Sunny Days

Canada has been here for a long time, more than 150 years! It’s made up of 10 provinces and 3 territories. The story of Canada is full of  inspiring people who helped make it what it is today. One person in this story is Louis Riel. He fought for the rights of Métis people and helped create Manitoba. 

This is the main focus of PLP 9’s new project called “Let’s Get Riel!” This idea looks into the interesting story of Louis Riel, highlighting his important role in shaping the nation, as well as learning about how he has been portrayed over the years. Obviously at the centre of the project lies a driving question: “How has the portrayal of Riel changed over time?” The ultimate end goal was to craft a multi-paragraph response that dives into the ever changing perspectives on Riel, highlighting the dynamic shifts in how he has been portrayed over time.

First things first, we learnt who the Métis are, and what their story is. Within this first step of building our knowledge, we learnt all about the Red River Settlement, as well as some key players. Here is some evidence of my learning:

Timeline: 

                          Credit to Kaia for the timeline because I was away for that day.

The next step to help us build our knowledge was to see how Louis Riel was portrayed in various texts. In this step, we had a few investigations, the first one was all about Louis Riel Statues. For this investigation, we found out how statues can represent people in different ways, Louis riel has a few statues of him across Canada, and some people found offending and had to be taken down. The second investigation was a video by Heritage Minute, which is a series of 60-second short films, that are produced by Historical Canada. The video we watched was posted in 1991, where we wrote a paragraph on how the video portrayed him. This helped me get an understanding on how in that time frame he was portrayed specifically by the publishers. Here is my paragraph from the heritage minute video:

The final investigation was a video that was super interesting and I found it quite funny. Check it out here: Vimeo

The third step of building knowledge was how to become a pro writer. I personally find myself writing as if I am talking, so this was definitely a helpful step of the project. For investigation 1, we did something called “Frayer Layers” which is a graphic organizer that is used for vocabulary building and word analysis. Here is my Frayer model: 

A few other things we focussed on in this section was how to write a paragraph, this really helped me! I am quite a visual learner myself, so having things colour coded, and having a legend to follow helped me. A basic paragraph consists of 4 parts; topic sentence, the development, an example or two to help support the development, and finally the summary. This helped me for my Heritage Minute paragraph and my multi paragraph!

Ok.. that was a lot, but now we were at that stage where we knew so much more, more about Louis Riel, more about Canada’s history, more about the Métis, and more about how to write like a boss! We were ready to start putting all of our knowledge into a topic sentence! Although writing a singular topic sentence sounds easy, I personally found it quite challenging. So much information in one singular sentence. It took me a few drafts, but I eventually ended up with a pretty solid sentence: “Louis Riel’s portrayal has transformed significantly over the years, reflecting shifting perspectives on his role and impact on Métis rights and identity.”

Now that we have our start to our multi-paragraph response, I think we were finally ready to start writing it!! It did take a while to start getting the flow, but after a few drafts of paragraphs and squeezing everything in.. Voila- 3 paragraphs! I was pretty proud of my work, I made 3 easy to understand paragraphs about the driving question. It was quite the process, with plenty of revisions and drafts. Check out all my drafts and my final product here:

Here is a final look at my Multi-Paragraph Response:

What did I learn?

At the start of this project, I had no idea on who Louis Riel was, which is actually sad. He played a big role in shaping Manitoba, and is a big part of Canadian History.  Like I said earlier, I learnt the basics on writing paragraphs which actually helped me so much. I can use what I learnt in the future especially the writing tips and tricks!

Why did we learn this?

This was an important part of Canadian history, and since I live in Canada, it’s a good thing to know. Now I have a better understanding of the history of the place I live, and I learnt a lot more about the Métis too! It’s an incredibly important thing to understand the perspectives on individuals, like Louis, and to see how he was viewed from different perspectives of the Métis.

Overall I am proud of the work that I did in this project, I learnt a lot that I will bring with me into the future, and I feel like this was a fun important project and a great way to end the first semester!

你好 and welcome to todays blog post.

I honestly can’t believe we have already done the Winter Exhibition. It feels like we just got back from Loon Lake! (We kind of did)

This semester in humanities was all about revolutions, but our overall project was so much more than learning about one revolution. It was fun, challenging, and took me out of my comfort zone. We had to create a Rube Goldberg machine, one of those crazy contraptions that perform simple tasks with a ton of unnecessary steps. But here’s the twist – each step of our machine had to represent an event from our assigned revolution.

To start this project off, we read Animal Farm by George Orwell. I enjoyed this book, and I think it was a good way to start off the revolution project. Once we finished the book, we got split into groups based on our revolution rankings. I ended up in a group of 7 people (including myself) we were the Xinhai Revolution. One way I challenged myself as a learner, is going with the flow. I was originally put in the Russian Revolution, which I was stoked about, but the teacher asked me to move to the Xinhai Group. I was slightly unsure at the time, but I said yes, because I like to challenge myself. So going into the Xinhai group, not knowing anything about it was probably a good thing.

Now I want to tell you all about the Xinhai Revolution…

To understand our revolutions more, we made infographics. I used an app called Canva, which made my infographic match the theme. It covered the four main stages of the revolution, plus a quick overview and timeline.

Check out my final infographic:

Like all my learning, I went through drafts. Here are all of my drafts from the infographic process:

In order to gather information for my infographic, I had to research. Thankfully our teachers supplied each group with good sources to help us gain more information about our revolution. I really recommend this video if you are wanting to learn more about the Xinhai Revolution.

Now that I’m a Xinhai Revolution expert, we started gearing up for the exhibition. Before diving into building our metaphor machines, we brainstormed individual ideas for our machine connections. My contribution to our final machine was the see saw. It represented the in equality that happened when the government gave the railway job to the group with more power and took it away from the local groups. This event is important because it is one of the main reasons for sparking the 14 provinces against the Qing Government.

Once we all had our ideas, we merged them all together to create the final blue print.

As we began building, our teachers told us to make a burn down chart. This helped each group to brake down the things they needed to do and when they needed to be done. This also allowed us to see what we have done and completed. Our initial goal was to have one step done every day or so, until the exhibition. Each group member had a job. So while some of us started to build, others started on the documentary.

My assigned job for the documentary was script writer and narrator. Although, my group wanted to give our documentary an interesting twist. We did it Kardashian style. Which was definitely an interesting script writing experience.

We faced plenty of ups and downs during the design process. We had some aesthetic problems that we could have planned better before starting to build. We faced a lot of trial and error, but that’s what helped us grow as a group of learners. My group was great at never giving up, as many times as our machine did fail, we just kept persevering. I unfortuanelty left my group to finish the rest of the building and final touches, because I was off to Australia. They all did a great job when I left to make it even more cohesive and aestheticly pleasing. Overall I think my group worked very well together, we helped one another out, and provided ideas.

Sure, it got tough and stressful at times, but in the end, it was a valuable learning experience. My big takeaways? Don’t give up, be patient, and being a Kardashian is quite exhausting.

And to answer the big question – “How do ideas drive change?” Well, one of our learning steps in this project was getting a good understanding of the word “metaphor.” I have decided to answer the driving question sort of as a metaphor.

Ideas are like seeds that grow into big changes. When people have new thoughts or ways of doing things, it can lead to important shifts in how we live and work. Imagine someone comes up with a better way to grow crops or a new gadget that makes life easier. These ideas can spread, and soon many people start using them. That’s how ideas drive change—they spark new ways of thinking and doing stuff. It’s not always about big inventions; even small, simple ideas can add up and make a difference. So, when people share and act on ideas, they can shape the world around them for the better, or for the worse.

Thanks for joining my revolution of learning!

🏞️ Introduction

It’s official, I have hiked the same trail as the queen. R.I.P. Read more about my trip to the Rocky Mountains..  

I’ve just completed our first humanities AND maker project, and it’s been quite the fascinating journey. This project was all about the west, we had two driving questions, one for maker and one for humanities. This is my humanities blog post, you can check out the maker post here.

 The humanities driving question was “How has the geography of the West shaped who we are?” To kick things off, we embarked on a road trip through the WILD WEST! (BC and Alberta.) Along the way, we had the privilege of witnessing breathtaking landscapes and deepening our understanding of geography. The first thing I learnt was the true definition of the question “what is geography?” Don’t worry, you will learn the answer in just a jiffy- (I just learnt that word!)

🌲 About the Trip

We drove through so many incredible landscapes that included lush forests, rugged mountains, pristine lakes, and vast open wilderness. We visited historical landmarks, such as the Last Spike, where the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, and the Cave & Basin National Historic Site, where the discovery of hot springs led to the creation of Canada’s first national park. These places told stories of how geography has significantly influenced the region’s history and development.

We even got to have a little stop at the Spiral Tunnels, it was incredible to learn and understand the engineering marvels that demonstrated how the challenging geography of the West needed creative solutions. We stopped at Roger’s Pass, a site where the railway’s  passage went through treacherous terrain, highlighted the enduring connection between geography and the identity of the West. The modern marvel of the Golden Skybridge showcased how geography continues to shape new attractions that take advantage of the region’s natural beauty.

Here is a little video to help you get an insight on what our trip looked like and the beautiful geography we were surrounded by.

click here to see the video

🌍 What Is Geography? The Five Themes of Geography

Before our adventure, we needed to understand what geography truly meant. Geography is not just about naming mountains and rivers and their surroundings. It is divided into five themes that represent its true definition. We made a comic strip to help show the reader what the 5 themes are. Here is my comic strip:

You can read more about each theme in my ebook! (next paragraph)

📖My ebook, it has explanations of all the places we went and everything I learnt! Check it out below:

I made this ebook on book creator, and I have published it for the world to see. I really enjoyed creating this, writing the reflections helped me remember all of the cool things we leanrt and adding the doodles helps me spread the information across the page. I hope you enjoyed reading through it!

🏔️ Conclusion

Our journey through the Wild West of Canada highlighted how geography profoundly influences the political, social, and economic aspects of this region. The natural environment, from the mountainous terrains to the hot springs, has shaped the identity of the West. We’ve seen that the people who call this place home have adapted and developed in response to the geographical challenges and opportunities presented by the land. As we listened, spoke, and questioned our way through this adventure, it became clear that the geography of the West is not just a pretty picture, it’s a important feature that shapes who we are and how we interact with the world.

By experiencing the power of place, we recognize the impact of geography on our lives and the world around us. The competencies of critical thinking, creativity, reflection, and effective communication are crucial in processing and sharing these ideas. This trip taught me so much about how the geography does influence people, but also just simple but important things like adapting to my learning environment and getting work done! The Wild West of Canada is not just a destination; it’s a lesson in how geography molds our identity and who we are as well as our understanding of the world.

Thanks for reading this blog post, if you liked it feel free to check out my Maker blog post, where I talk all about the moving image and telling stories!! HERE also feel free to check out my YouTube Channel!

Peace out ✌️

Hello everyone, welcome back to another one of my blog posts! In this one I will be sharing another book that I have created on book creator, and I will be telling you all about it.

my book: https://read.bookcreator.com/HNhRwMnhY7T0uBCE2ifvXWhh0jy1/pyK-fghLRSmiTu0s7TUEYA

The assignment: Your final product will be a travelogue– a written account of the the exploration experiences of someone from the “Age of Exploration.” You will make this project using Book Creator. Your purpose is to communicate understanding through story, so you want it to be historically accurate. To make your travelogue effective, you will include interesting images. The more creative you are with these images, the better.

The success criteria: -tells a complete story based on historically accurate information -uses all your skills in image making to create beautiful work -answers the driving question.

What was my favourite part? My favourite part of this assignment was definitely drawing and creating the images, mainly because I love art but also because I got to create so many different types of art. My second favourite part was creating the book, and writing my story about Christopher Columbus.

What was my least favourite part? My least favourite part was probably the note-taking and gathering information part. Mainly because the other parts of this assignment were a lot of fun.

What would I do differently? If I did this assignment again I would probably make my images match my story better.

Byyyeeeeee ✌️