

– Getting in the habit of coming into tutorials to get ahead or catch up on an assignment.

– Getting into the habit of extending my work so I can get a better mark.

– I can use the app “Things” to set reminders as you can make a widget on your Home Screen so you can see it easily.

– Get into the habit of checking over my work and reading instructions carefully to make sure I did the assignment correctly.

Conclusion

Thank you so much for watching my tPOL and I hope you all took something important away from it or learnt more about me and who I am as a learner. PLP has helped me grow as not just a student but a person too. I can’t wait to continue my journey with PLP and I will look forwards to the trips and projects next year in grade 9! Do you have any questions?

 

The Wilderness Must be Explored! 🌲

samuelb on

Driving Question 🏎️:

The driving question for this project was “how does language inspire adventure?” We would showcase this by making adverts that advertised Oregon. This project was by far the biggest one all year. We went to Oregon, had an exhibition, and revised our work until it was perfect. This project was very diverse because we worked in groups by ourselves, and I learned the most this project then any other one, not just about ads, but about myself and my worldview when it comes to advertising. Language inspires adventure because text and convincing ads and make someone want to go on an adventure.language inspires adventure because you have to communicate and talk about where you’re going to go. It could inspire adventure because you could read about the place you want to adventure to in a book. Language also inspires adventure because you need language to communicate with the new people you meet along your adventures. When your all done your adventure, your still not completely finished, you have to write about it and tell it to others, adventure never ends. It can inspire us because if you hear a very inspiring speaker talk about adventures then your going to want to do it too.

My Definition of Adventure:

We all had to define adventure in our own words and what it meant to us, this is my definition of adventure: To me, I think that adventure means stepping outside of your comfort zone, wether that be going for a walk in the park, or traversing a cliff on skis. It can be different for every person. It can also mean doing something you’ve never done before or going some place new. For it to be an adventure, you can’t have already done it. It has to be a completely new, fun, adrenaline pumping, activity. An example of an adventure that I’ve been on is backcountry mountain biking. Which is where you have your stuff in a bag, and you go mountain biking. Another example of an adventure is when I ran almost 20 km. I had never even thought about running that far, but I set my mind to it and did it. Anything can really be an adventure though, like trying new things, going to new places and meeting new people.

How I Used Media and Language to Inspire Others

We learnt about how ads influenced people to buy products and how to make an ad have a feeling to make the consumer want to buy it. We practiced with ads that we made of quarry rock. We revisioned them multiple times and learnt how to take critique and use it to improve our ads.

So How Does Language Inspire Us?

We learnt about our demographics and how where we live and what’s around us influences what we want to buy. We also explored different advertising techniques and how companies use those to make their audience buy their products.

Oregon Trip Book

When we went to Oregon we had books on book creator that we had to fill out and put in everything that we did and saw. We filled it out with the museums we went to, and we had to answer the questions in the book.

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Ads

When we got home from Oregon, we had to create ads in our groups that we were assigned. I was in a group with my classmates, Cole, Elsa, Eloise, Siena, and me. We had to all create ads and then present them at the exhibition. We were experimenting with different fonts and photos on Canva and then we came to a decision on which ones we liked best. We chose my ad to be the big one in the center and then we had the other four ones around it.

The Spring Exhibition

We decided to make a zip line since our groups category was escape and excitement and we went to a zip line on our trip so we based everything off excitement even our ads. The zip line was set up so there was a bucket at the top of the set of stairs and we had water balloons at the bottom and people would get asked trivia questions about our presentation when it was done and if they got it right then they would get to throw a water balloon at us.

Collaboration

We talked about why collaboration was important and this is what I said: There are may different ways to collaborate, whether that be in a group of many people or just two. In my opinion the most important elements of collaboration are speaking to everyone and including all group members. This is important because if you don’t include others, then you won’t get to hear their ideas and thoughts so your group won’t be as strong. Another important element of collaboration is clearly expressing thoughts and ideas. This is because if you don’t say what you mean, then your point won’t come across clearly and your ideas won’t be heard. Working together and participating is definitely one of the most important ones. This is because if one person doesn’t participate, that can really impact the group and can knock it off balance. If everyone does their part, then the group can run like a well oiled machine. 

What Does Campaign Mean?

To me I think that campaign means an action to complete a goal or obstacle. It can be anything,  like raising awareness about climate change or advocating for rights. It can also be an advertisement that sells you a product or experience. In my opinion, a good campaign is something that is meaningful and you don’t just participate in it for money or status. I’ve been apart of multiple campaigns and advocated for things. I think campaigns are very important for raising awareness about something and they can be really affective when it comes to to raising money. In other words, you corral a whole bunch of people with a common goal tho complete a task or tackle a problem or do something. 

 

Small but Mighty

samuelb on

Driving Question:

🏎️ How does our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public health?

Field Journal:

We created a field journal in Keynote about how bacteria grows and we made a hypothesis and a question and when we did the experiment we recorded the results.

🦠 Small But Mighty! 🧬 

In this project we investigated bacteria and germs. We learnt about pandemics like polio and smallpox and we applied our knowledge about COVID 19 and we talked about how they dealt with the virus and how long it took for them to develop a vaccine in terms to now. We made a journal about the research and tests we did on bacteria and we recorded the results in there. I learnt a lot about how our body works and it helped me understand how I get sick.

 

How do we Interact With Cells and Cellular Organisms?

We used microscopes to find out what the cell theory was. We looked at rain water and plant cells that we got from the forest outside the school. The cell theory is that all living organisms are made up of cells, and that cells come from life and create life.

There are many different types of cells. One of them is a Prokaryotic cell. It’s job is it to carry DNA within the cell, it isn’t very complex but does an important job. The eukaryotic cell is much more complex and it has a nucleus that stores all of the DNA 


The Innate Immune System and the Adaptive Immune System 

We learnt about the Innate Immune system. The innate immune system is your bodies built in immune system and it already knows how to fight off bacteria. The innate immune system has different types of pathogens that help fight off bacteria. The second part of the innate immune system are the types of chemical barriers that fight off bacteria and they work against the pathogens. The adaptive immune system is really cool. It changes and adapts to the different pathogens trying to invade. This is important because if you get sick once, your body will remember it and they will know how to fight it off.

Petri Dish Experiment

We learnt about how bacteria works and how it spreads, but that wasn’t the main part of the project. The experiment that we did was pretty simple but it was very cool. I swabbed q tips on the bathroom floor and one on the hallway floor. My question was “which floor has more bacteria on it?” I’d figure this out by rubbing the q tips on two Petri dishes and the bacteria would grow and which ever one had the most bacteria on it would be the dirtiest. 

Journal Continued 

We wrote and recorded our results and hypothesis in our journal that we made on Keynote. I recorded photos of the Petri dish and how much bacteria was on it. My hypothesis was if I take a q-tip and swab the floor of the bathroom, then it will have more bacteria than the hallway floor. And my prediction was the amount of bacteria will be higher on the bathroom floor then the hallway floor. In conclusion I said This proves that my hypothesis is correct because the bathroom floor had more bacteria than the hallway floor. If I let it sit for longer, would there be more bacteria. I wonder how much bacteria there is after the custodian cleans it? There is much more bacteria on the 8th day which makes sense because the longer that bacteria sits, the more it grows. My hypothesis was still correct even after the 8th day, it still stayed the same but there was just more bacteria.

Immune System Cards

For our immune system cards we drew 5 characters that resembled the different cells and then we wrote about them and how they connect to it. I drew characters from the games My Singing Monsters. This is because a lot of them resembled the different cells. It was very difficult to draw the. Because they had lots of detail and I had to make them look exactly what they looked like in the game and it was interesting trying to connect a video game character to a cell in your body.


Conclusion

In conclusion, I learnt so much from this project, I learnt about polio, vaccines, cells, and taking notes. Overall, it taught me more than most projects this year and I took away a lot. Thank you so much for reading and I’ll see you again in the next one.