Mpol

So far this year, we have done and learned so much. From the Alberta trip where the seycove bus broke down to the avatar-themed winter exhibition, this blog post is a reflection on everything I learned PLP this year.

First letā€™s talk about my learning plan.

In the growth section of my humanities 9 chart I said I wanted to stretch my comfort zone by being more open when it comes to talking to others and sharing my ideas. This semester I failed to do this, but the year isnā€™t over and Iā€™m going to try to keep this goal in mind for the rest of the year.

For the maker growth section, I think I successfully completed my goal of being the most creative version of myself that I can be, and I think I demonstrated this success through the rollercoaster project we did near the end of the semester. I also think I was able to build on my chosen skill, which was my engagement in class. I feel like I have gotten better at paying attention to teachers when they are speaking, and I have also gotten better at taking in information.

In science, I think I accomplished my goal of asking more questions and asking for help when I need it. This is something I have struggled with as a learner for a while, and Iā€™m glad Iā€™m finally starting to cross that barrier.

some goals I want to set for the future include:

  • setting an alarm and improving my sleep schedule so that Ā I can get to school on time more often
  • start using doodling to take notes
  • Set aside time for homework (I know Iā€™ve talked about this a lot before but I am going to actually do it this time)

Hereā€™s my core competencies.

For my communicating competency Iā€™m not sure that profile 4 is accurate for me, and Iā€™ve demonstrated this through my (in my opinion) inability to talk to people that I donā€™t know that well. For my creative thinking competency I think I was able to demonstrate a profile 4 as my learning plan says, and you can see evidence for this in my asexual reproduction comics, which I worked to make interesting and creative concepts/drawings for. For personal awareness and responsibility, I think a profile 3 is slightly inaccurate. I could get to a profile 3 by coming into tutorial time when Iā€™m missing an assignment instead of procrastinating. For my collaborating competency, I think a profile 3 is accurate and I displayed evidence for this in the rollercoaster project, in which I helped my group to build and present our rollercoaster. For critical and reflective thinking, profile 4 is accurate and I have evidence in the exciting electricity science project, in which I used information I had learned in class to form a conclusion and make an electrical circuit that worked. For my positive personal and cultural identity, I think at the start of the year a profile 4 would have been inaccurate, but right now it is. I feel throughout this semester Iā€™ve really opened up as a person and Iā€™m way less self conscious.

How the Geography of the West Shaped and Shapes Us

Our first humanities project of the year was called ā€œthe Power of Geography,ā€ and it sets it self apart from the others by being the only project that had a trip in which we went for more then a week. We had so much fun creating and presenting our answers to the driving question. I wonā€™t be covering everything we did on this trip, because there is simply too muchto cover.

The first thing we did on this project was bus all the way up to a ghost town. The food was pretty good and the hotel beds were comfy, so I rate this place a 7/10 because there was no wifi in the rooms, but everything else was pretty cool. After exploring the place we did a reflection thingy and then we went to bed.

My favourite part of the trip was the golden Skybridge and zip lining, but the part where I learned the most was definitely the Columbia Ice Field.

Here are some photos and my e book from this project. Ā 

 

Handle With Care

We just finished one of the first projects this year, and this blog post is going to be my reflection on it. In this project, we learned about ecosystems, the earths spheres, bioaccumulation and biomagnification.we also learned about all the impacts that humans have on these things.

what did I learn?

I learned about many different environmental concerns in our current society, and more importantly I learned about the different things that I have listed above.

Iā€™ll start with bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Bioaccumulation is when one small thing, like a fish, consumes a kind of micro plastic. Then, later, a larger organism like a shark comes along and eats that fish. Since the shark eats hundreds of those fish a day, it now has a hundred micro plastics in it. That description was kind of bad, so hereā€™s the GIF I made to visually represent it. IMG_4232

biomagnification is a little different. Biomagnification is when the higher up on the food chain you are, the higher concentration of contaminant you have inside of you.

Speaking of food chains, letā€™s talk about them.

Iā€™m sure youā€™ve heard of food chains, but you might not have heard of the different pieces that make up a food chain. Producers (e.g, plants) make their own food, meanwhile consumers eat producers and other consumers. Decomposers work to decompose the waste that the producers leave behind.

hereā€™s the masterpiece I made to show how food chains work:

Reflecting: what could I have done better?

something I feel I could have improved on for this project was my participation. I was absent from a lot of classes (I canā€™t really be held accountable for this but still) and I didnā€™t make many notes. Next project I will be sure to actively involve myself in class.

Extra stuff we did in this project

 

 

 

The ultimate design challenge

The ultimate design challenge was a project we did to test our designing and math skills. In this project, we learned how to calculate the surface area and volume of many different types of 3d shapes, and learned how to build, model and design using a 3d modelling app on our iPads. In this blog post, I will be explaining and reflecting upon my learning in this project.

Our goal for this project was to create and object in an app called Tinkercad, and then do various measurements of that objects surface area and volume. We had to either maximize surface area or volume, and then put it in a presentation to show to the class. The object that I created and measured was a solar panel.

And donā€™t think I forgot about the calculations I had to do for my object. Here are the slides I used in my presentation which include all of the information needed.

Reflecting back on this project, something I would have done differently was spend more of my class time working on this project. Failing in this area led to me having to do a lot of my work last minute. Another thing I wouldā€™ve done differently would have been to make a more interesting object, because in my opinion a solar panel is pretty boring. In the future I will be sure to use my class time more efficiently and learn from my experiences and mistakes in this project.

 

The loon lake learning advance

Honestly, when I found out we were gonna be going on our first learning advance, I was quite nervous. But, in the end I decided to go, and it was a blast. Here, in this blog post, are all of the things we learned on our Loon Lake learning advance.

When we first got there, I was very relieved. Who wouldnā€™t be, after an hour long bus ride? The first thing we did at Loon Lake was take our stuff to our cabins. I was a little disappointed to not have been put in a cabin with my friends, but I got over that quickly. The second thing we did that day was go to eat lunch, of course. The food up at Loon Lake was much better quality then I had expected. After that we did advisory (going over rules and how youā€™re doing), had evening fun (self explanatory), had dinner (which was delicious) and then went to sleep back at our cabins. And just like that, day one was over.

Breakfast had to have been the highlight of my trip. It was so good, for day 2 breakfast we had pancakes and breakfast sausages. After that, we headed down to our morning advisory, which I had some trouble getting to. After that we took the ā€œferryā€, which was a dock type thing that you could pull across the water, across the lake so we could go on a nature walk. I loved the nature walk, I really enjoy being outdoors. One of our teachers saw a fox, and I found a piece of what looked to be quartz. I donā€™t really remember what happened after that, so we had advisory and dinner and went to bed.

The last full day there was spent doing tons of fun activities like laser tag, battle archery etc. when we finally got home, I have to admit I was a little relieved. The trip was fun, but my bed at home is much more comfortable than the one at loon lake. That basically sums up my school trip to loon lake. I had lots of fun, and in the end I managed to also form new bonds with some people.

This is the Ebook I made while on the learning advance.

The Laws Of Lasers

Hello, and welcome back to my blog. This post will be about a recent project we did in scimatics (science x math). This project we did was meant to teach us about light and the Pythagorean theorem.

Here is my ā€œproject start mind mapā€. We make these at the start of every project that we do in scimatics. Throughout this project, we answered many of the questions I had on this map.

for example, what are lights properties?

One property of light could be reflection of light. Speaking of reflection, we also learned about the law of reflection. We performed an experiment to try to prove it, this experiment was done to show that when light hits a reflective surface at a certain angle, it will bounce away at the same angle.

The final part of this project that we did was our laser display. We were supposed to make a right triangle out of a laser using mirrors. Our theme for the laser display was ā€œGhost Bustersā€

this was our display area for the lasers. Our display was the largest one, but sadly because of this (or at least weĀ thinkĀ because of this), the laser couldnā€™t reach all the way and was very faint compared to everyone elseā€™s.

Destination: Imagination!

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! This post will be an introduction to what Destination Imagination is and everything we are doing in it this year.

first of all, what in the heck is destination imagination? Destination imagination is a yearly event that includes multiple different groups, all with different topics, where students have to create something (that something depends on the group they are in). That thing is then presented to a group of judges and the end goal is to beat the other schools.

 

the group I am in is called ā€œup closeā€, and is based on microscopy. The something that my group had to create and present was a play acted out by us. It had to be set in a micro-world, and there had to be a mysterious object of some sort that appeared at any moment during the play.Ā We also had a budget of 150 dollars to spend on props, costumes and other what nots.

unfortunately, I am not aloud to tell anything in this blog post about our ideas or script, due to the rule of DI that states ā€œif an idea is shown to a different team/group, that idea is now unusableā€.

The next part of DI is instant challenges.Ā Instant challenges are challenges where you have limited time to build/create something in a certain amount of time with specific resources. I canā€™t find any photos of instant challenges, so see you next time!

 

mPOLs: the magic of learning

This post will be a summary of everything that I have learned this semester. I will be starting with the maker subject.

to start, I have to say that maker has been one of my favourite subjects this year. I had so much fun learning about photos, drawings, and becoming a PLP learner at the start of the year. I learned different techniques to use with my apple pencil when drawing, different angles in which I can take a photo to express emotion, and how to use keynote to the best of itā€™s ability.

You can learn about the different art pieces I created inĀ this blog post

it showcases almost all of what I learned about art and drawings in that post, so I highly recommend looking at it. There will be a summary of what I learned in that post, but it wonā€™t be as detailed as the other one.

The first thing that we explored was using pressure with our apple pencils. We learned how to create bubble letters and express ourselves through that. We learned about how we can use different textures and add pressure to give depth and emotion to our drawings. An example of my leaning here is my word bubble art.

In this example I showed how I can use shapes, words, and lines to express what I am thinking and how I am feeling. I used different pressure settings to colour and shade the letters.

In this project, we also learned how we could jot down our feelings through doodling and art. We learned about how different fonts can send different messages, and how to keep a story engaging while also being able to learn from it.

that was a few examples of my learning in this area, now letā€™s move on to the second part of this project: photos, A.K.A, Herzog. Here isĀ the blog post for that topic.

in this area we were taught how to express emotion through angles and editing. We learned how to make an interesting and expressive photo, and how to add to it to make it more expressive.

some of the examples of my learning in Herzog are these photos that I took:

These are some angle photos I took with my partner in this project.

Next Iā€™ll talk about scimatics. This semester in scimatics we learned all about lasers and tectonic plates. We learned about this through creative ways, like a laser display or a board game. For the math component, we focused on fractions and the Pythagorean theorem. Here are some things I created for scimatics this year.

This is a picture I took of my laser display for our laser project. Our theme was ghostbusters.

These are the game rules for my board game. The purpose of this was to learn about tectonic plates.

next Iā€™m going to be talking about my humanities subject. Along with Maker, Humanities was probably my second favourite subject that I had this semester. We learned and built knowledge about acting, poems, and advertising. Throughout all these projects I think I learned a lot.

In our acting (Tableau) project was really fun and very interesting. This project was where I first learned about world view and how interesting it was. We read and watched The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton to try and get a grasp on the subject, and it worked. We saw through their eyes and how the characters saw stuff. When we finished reading the book and after we watched the movie, we planned out an event that was to be held at the winter exhibition. We were going to present a series of tableauā€™s, each one showcasing a different scene from the outsiders.

This is a panorama of us setting up our tableau

This is us presenting it.

next up, and my most favourite project thus far, has to be the poetry project. I really didnā€™t think writing and learning about poetry would be very fun, but I genuinely enjoyed it quite a bit. We learned about many different poetry terms, here is my list off terms:

We used all of these to help build our knowledge. At the end of the project we held a coffee house to show off our poetic skills!

the last project I will be talking about today is the first one we did in humanities the whole year: our advertising project.

this project was really fun, and now that Iā€™ve done it I am able to recognize all the different methods of advertising when I watch YouTube or a TV show.

for this project, we were supposed to create an ad poster for a real business in the cove. Here is my individual ad poster:

This was my final draft. It was a lot more simplified than the others that I created, you can find them on this blog post.

And thatā€™s it! A rough explanation of everything I was able to learn this year. It was very exciting and interesting and I cannot wait to see what PLP has in store for me next.

Witchcraft And Itā€™s Connections to Therianthropy (pt 4)

This is now part 4 of my small series of blog posts: Therianthropy. In this post, I am going to be talking about witchcraft. Yes, I know what most of you are probably thinking right now, ā€œwhat do you mean witchcraft? Thatā€™s the most ridiculous thing Iā€™ve ever heard.ā€ But witchcraft is a real belief and is practiced by many people all over the planet, including myself.

First off, what is witchcraft? I can guarantee that it isnā€™t what you are picturing right now. (Most) witches are very nice people with a strong moral compass, not villains or people who deserve to be burned at the stake. Witchcraft is all about discovering yourself and helping you on your spiritual journey, not about ill will. All the stereotypes youā€™ve seen are complete lies, there is no cauldron or human eyes or wicked smiles.

beyond the stereotypes, witchcraft is about herbs, crystals, astrology (not the type of astrology you are thinking), the elements, and much more. People of any and all beliefs can practice witchcraft, and if you would like to learn more about it you can do some of your own research on the topic.

Now howĀ does therianthropy and witchcraft collide? I would say most witches believe in past lives, and they are both spiritual topics. There are also many witchy ways to discover your theriotype, and most Therians (from my research) participate in witchcraft in some way.

Here are some things you absolutely need if you start practicing witchcraft.

1. A grimoire

A grimoire is basically a book in which you write down all your findings. It might include spells, rituals, herb meanings, or anything else you wish to include.

 

2. Various jars/herbs

These are very much necessary for spell jars, spell bags etc. herbs are very useful in the world of witchcraft. Hereā€™s a LinkĀ to a short run down of what a spell jar is.

 

3. At least 1 white candle +candle colour guide

Candles are also an essential part of witchcraft. They are used for meditation, sealing spell jars, and much much more.Ā HereĀ is a candle colour guide, you will need this as colour magic can also be very useful.

and of course, always do your own research! Witchtok is my main resource for info, as it has many resources that come from other witches who are much more experienced then me.

Quadrobics For Dummies (therianthropy pt 3)

Hello, and welcome back to my small series of blog posts: therianthropy. This post is about the sport that is quadrobics (quads for short), and will include a small tutorial from me on how you can learn to do them!

first off, what is quadrobics? Quads is a sport in which you learn to run and jump on all fours. In my previous posts you may have seen some pictures of people doing quadrobics, and while it seems easy, quads can be very challenging and dangerous if you have no experience.

we are going to be covering 2 different parts of quadrobics, and I will link more tutorials at the bottom of the page. These 2 parts will be trotting and running.

(1. Trotting)

to trot, start by getting on all fours, and move different sides of limbs at different times.

Your wrists may hurt for the first week that you practice quadrobics, but they stop hurting after a while.

once you have mastered this movement, you can move on to running. Keep practicing until you can do it in complete comfort.

(2. Running)

running is easy. Start while standing up (this only applies if you have no experience with quads), and lean down until your hands touch the ground. Then use your hands to push off and then your feet. Repeat this until you want to stop running.

Once youā€™ve gotten the hang of running and trotting, you can follow these other tutorials to learn how to jump, but make sure youā€™ve practiced for at least 2 weeks before you attempt a jump. You could hurt yourself.

Moss_the_quadrobists jump tutorial

Atlass..jumps tutorial

Dotted.paws quads tutorial

if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments :]