Hey guys, welcome back to my blog! Today I will be telling you all about our most recent project in PLP, “Cray Cray, Yay Yay.” The driving question for this project was “Why does it take a “crazy” person to change the world?” Over the course of this project, I researched and gathered lots of evidence to help me attempt to answer the question. Let’s dive in!

One of the first things we did in this project was a mini PechaKucha. For mine, I chose to present and talk about Frank Sinatra and how he changed the world. A PechaKucha is a presentation that contains 20 slides, where you talk about your topic for 20 seconds per slides. For this mini PechaKucha, the goal was to get us accustomed to presenting in this format and reflect on why it takes someone “crazy” to change the world. That’s why this PechaKucha was only 10 slides, not 20.

For my PechaKucha on Frank Sinatra, I think I did a good job. I am especially proud of myself for this one because this assignment was done during the week that I was away in Quebec to cheer my sister in in the International PeeWee Tournament. Normally, when I am away, I end up falling behind and being behind in my work afterwards. This time, though, I made sure to keep up and follow along from Quebec. As soon as I got back from Quebec, I presented my PechaKucha to the class. I’m glad that I managed to buckle down and stay on top of my work, and I think that this shows my growth as a learner.

If you want to see some more from that first mini PechaKucha, I have logged my learning process here. 

After our mini PechaKucha, we got put into groups for our final PechaKucha. Since the final product of this project is that big PechaKucha, done in a group of 4. But before we could get to the PechaKucha, we had to pick a theme and research. I was put into a group with Alex, Sofia, and Kadin. We picked the theme “Sustainability Solutions.” This theme revolves around sustainability and how it takes a “crazy” person to help us solve the problem that is our wounded planet. Before we could do anything else, though, it was Seattle time! The class went on a field school to Seattle for a week to gather evidence to help us answer the driving question. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to Seattle for various reasons. Luckily, the rest of my group did go.

While the rest of my group was in Seattle, me and a few of the other people who stayed back, including my friends Kira and Brooke, worked on research and essays about “crazy” people who are local to Vancouver. The local “crazy” person that I picked was Bryan Adams. Over the course of the week, I researched about him and found what he has done to help change the world. If you want to see my learning process and final essay from this assignment, click here. Overall, I am proud of this work because I am happy with how my essay turned out. Here is a photo of me with a couple of my friends who didn’t go to Seattle, writing our essays.

Once everyone came back from Seattle, we began to collaboratively work with our groups to begin to aim towards that final PechaKucha. We started by generating some Need to Know questions and then researching and using the information that was gathered in Seattle in order to answer those questions.

Once we had that done, it was time to create a story spine. For this, each member of our group did an individual story spine, and then we worked collaboratively on one big story spine. Here is our story spine:

Once we had our story spine approved, it was time to work on the beginnings of a script for our final PechaKucha. Each member of our group took a few pieces of the story spine to expand on. If you want to see some of that expansion, go here. 

After we had this expanded story spine, it was time to create it as a script with sections for each separate slide. Each slide we estimated was about 40-50 words since they are 20 seconds. Once we had these sections, we assigned some slides to each presenter. After that, it was time to pick photos to put for the slides, and finally, time to practice to present!

Unfortunately, due to a conflict with my gymnastics, I was unable to make it to the PechaKucha night to present with my peers. Thankfully, Alex and Sofia were able to pull through and present it well! I’m very glad I got put with a great group who was flexible enough to be able to present even without 2 members of the group. Here are the final slides of our PechaKucha slide deck:

Overall, our PechaKucha went amazing and throughout this project, I managed to keep up on all of my work, and nothing I did was late. I’m super proud of myself for this, as this is something that I have been striving for since grade 9. I’m super happy with how much I’ve improved on my organization and time management as a learner.

If you are interested in seeing our collaborative learning process throughout this project, click here. This is the document where we stored all of our learning.

Thank you for reading!

Susan

Hello all, and welcome back to my blog! Lately, I’ve been hard at work on a project called “Cray Cray, Yay Yay!” The driving question of this project is “why does it take a “crazy person” to change the world?” So, we have been learning all about these “crazy people” and how we need a little bit of crazy to change the world. One of the “crazy” people I have focused on is Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams grew up in North Vancouver and is now a very well-known music artist. Let’s dive into him and his “craziness”.

When you think of Vancouver, you might not think of changing the world at first. There aren’t very many people from Vancouver who have truly changed the world. Or, at least, there aren’t very many well-known people who have changed the world. Bryan Adams has not quite changed the world in the traditional sense, but he has heavily impacted many people’s lives for the better in other ways, and we should all strive to be like that. He has changed the world by using his voice to speak up for the rights of other people including homeless youth and Ukrainian refugees, as well as advocate for environmental change.

Bryan Adams has proven his care for local homeless youth in Vancouver, BC. In July 2010, The Bryan Adams foundation made a grant to Covenent House, which supports homeless youth in Vancouver. By using his fame and wealth to help those struggling, and especially connecting that back to his roots in Vancouver, he’s shown how he cares for his hometown and the other people who share that with him. Despite the fact that he has become famous and has so much influence, he still takes care and makes sure to remember where he came from.

Bryan Adams has shown that he truly cares about others all around the world. In June 2022, The Bryan Adams Foundation made a grant to the Teresa Maxova Foundation, which supports Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic. They aim to support the education and integration of these refugee’s children and their parents into society. The Bryan Adams Foundation aims to improve people’s lives by providing specific grants to help people around the world. Though Adams is from Vancouver, he’s using his influence and money for good, even in other parts of the world. 

You may know about how he’s donated to charities, or revolutionized music. But Bryan Adams has also used his influence to advocate for environmental change. When people were talking about old-growth logging in BC, Adams chose to use his voice and speak up. According to CBC, “Adams said he and others were not calling for the end of all logging in the province. He said they want steps taken to protect old-growth trees, instead of letting loggers ‘plow through and cut everything down.'” (source) Adams knew that he had to take action and speak up. Alongside others speaking up with him against it, he helped put it to a stop. Through doing this, he showed the world that he knew to use his voice for good, and paved a path for others to follow and advocate for what they believe in.

Bryan Adams is an influential figure in Vancouver, BC’s history. He’s used his ‘craziness’ to speak up for what he believes in, advocate for change, and help others. It’s not very often that you might find someone that truly embodies the culture of Vancouver, who can speak up and advocate for what they believe in. Adams is a true role model of how we can help and create change for a better world.

So far, I’ve really had a great time working on this project, and stay tuned to see more from my blog!

Who am I going to be? Recently, we went on a journey in Humanities to attempt to find an answer to that question – or, at least, to reflect on it, and reflect on ourselves. 

Now, I’m going to be so honest with you, faithful blog readers: I don’t really know who I am going to be, nor who I want to be. After a whole project full of questions, and answers, and books, and activities? I still don’t really know. But I am going to try to answer.

As we dove into this project, I wasn’t that excited. We had to read a book, and though I am not a super slow reader, I am also not a super speedy reader. But, as soon as I picked up my chosen book, it was love at first sight. “Between Two Kingdoms,” by Suleika Jaouad, caught my eye. It was a book all about her experience with cancer, and her experience afterwards, as a cancer survivor. If you want to know more, click here to read my notes and reflections. As I read this book, and enjoyed every step of it. I got to see the world through Suleikas lense, learning the lessons that she had learned from experience. Some key takeaways I got from this were that change is a part of life, and though it might take time, you have to learn to accept the changes. I also learned that you are not always as isolated as you feel. While it may feel like it, there are still people on your side. I learned not to let that feeling of isolation push you away from the people around you. I feel as though this is something that really resonates with me. Constantly, I feel so alone, and I let that give me a reason to distance myself further from the people around me. If I truly look around, I can really see that, actually, many people are on my side. So really, if I’m trying to answer the question of “who am I going to be?” My goal is to be someone who notices the people around me, and who accepts change and challenges as a part of my life.

Another thing that we did in this project that guided me was our gratitude exercises. Each day in class, we each got a sticky note and wrote down one thing we were grateful for. Every single day, I sat down in the morning, and thought until I had the perfect thing to be grateful for. Every time, after writing it on that sticky note and putting it on the wall with everyone else’s, I walked away feeling fulfilled and happier. I remember, on the final morning, I wrote, “I am grateful for the sky and the sun and the trees and the mountains and the oceans and the lakes.” This is something that at the beginning of all of this, I never would’ve written down. But I really am grateful for the sky and the sun and the trees and the mountains and the oceans and the lakes! Throughout all of these sticky note moments, I could close my eyes and see what I was grateful for. I was able to relive scenarios I loved, or imagine ones that have the potential to flourish in my future. When I closed my eyes, I was able to see everything I loved, everything I live for, the things that define my happiness. Who am I going to be? I am going to be grateful, to live my life to the fullest. I am going to take a deep breath and love how it feels in my lungs. I am going to see the world with open eyes and an open heart, taking in every single bit of it with so much love.

Finally, we got the opportunity to conduct our interviews. I decided I wanted to interview one of the coaches from the gym that I do my gymnastics at. She is truly an inspiration to me. Through my interview, I asked a series of questions. Here were all the questions I asked:

– “How do you push through challenges and hardships in your life and in your career?”

– “What gets you out of bed every morning?”

– “Who or what inspires you to be better?”

– “Tell me about a situation where you had to lead through change and uncertainty in your career.”

– “How do you contribute to creating a positive environment?”

– “How do you deal with stress, and what coping mechanisms do you find effective?”

At first, I didn’t have much hope for the interview. I didn’t think I would learn as much from it as I was learning from the book, nor as much as I would later on learn from the gratitude notes. After having the interview, though, I realized I was wrong. Though I still think I ended up learning more from reflecting on the other things, I still think I did learn from my interview. Everything that my interviewee had to say had to do with keeping a positive mindset. She also frequently brought up accepting challenges and overcoming them instead of giving up, prioritizing herself, and surrounding herself with people that are good for her. I feel as though these are always important things to think about in life. Since my interview, I have started to make an effort to maintain relationships with those that I love, and slowly distancing myself from people who have a negative impact on me. I also have been trying to prioritize myself and my mental health, giving myself some more rest, and forgiving myself when I don’t perform as well as I wanted to, especially when it’s due to being tired. Who am I going to be? I am going to prioritize myself. I am going to be someone that people want to have in their lives, because I make a positive impact on them. I am going to stay as positive as possible, and I am going to accept and overcome any challenges I face. I am not going to give up. I am going to work hard, and I am going to be good to myself.

Throughout this whole project, I was thinking. I was reflecting on every experience I have had, and every experience I might have in the future. “Who am I going to be? What am I going to do, what am I going to see, and in this moments, who am I going to be?” I would repeat these questions over and over, wondering. In fact, these are questions I regularly ask myself. Normally, I will think more on the negative side. “You cannot and will not change. You will not improve. You will never be someone who is happy with where she is at. You will never be a hard worker. You will always be someone who gives up.” Usually, when I ask questions like that, I give myself answers like that. Throughout this project, though, I have been reflecting on who I really am, who is really hidden under the rough surface. For me, at least, it’s not, “who am I going to be? How will I change to fulfill that?” It’s, “what’s hidden underneath, and how can I help it flourish?” Because I can and I do work hard. In my gymnastics, for example, I have persevered through mental blocks and weaknesses for years and years and not once has giving up and quitting even crossed my mind.  So the real question is, how can I make this show in other aspects of my life? How can I redirect some of this dedication so that I can be more successful in other areas, therefore helping me be happier? And I think I’ve already found that answer.

Going back to the start of the school year, I started art as an elective. I had a horrible mindset going into it. I have just never been an artistic person. When we were little kids, I never did art. It was my little sister who was always painting, always making something new. At first, in art, I would get frustrated when things didn’t turn out how I wanted them.  I didn’t realize that it actually is not “practice makes perfect.” It’s “dedication and hard work makes progress.” And after winter break, after realizing this, I applied it. I was doing a painting project for art. I dedicated so much time and so much energy into that painting. I asked questions, and I got opinions from other people. I learned new things and I tried to apply every correction that someone suggested. And what I realized was, even though I was dedicating more energy, more time, and more effort, I left the class every day feeling more fulfilled and less tired than I ever did before I actually tried. I began to truly enjoy what I was doing.

Anyways, going back to all other aspects of my life, I think that the answer is that I need to find the little things within what I’m doing, and I need to focus on them. And as time goes on, I will start to enjoy more of the bigger parts, and I will start to treat everything with more care. I will be able to redirect all that hard work, all that care and dedication, into other parts of my life, like school. And as I start to feel better about those things, I will start be a happier person.

So I guess, even though I went into this saying I didn’t really know, I kind of answered the question of “who am I going to be?” in this post. I even came up with a bit of a pathway of how I might be able to get there.

I’m going to be someone that people are drawn to for her happiness and warmth. Like a bowl of soup.

With that, I’m going to bring this blog post to a close. Thank you all for reading. I hope you can step away from this post having learned at least a few of the things that I shared.

With love,

Susan

Hey guys, welcome back to my blog! Today I’m going to be reflecting on my most recent project in Humanities, Save Juno Beach. This project was all about World War II. I learned lots about the causes and consequences of the war, and all about how the events of the war played out. Our finished product end was an academic essay. In this blog post, I am going to take a deep dive into the process it took to get me to the point where I had a finished product I was happy with. Let’s get into it!

For our first keystone, we learned all about many of the events of WWII, and then completed Kahoot quizzes to show our learning. There were 6 different Kahoots about different aspects of the war. In order to receive a proficient grade on the Kahoot quizzes, we needed to get a perfect score and get every question correct. I am happy with my learning on this keystone because I think I picked up on the facts when our teacher taught them in class, and anything that I missed, I picked up while doing the Kahoots. I feel that after this keystone, I had a strong understanding of the events that happened before, during, and after WWII.

After this, we got to work on narrowing down what we might want to include in our essay. At this point, we had still not written our thesis, so we had a wide range of options of what we could write about. In order to be able to narrow things down once we started brainstorming, we needed to strengthen our skills in determining historical significance. For this, we had a worksheet, pictured below, in which we determined the historical significance of WWII. In the worksheet, we looked at significant ways that this event could impact the world, and figured out how much that the statement applied. Here is my historical significance of WWII chart:

After we were confident in our abilities to figure out whether something was significant, we brainstormed topics for our essay. I chose to brainstorm using a useful app called MindNode. With MindNode, I could create a web of ideas branching off of one another. Here is my brainstorming:

After this, it was time to write our thesis. Here is the one I wrote: “It’s important to talk and learn about WWII because it helps people gain a better understanding of the world around them, which in turn helps them become better, educated, and more empathetic people.” I am quite happy with how my thesis turned out!

Next up, we created an rough outline for our final essays. Despite the fact that I thought I had a complete, full plan, my outline ended up being completely different than my final essay. Here is what my outline looked like:

Finally, it was time to write up my essay. I had multiple drafts, but in this blog post, I am only going to show you the final draft. Here is the link to my essay.

Overall, in this project, I think I learned lots about essay writing and researching. I am super happy with how my finished product turned out. I hope I’m able to apply these skills in other projects!

Thanks for reading,

Susan

Hello everybody, welcome back to my blog! This is my final post of grade 9, which is crazy to think about. It feels like just yesterday I was writing my first blog post of grade 9. Anyways, this post is all about my latest project, Dulce et Decorum Est, and the spring exhibition, where I showcased the work I did in that project.

Dulce et Decorum Est was all about World War I. We also learned about museums and how to create an exhibit. These two ideas were brought together for the exhibition, which I’ll talk about later in this post.

Our first keystone was research on museums. Part of this was a quick field trip to the Museum of North Vancouver to get a tour and talk to the people working in the museum about how the exhibits are structured and how they’re built to appeal to the audience. Here’s a picture of us at the museum:

Another major part of this keystone was looking at online resources including an article about how to make your own exhibit, an actual online exhibit, and so many more. Through all of that, we took notes about how we could use this information to create our own exhibit. Finally, we had to write a paragraph reflecting on what we learned through this research. Here’s mine:

How do museums tell stories? A proper exhibit is a compilation of thoughts and events, organized either by time period or how it’s presented. A curator can guide the audience to look through it in a certain way, and the audience still has the freedom to go through it in their own way, at their own pace. Museums tell stories by organizing thoughts and feelings through works of art or artifacts. They also explain stories behind said works of art or artifacts, allowing the audience to learn all about what the exhibit may be about. This is actively telling a story to the audience. An effective exhibit could also be interactive, where the audience can choose to use different senses other than sight, such as touch or hearing. This is vital to engage the audience so that they can be invested in the story you’re telling. These are just a few ways that museums tell stories.

I’m happy with how my paragraph turned out, even after multiple revisions. I think it accurately represents what I learned.

Our second keystone was a paragraph on the contrasting narratives of war. For this, we researched about World War I, and a lot about propaganda in war. Here’s my paragraph:

When we think of war, specifically the First World War, we think of death and pain. We think of the worst things that happened. We think of the huge numbers of lost soldiers, the horrible diseases spread, and the idea of living for years in muddy trenches. We can’t stop thinking about trench foot, families alone at home, and famine. Rarely do we think of the valuable things that came out of it. We forget how good it was for the economy, and how white women got more rights out of it, thanks to so many amazing female nurses who contributed to the war. We forget about the technological advancements. Part of the reason that we forget these things is that we have to respect the people that went through the hard, treacherous parts of the war. In that, we forget all of the important good things, because the two contrast each other so much. They are so far apart on the spectrum of good and bad it’s almost like we can only choose one to talk about. Women getting the right to vote is so far away from the 8.5 million soldiers lost. It’s hard to believe they even happened on the same planet, let alone at the same time. It definitely demonstrates great contrast.

I’m satisfied with how this paragraph turned out. I don’t think it was my greatest work, but I definitely could’ve done worse and I think it’s still pretty good.

Our third and final keystone was our museum exhibit. This was the exhibit we put up for the exhibition, and I was really happy with how it turned out. I chose to do a painting that represented poetry made from WWI, following our theme of creation and destruction, choosing the creation side. Choosing to do a painting is not something I would naturally do. I’m not super artistic, and painting isn’t a strong suit of mine. But I decided I wanted to try something new, something out of my comfort zone. While my finished product may not look as great as I wanted it to, I’m glad I tried something new. I set up my big painting on the wall, writing out the poem “In Flanders Field” next to it, and recruiting Evangeline to help me draw poppies around it. Here’s what my exhibit looked like:

That’s it! See you in grade 10,

Susan

Hello, and welcome back to my blog! It’s definitely been a while since I’ve posted a blog post, but it’s nice to be back. 

This last project was about nationalism and Confederation. We started with a simulation! In this we simulated the Confederation of Canada.

When our class simulated Confederation, I learned a lot about Canada’s history. I was leading the colony of New Brunswick with Evangeline, Charlie R, and Jasper. Together, we decided on things to demand of confederation. In the end, most of our needs were met, so we decided to sign and join confederation! Unfortunately, not everyone joined confederation, because not every colony’s needs were met. PEI and Nova Scotia decided not to, because not all their needs could be met because they were both so small with such big demands. For example, PEI wanted to remove taxes for all their farmers, which is a very big ask for such a small colony. The big colonies, on the other hand, benefited greatly, because they were granted a lot of political power and got more of their demands met. Our colony had quite a few demands, and we purposely made some that we didn’t care much about so that we could use them as bargaining chips. In the end, we had everything we wanted, because we made it seem like we had the Capitol taken away from us when really we didn’t want it that bad. By the end of the simulation I realized that I would absolutely hate being in political power. Confederation involved a lot of big decisions made with stubborn people, and it was a lot of work for a few decisions about our country. I did realize how important these decisions were, though, which is something I never thought of before the simulation.

The simulation was our first keystone. Our second keystone was a board game proposal.

Basically, for this whole project, we were building towards the finish line of a playable board game about Confederation, showcasing our learning about nationalism and Confederation. I was somewhat excited about this, but also afraid that I would be setting myself up for disappointment in the board game and it wouldn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. Luckily, my partner for the board game was Evangeline, and she helped to make the Confederation board game of our dreams!

Our proposal was a game called The Colonies of Confederation, and in it you can take historical perspective on the leaders of the different colonies as you try to come up with confederation and agree with the other people. In our proposal, there was also a timeline that we would aim for, trying to complete different parts of the game by certain days. I think we were mostly able to stick to the timeline, which is great. We were able to describe how our game showed nationalism by showing how people must come together and have shared beliefs or needs in order to become a nation.

Finally, the third keystone was the rules of our board game. Through this, we showed our learning in our introduction to the game, showcasing what nationalism is and how Confederation reflected it. We were also able to easily explain how to play our game, using understandable, descriptive language and also using our graphic design skills to make it set the mood and be possible to read. Here are our rules:

Here’s a picture of our board game:

After that, one of the grade 8 classes came and played our games with us!

Throughout this project, I learned a lot about Confederation and nationalism. Before this project, I didn’t even know what nationalism was! But now I know all about how it can connect people through different beliefs, races, experiences, and more. I think that the idea of nationalism is really important to who we are as people, and I think it’s a really cool concept.

See you in the next project,

Susan

How do revolutions bring down empires and change societies around the world? Well, before this project, I could’ve given you some rambling, wordy answer about Hamilton (the musical) because I had an obsession with it in Grade 7 and 8. Now that I’ve gone through this project, I can tell you all about revolutions and the full answer to the question. That’s what I’m going to do now.

What is a revolution? That’s kind of what the first activity in this project taught me. If you read my blog post about Nation X (click here to read) then you would know how I learned this. If you don’t want to read it, basically we did a simulation of a society. I was placed in the upper class, and there were a couple people placed in the top class, as members of the king’s court. There were a bunch of people placed in the two classes below me. The top class got paid $10/day, The class I was in was paid $5/day, the class below got $3/day, and the lowest class got $1/day. Basically different challenges in society had to be faced, but in facing those challenges, people were treated unequally and society fell apart, with people fighting one another and many deaths. What happened was basically a revolution. Now, how can we describe and define a revolution?

To do this, we made diagrams that reflected Crane Brinton’s anatomy of a revolution. I chose to do a hamster on a wheel, falling off and then starting over. Here’s the diagram:

After we did this, we chose which revolution we wanted to work on for the whole project. I chose the American revolution, mostly because I already knew a little bit about it from my past obsession with Hamilton that I mentioned, and I was really interested in digging deeper.

Once we chose our revolutions, we got straight to work making graphic organizers about them. Here’s mine:

As you can see, the graphic organizer basically gives you a crash course on the American revolution. The research I did to create it told me almost everything I needed to know for the whole project. 

After that, we started to work on our affidavit. We chose the evidence we would feature and our arguments. At first, I was a little bit confused with what I was arguing for, but me, Cameron L, Jupiter, and Jessie pulled through arguing for the American Revolution being effective. I applied my research from the graphic organizer into the affidavit. It turned out really good and we had a pretty good argument. In the mock trial, we were going against Charlie M, Julia, Keaton, Silas, and Magnus, Makai. They were saying that the revolution was ineffective.

Once we had finished our affidavit, we started working on a script for the mock trial. Very soon after we started working on it, Mr. Harris, the DRI (directly responsible individual) of the project, had to leave because he was having a baby! Sadly, because he was gone, we had to pivot the project. Instead of doing a mock trial in front of our parents, we started working on a video. We were still writing the scripts in collaboration with the ineffective side, but for a video of a trial as opposed to an actual mock trial in real life. After about a week, though, we pivoted again. We started working on scripts as just our side of the argument. We did it more like the show Court Cam. We were given a due date for our videos and then Ms Maxwell spliced our video with the ineffective argument’s video.

I used my class time very efficiently during this project. The only time I handed anything in late was my graphic organizer, because I was sick for a lot of the days we were working on it. I’m proud of how I used my time well. I’m not quite as proud of our finished project. I feel like it wasn’t the best that it could’ve been, and our group could’ve put more effort into it. Next time, I’ll strive to be at the point where our group is putting a full effort, or at least I am.

Thank you for reading my blog post!

Peace out,

Susan

Hey guys, welcome back to my blog. In humanities, we just started a new project. It was started with a blind launch with a simulation. We were placed into a society with different classes. Here is my character’s diary of the experiences I had:

This diary belongs to: Susan E.

If found, alert authorities, and they will know what to do with it.

October 31 (Day 1)

Today was an eventful day. The first thing that happened was me finding out that I’m in the nobility (group c.) This means I have many freedoms and many more dollars. I spent almost my whole paycheck on a lemonade to fuel my body for the day. I only had a dollar left, and I kept it safe to begin my day with the power that I have. Since I’m a part of the law enforcement, I have the ability to arrest people in the lower classes (group a and b.) I can arrest them for anything (or nothing,) and as long as the majority of group c or the king doesn’t disagree or doesn’t know, they can’t stop me. It’s not like I’m going to use that, though. Group b is thriving because they’re selling well at the shop, but group a is struggling. They make $1 per day, and the tax is $1 per day. Because my job also includes tax collecting, I chose to pay their tax for them for today. My life goal right now is to help them out and improve their quality of life. Currently, they don’t even have chairs to sit on! Today, I tried to talk to the noble King Luca about it, but he was too busy with other kingly duties. That was okay, and I decided to talk with him again tomorrow. For now, I’m getting ready to sleep. I feel content in what I’ve started today, and I’m excited to get back to work tomorrow.

November 1 (Day 2)

Today I did another good deed. I bought some food for some members of group a, and asked for donations for them from group b. Since group b has so much money, I collected donations for group a from them. I also gave the remainder of my money to group a at the end of the day, because they’re not very well off. Today also wasn’t super eventful, but the prices in the shop went up because there isn’t a lot of food to go around. There are mobility restrictions for group a, where they can only leave their territory to buy things from the shop, but it’s a bit of an issue because they don’t have enough money to buy things in the shop. So basically they’re trapped in their territory. Until we get the king to step in a bit, we’re kind of screwed. I’ve got to go off to sleep to feel refreshed for tomorrow.

November 3 (Day 4)

Yesterday, I completely slept through the day. I was just so tired. Today we found out about a disease sweeping our nation. This disease is highly contagious. We located traces of it in group a. Since no one has really been unlawful, we converted the jail into a temporary quarantine for the infected. So far, only 2 are infected. The two are Ronan and Kadin, and they’re both quarantining until we have a cure. The king is looking towards getting a cure, and decided that the uninfected members of group a will work on making a cure. Originally, I thought this was a good idea because they can make money from it. Looking back, though, it’s kind of a bad idea because group a shouldn’t have to be working long and hard hours just to help out their friends a little bit. A temporary cure got found, but just now we found out that it was a fraud and the disease has spread even more because we let the “cured” out of quarantine. I also got a gift for Kadin and Ronan to celebrate their perseverance through the disease. Other than that, nothing else really happened today. Tomorrow I will bring change and help group a get back on their feet. I’m really tired, but now I’m going to bed.

November 4 (Day 5)

Today, we got a special news bulletin about the disease. More are infected and today Kadin died. That is the least of the action, though. We found out nation Y, our neighbours, are on the rise and starting to attack our borders. The king and his court have received weapons, one of which is a very dangerous axe. I also just found out that they have had a cure for the disease for a while, but kept it from the rest of us, which killed one of the group a members in turn. I talked with the members of group a and b and we decided to assassinate the king and his court. A few minutes later my friend Owen, a fellow group c member, asked me if I wanted to kill the king and his court. I went up to them and told them I was there to kill them, while holding out my gun. I shot, but they all have very strong armour. I maimed Dylan, who was in our group but working for the king. They all told Owen to kill me to prove that he worked for them. The traitor shot me, and I collapsed, unconscious. I was almost dead, and they completely looted my body, but once they all left, I was able to crawl all the way to group a. I knew that they had medicine and I would have a higher chance of survival if I went to them. They told me that if I joined them, they would save me. I had no choice, but I thought it was a good idea anyways, so I agreed. The kind souls saved my lives. We received word from nation Y that they wanted us to join them. We were willing, but we had no way to get there without going through the king and his court, who would kill me on sight. Eventually, they came over to group a and killed my new friends, my saviours. I ran away and hid. Right now, I’m sitting in a little shack I built myself in the woods, far off from nation X, nation Y, and any other civilization. I’m on my own and I’m going to spend the rest of my days in peace, knowing that I’m safe in the woods using my survival skills.

Thank you for reading through my diary of nation X (renamed to Nation King Cool, which is a name I do not acknowledge because of the disgraced, dethroned, king)

-Susan

When I started this project, I didn’t really know what geography was. I mean, I had the start of an idea, but I really didn’t know what it was. The first thing I learned about geography in this project was how it can be defined by the 5 themes. These themes are place, regions, location, human-environment interaction, and movement. Over the course of this project, I learned what all of it means and how it can apply to geography. Evidence of this is shown in my multi-touch e-book, which will show up later in this post. 

I also answered a very important question. Did you think I forgot about the driving question? *Gasp* I would never!! The driving question was “How does the geography of the West shape who we are?” Over the course of this project, we worked on defining our answer to the question. My answer was the economy. At first, when I was deciding on my answer, I was like, what the heck, what does that even mean? How can the answer be the ECONOMY? I was so confused, and I had a lot of questions, but eventually, they were all answered because of all the new things I got to learn!

So, how can I apply my answer to the question? This is an important step, because I can’t really go around saying “How does the geography of the West shape us? Well, because of the economy.” At first, I was confused about that, but I managed to answer myself. Some people might be able to figure it out, but for the most part, it’s too broad. So, I’m going to provide some examples of how geography shaped the West’s economy, and how that defines who we are today, because I’ve been learning these things over the course of the project.

My first example is the Canadian Pacific Railway (the CPR.) This shows how the geography of the West shaped us and our economy because the railway was really important for getting across Canada. The geography was the reason this was needed, because if Canada was a really small country, this big railway wouldn’t be needed. The CPR assisted Canada in the ways of tourism and communications. For example, newspapers from Ontario would’ve never been able to get to BC in a short amount of time before the CPR, but after it was built, that was super easy. With the opening of Banff National Park (the first national park,) many Canadians wanted to go there, but could only get there by train. All in all, it fuelled the economy a lot, not just because you had to pay to go on it, but also because it contributed to tourism and travel.

This photo is from Cave and Basin, the kickstarter for National Parks Canada.

My second example is our resources. For us in BC, this means mainly fish and lumber. The geography of Canada gave us these resources, and because there’s so much of it, it can be sold to other people. Forestry has changed over time, though, and this is because people started to realize that we need the lumber to help our economy. Originally, there was no effort to conserve the forests. This is shown in the 1-slide Keynote presentation that I did with my group for a class activity. I did this with Luca, Callum, and Caden. Looking at the slide, modern forestry is a lot better at keeping the forests alive. I think part of the reasoning behind this is that we rely on the forests to keep our economy doing well, and so we’ve started to realize that we can’t just kill it all off, because we need it. 

It’s not the best slide when it comes to graphic design because we had limited time, but it shows the gist of it.

My learning over this project was assisted by an 8-day field school to different places in the West. Some of the places that stuck out to me the most were the Three Valley Gap Chateau, the Royal Tyrell Museum, the Banff Natural History Museum, and the Pioneer Village. Here is a slideshow of photos I took on the trip with my friends:

Here’s a slideshow of photos I took on the trip of different landscapes:

I guess these could be described as the physical and cultural assets of place. The photos with my friends are the cultural assets, because they’re sort of like the memories we made when we were there, and the landscape photos show the different bits that don’t necessarily have those kind of memories and cultural bits and pieces of our history attached to them.

Finally, here’s my book! This is my multi-touch e-book, featuring my answer to the driving question and my connections between different places and the 5 themes of geography. Read on:

That’s it! I hope to continue learning this much through to the next project, and the next, and so on. See you in the next project!

Peace out,

Susan