✰SBC Week 8: Let’s Reflect✰

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   Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the final week of the SBC! For the past 8 weeks I’ve been participating in weekly challenges! This is the final post of the challenge and that only means one thing. It’s time to reflect! 

pixelcreatures / Pixabay

   As a student, I typically have trouble enjoying assignments and projects if I’m not immediately hooked. I’ve done SBC a total of 2.5 times. How is that possible? In 2018 I completed my first ever SBC. At the time I was in the first term of eighth grade. One year later I started my second SBC, and never finished. As a way of making up for the incomplete challenge, I signed up for the spring SBC. Each time I’ve learned something different, and of course learned from and reflected upon my mistakes. This time, I challenged myself to try and format my posts a little differently than I usually do. I tried using different plugins, and practiced new ways of using Creative Commons without tools like Pixabay. 

GDJ / Pixabay

   The other big takeaway from this challenge was taking the initiative to actually do the work without the reminders from my teachers. I’m proud of myself that I did that mostly because it has encouraged me to work harder at doing the same across other subjects. 

   I figure that I should probably include some of my favourite things from this challenge so here you go! I can say without a doubt that I loved doing weeks 4 and 5 the most. I always enjoy the free choice week because it gives me a chance to talk about whatever I want. This time around I wrote a post about how I’m doing during this pandemic and covered some of the things I’ve found myself doing nowadays. Week 5’s challenge is always fun. I love digging deep pinto one specific subject that I feel passionate about. Talking about environmental issues, especially around Earth Day was a great way to get me to reconnect with outside, after all I live in BC so there’s a lot to love (except for the constant rain). In conclusion, I took away a lot more from this challenge than I did with the other 1.5. I pushed myself more than I did before and I had fun doing it!

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

– Ciara

☎️DI Why…Online?☎️

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   Hello ladies and germs! And of course I can’t forget about all the gentlemen out there. But really this is a lovely welcome to the newest edition in my life and the lives of billions of others, germs! Except these aren’t regular germs. There are the kind that carry a bad virus that caused a global pandemic resulting in the closing of schools and what feels like an eternal life of loneliness due to social distancing! This is me trying so very hard to be optimistic but as you can see I am struggling. One of the things that is getting me through this period of social distancing is online school. That may seem very weird as most students hate this new format, but as a proud member of PLP I’m kinda used to it. We do everything through iPads and technology so the learning itself hasn’t changed much. The weird part is not entering my classroom everyday and not seeing our teachers and learning from them in person. This entire situation has really made me think about how much I took getting up at 7am every morning for granted. It’s almost like when you get a cold and are stuffed up and you start to regret taking clear sinuses for granted. Anyways enough about my lonely existence and on to more important topics!

sumanley / Pixabay

   On April 4th 2020 Gabe, Thomas, Felix, Brenton, and myself were set to present our revised version of our DI skit. But due to COVID-19 the provincial tournament was cancelled. When the news of school being closed all together came around we thought that we had put in all the hard work for nothing. Out of seemingly nowhere, our teachers decided to improvise! Although it wasn’t perfect, and we couldn’t show all of our work on the most important elements of the challenge, my team, and all the others, presented our skits over a Zoom call to an improvised panel of judges including one of our own, Zoe Wooles.

   Before I dive into how this Zoom presentation went, I’d like to cover all of the improvement my team made after the regional tournament. At regionals, my team may have come first, but all in all, we didn’t really deserve the win and we definitely wouldn’t have gotten that far if we were in a different category. After our presentation, we immediately decided we needed to step things up to a whole new level. In class a few days later we had a discussion recalling all the things that went poorly and needed to be fixed. We made plans for a new and improved backdrop, designed possible improvements for our bridge, and edited our script to fit our missing group member, Felix.

  • Script page

   When we were hit with a brand new challenge, my mindset was already in a delicate state. Not being able to socialize, go out, have fun, or learn in familiar and enjoyable environments was a difficult adaptation to make. Adding to that with a Zoom DI presentation, ouch. After we’d heard that school was cancelled, my team kind of gave up and stopped communicating overall. Obviously that was a mistake that we later made up for in what I thought to be a pretty good presentation, especially under the circumstances. As we couldn’t show the bridge, backdrop, or props that would’ve aided our skit, we depended heavily on the story, which I wrote. When preparing for regionals I felt that I should put my strengths to good use and write a creative story that was still realistic and met standards. In doing so I felt like I didn’t really help the team enough with the bigger elements. With the improvised skit, my hard work and “creative genius,” as I like to call it, came in handy and made for a fun and successful presentation! We also put together new backgrounds and utilized Zoom’s virtual background feature to set the scene. 

   At the end of the day we were forced to drop everything and improvise. I personally think we were successful and to be honest, the online tournament was a fun kickstart to our new online schooling! After all my entire team was able to understand the new process, navigate the changes, and make adaptations in a time crunch, which I count as a win, especially with the competency we’re being assessed on.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk…and please, rember to stay home and wash your hands!

– Ciara

🇨🇦This project was Rielly Interesting🇨🇦

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Métis Flag

   Welcome back to another humanities portfolio post! Before COVID-19 took over the world, my humanities class focused in on a story that would lead us to further understand ethical judgement. Louis Riel was one of many Canadians to shape our country in one way or another and studying him gave us insight on how Manitoba was established. Our driving question was, “how can we present past actions and decisions through images to help us make decisions of what is fair or unjust?” In order to answer said question, we researched different ethically questionable events in Canadian history with a a partner and decided whether the outcomes were fair or unjust.

Clayoquot Sound Protests

Milestone 1:

The first activity we did was a basic current event. It was a seemingly simple task that ended up giving me a boost of curiosity towards the rest of the project. Our task was to research an event similar to that of the Wet’suwet’en protests in BC. I choose to focus on the protests at the Clayoquot Sound and learned that these protests were some of the largest in Canadian history. To finish off the assignment, we had to share our thoughts. This is where I got my first taste of deciding whether the outcome was fair or not. I ended up having a very mixed opinion about the ordeal which was challenging but very good practice for what was coming up later in the project.

Milestone’s 2-4:

Alongside studying Louis Riel, we were assigned a partner to research another topic with. Ryan and I chose to do the Chinese Head Tax. We started out doing some initial research and eventually started making drafts of our images that would later end up on our class’ instagram page dedicated to the project. This part of the project allowed for me to really get into my element and dig deep into the subject. I learned tons about the Head Tax and the severity of the discrimination. Knowing all that I do now about the ordeal, I can confidently say it deserves way more recognition. After compiling our research and making our images, my partner and I had to decide if the matter was fair or unjust and it really goes without saying that everything that went down with the Head Tax was horrific. As I said before, it deserves more recognition for how utterly unjust it was. 

Louis Riel:

The title of this project is, “Let’s Get Riel,” and it fits. (Shoutout to Ms. Maxwell for the name!) throughout the entirety of the project we read a comic book entitled, The Louis Riel Comic Strip. The book tells the story of a Métis rights activist named Louis Riel. His story is really exciting and interesting and grabbed my attention as a reader. Considering this is a portfolio post, I probably shouldn’t get carried away and retell the entire story so instead I’ll just recommend reading the comic. Spoiler alert, Louis Riel dies. Riel spent his life fighting for the Métis and the Red River Settlement (which is now part of Manitoba.) He constantly challenged the Canadian government and tools risks that made fellow politicians weary. He fought long and hard and made some very, very ethically questionable decisions along the way. At one point he was emitted to a mental asylum due to him being convinced that he was the next prophet. At the end, he was charged with execution and was hung for his crimes. 

Louis Riel

   My class held a debate on the subject of whether his death was unjust or fair. We were randomly separated into the two teams and had one of our classmates, Ben moderate the debate. I was arguing that his death was unjust and offered a rebuttal that I was quite proud of. In the end the our closing statement was a bit weaker than that of the opposing side and it lead us to defeat. The debate really helped me in our final milestone. We had an in class writing assign,ent in which we had to deliver our personal opinion on Riel’s death. I came to the conclusion that he was neither a hero nor a villain. Some of his actions seemed more heroic, but as time went on he seemed to grow simultaneously tired and restless. His actions became more irrational but his motive was still clear.

   In conclusion, this project taught me a lot. I learned to analyze past events and judge controversy in ways I can document and understand. I really enjoyed this project as it allowed for me to get into my element and really brought out the best in my researching abilities. I am now able to recognize and comprehend ethical dimensions like never before and I can connect my opinions to that of others. Finally, I have to end this post on the following note because once again Ms. Maxwell amazed me in the seemingly weirdest way possible. Enjoy the exit video and see you in the next post!

Louis Riel For Dinner (from The Criterion Collection “My Winnipeg” DVD) from Drew Christie on Vimeo.

 

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Ciara ✌️

✰SBC Week 7: Emojis✰

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johnhain / Pixabay

   Good morning, afternoon, evening, or night! Wherever you are and whatever time it is welcome to week 7 of the SBC! This week was all about emoji’s. As a fan of the emoji’s that I use in my daily dose of internet, I can’t say I wasn’t excited for this task. In the first SBC that I participated  in, I made a guessing game for this challenge. My readers watch a video and guessed a movie based on the emojis I used to describe it. This time around, I thought I’d make the challenge a little more personal. Below are some questions for you to use the emojis to find the answers to. Each question is about me and all the answers are below! Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment at the end!

Question 1: 

How old am I?

Question 2:

What industry/field do I want to work in when I grow up?

Question 3:

What kind of pet do I have?

Question 4:

What is my favourite subject in school?

   Congratulations! You finished my little challenge! I hope you enjoyed and if you didn’t I’m also leaving the link to my first emoji challenge from my first time doing this challenge here. Feel free to compare the two and if you have any thoughts leave them in the comments below!

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk 😎👍

– Ciara

✰SBC Week 6: Schools Around The World✰

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AlexanderStein / Pixabay

   Good day to all my readers and welcome to week 6 of the SBC! This week is all about schools around the world. We’ve been tasked with asking our readers what school is like for them. Whether that meant how they get to school, what their typical day looks like, or even how they are still participating in school during this pandemic. I chose to put together a little survey that poses questions just like the ones above! I’ve even secured one spot for you to paste you blog URL so that I can visit you! Feel free to leave a comment below!

https://forms.gle/x1rGQ72DxZKvrvTT7 

– Ciara

✰SBC Week 5: Earth Day✰

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   Hello and welcome back! This week’s SBC task is to talk about our earth! April 22nd 2020 marks 50 years of Earth Day. This means that for half a century we have been celebrating the earth and spreading awareness about the several different things going on that can effect not only our futures, but also that of our planet. It’s my job as a participant in this blogging challenge to spread awareness about one specific topic surrounding the earth. I’ve chosen to research palm oil deforestation. 

e-smile / Pixabay

   In almost every piece of commercially produced food, exported all around the world, palm oil is an ingredient. Not only is it a main ingredient in food, it’s also used in cosmetics, and as a frying oil. While the product can be beneficial in things such as biofuel, which is a sustainable renewable energy, the path to farming palm oil causes immense environmental degradation. Roughly 4% of the worlds greenhouse gas emission and 8% of all global emissions are contributed to by palm oil harvesting. Not only does it contribute to global pollution, it also destroys habitats for a vital keystone species, the orangutan. 

blandinejoannic / Pixabay

   Over 3.5 million hectares, or 80% of Southeast Asian, more specifically Malaysian and Indonesian forests have been wiped out for palm oil production. That 80% counts for more than just trees. It’s the home of the critically endangered orangutan. The population of orangutans is continuously decreasing at rapid paces and has been for the past two decades. Sumatran Orangutauns have the lowest population with roughly 7,500 left. The biggest question is how can we help to stop the extinction of these animals. By purchasing products that contain palm oil, we help the business and allow for more deforestation. Deforestation often leads to poaching and ample more illegal activity. The point is, you can help. Try to find alternative products that don’t contain palm oil. Check the ingredients label before you purchase any items. And finally, spread awareness on this subject. It’s important that people understand where the things in their Nutella, shampoo, ice cream, laundry detergent, and more!

StockSnap / Pixabay

A few years ago I came across an advertisement that was released in Iceland, a country where palm oil is banned. They have moved away from private label companies that use palm oil in order to help stop corporations from destroying rain forests. The advertisement really gets the message through to the viewer and before seeing it, I thought very little of the massive issue that is palm oil production. Take the ad’s message into consideration and spread awareness by sharing it with people you know.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

– Ciara

✰SBC Week 4: Free Choice✰

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   Bonjour, and welcome to week 4 of SBC! This week we were given a free choice, which basically means I can write a post about anything I want and use the time to catchup on other work, which believe me I have a lot of! That might seem ridiculous considering the current global crisis evolving around COVID-19 but everywhere in the world is handling this pandemic differently. I’ve decided to take this free choice opportunity to ask my readers about their experiences during the pandemic. 

stux / Pixabay

   I’ve basically spent my time as if I were a cat. Sleep all day, eat when I’m bored and do very little physical activity. Not exactly the healthiest habits but I will admit that it was hard for me to cope at first. Having school closed and my soccer season suspended indefinitely was weird and shocking. Now were about a month or so into quarantine and I’ve changed up my habits. Living in BC comes with lots of rain but as we get closer to summer the temperature is rising and the sun is out way more often. I’ve been biking almost daily, jogging with my brother, and playing soccer at fields nearby. As for the school side of things, we started our online classes and so far I’m actually kind of enjoying them. Like most students, I miss the classroom setting but online school isn’t as bad as I would’ve thought. We’ve been working on a couple projects and I’m happy to report that I’m still learning lots!

geralt / Pixabay

   Lot’s of people around the world have been taking up quarantine activities. Some of my friends have been cooking, practicing new instruments, and even learning macramé. Of course in the era of Netflix and constant streaming, we’ve all been bingeing way to much TV. I’ve watched Brooklyn-Nine-Nine, Gossip Girl, and Grey’s Anatomy more than ever before! I’ve also been experiencing a sort of personal cultural reset back to 2013/14. Re-reading the Percy Jackson and Hunger Games series and listening to an unhealthy amount of One Direction has brought me right back to simpler times. (Not even kidding my inner Directioner is resurfacing.)

One Direction 2013

Fiona McKinlay / CC BY-SA

  All in all, quarantine has had it’s difficulties but I’ve worked through them and hope to continue being optimistic during this time! Now my question for you guys. In the comments let me know how your quarantine experience is going! It’s certainly not going to be the same for everyone so I’m curious!

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

– Ciara

✰SBC Week 3: Fun With Photos✰

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   Hello ladies and gents and welcome to the 2020 Spring Student Blogging Challenge! This weeks challenge is all about having fun with photos! I’ve decided to show examples of photos that I created and belong to me as well as show what it means to use Creative Commons images in an activity below!

In the slideshow’s below there are a series of images that represent a fact about me. The first slideshow is compiled of photos that I took and belong to me. The second is a series of Creative Commons images, specifically from the edublogs plugin, Pixabay.

#1. Guess my favourite season!

  • California 2017

Answer: Summer!

   I took all of these photos in the summer! They were taken in Maui, Italy, and California during my summer vacations!

#2. Guess my favourite cuisine!

Answer: Mexican!

   I can’t express how much I love Mexican food. Churros, enchiladas, tacos, you name it!

   Thanks for coming to todays Ted Talk!

– Ciara

♠️♥️♣️DI, Why Bridges?♣️♥️♠️

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Welcome back ladies and germs. I usually have a more creative intro but I think it’s necessary to welcome every single organism out there, including coved-19. All coronavirus  jokes aside, welcome to yet another DI portfolio post. Destination Imagination has been quite the rollercoaster this year. As the process has had me up and down for months I haven’t had much time to reflect, so here we are!  To read all about DI and my experience with it last year click here! Anyway, as I previously said, DI has been all over the place this year and if I’m being 100% honest, it has been nothing even remotely comparable to my challenge solution last year. That being said, I’m going to take this post in an abnormal direction, one that is more subjective to my experience this time around!

When my group was first brought together, I will admit I was anything but excited. Obviously I had a bit of a rock brain going in and as soon as I recognized that, I changed my views and tried to connect and collaborate with my teammates. As we’ve gone on I soon recognized the assets that each of us brought to the table. Skipping ahead a few weeks and there is still some conflict between team members but we have come a long way, especially considering our group dynamics. Being the only girl in my group of five did admittedly feel intimidating at first, which is very abnormal for me. But I realized that I was put in a situation that was going to be challenging because of that group dynamic and even more so due to the challenge we selected. Engineering involves math and science more than anything else. That alone made me uncomfortable because I’m not someone who can easily understand challenge requirements that are all about measurements, weights and efficiency ratio’s. The recognize portion of this project wasn’t just about learning the challenge requirements, or understanding the scoring this. Instead it was a mix of both understanding the challenge in full, finding ways to work peacefully with my group, and most of all step outside my comfort zone. Now almost two months after we started, I can see that I achieved in understanding my challenge and collaborating with my team. It was the fact that I failed to take risks that weighed me down.

Thinking in the most creative ways possible is what allows for success in DI. That along with a strong sense of teamwork, intuition, and leadership are what make for a great DI solution. In our initial team com react, we out each of those thing down and committed to achieving each of them. Overall our challenge solution is strong in some areas, just not the ones that will put us on top. As a group we completely failed in communicating and appointing a leader. All of the work would pile onto one person at a time and left us very divided. Leading up to provincials I’m striving for a first place trophy that we deserve. Whether that is for our challenges overall success or the success of our team really matters to me this time. I want to take risks and step outside of my comfort zone and into the topics and concepts that I’m not as strong with. While I did contribute to the solution in writing our story and working with the set, I didn’t do enough with our bridge and load. Provincials is only a few weeks away and I am determined to not let anything, whether that be my teammates, time management, or my own thoughts get in my way. We have come together as a group and discussed all that needs to be done in order to succeed. We need to allow for everyone’s voices to be heard and I cannot express enough how much we need to practice and prepare. Improvised acting and superstitions aren’t going to get us to where we want to be. Practice makes perfect and we were nowhere near perfect at regionals. For provincials I honestly think that we should edit our contract. We need to practice better communication between DRI’s. We need to practice better teamwork with preferably much less conflict. And finally we need to have every team member put in the same amount of effort in order to succeed. 

Over the past week or so, and into spring break and the return to school after, I plan to work hard on the parts of our solution that need help. Our set piece is going to be flawless and our bridge will be much more reliable than the last. I’m going to be able to put the bridge together even if it’s not my part in the actual performance. My determination is there this time around and I’m fired up for the next tournament!

Thanks again for coming to my TED Talk: Quarantine Edition!

✌️Ciara 

🩺🩸The CSICU || A Day in The Life🩸🩺

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DarkoStojanovic / Pixabay

Hey guys! Welcome back for another PGP related post! Yes this is in fact the highly anticipated post all about take your kid to work day. I was so excited for this entire experience and the project that went along with the activities was entirely enjoyable. I know that probably sounded rather sarcastic depending on how you read it but in all honesty I enjoyed the whole process. So what exactly is take your kid to work day? Every year since 1994 take your kid to work day has been a huge part of career education in secondary schools across Canada. The day, this year on November 6th, entails students going to their parents or family members workplace and shadowing them in a days work. I was lucky enough to accompany my aunt for the day at the Royal Columbia Hospital where she works as a CSICU nurse. My real challenge was to create a video and write an outstanding post about my expertise all the while answering some very important questions that we’ll get to soon enough.

    My day stared off way to early. I identify as a night owl and definitely not an early bird. Getting up before 6am did not appeal to me but as I was challenging myself to really try to live like a hospital employee for the day, I had to suck it up and somehow stay awake for the entire day. Arriving at the hospital was really fun because I got to put on a set of scrubs and walk into the CSICU for the first time. Incase you were wondering, CSICU stands for cardio surgery intensive care unit and it’s basically where all cardio surgery patients go to recover before being transferred to the general ward. At first being there was a little overwhelming but after I started to feel comfortable I turned right back into myself and began asking many, many questions. Next up was a hospital tour in which I saw some of the bigger departments that make the hospital run as smoothly as it does. In doing so I started to think about how the way people represent themselves within the workplace affects the way the hospital runs altogether. When we went through Respiratory Therapy, our RT presenter talked about how she thought RT’s were represented in the hospital. She mentioned that employees from other wards sometimes think of them as the firefighters of the hospital. They are there to monitor the breathing of each patient and they swoop in whenever goes wrong and evidently save the day. I started to wonder how the other parts of the hospital saw themselves and how the defined the contribution they made to the wellbeing of their patients. 

   Later on I asked my aunt about the rules revolving around confidentiality and liability and due to the strict rules I was not allowed to get any recordings of an any employees. This threw one heck of a wrench into my plans, especially considering that I needed to get an interview for my video. But coming prepared was an important piece of this project so I ran an alternative interview with a cardio surgeon from my aunts department.

In the interview I posed th question, “how do you think the different roles throughout the hospital impact the needs of the patients and the community?” His response was certainly a great way of representing his thoughts on the subject. “I believe that a hospital, like this one runs like a machine. Without all its parts and bits and pieces it can’t operate smoothly. If we didn’t have the lab, we couldn’t identify the problem. Without the doctors and nurses in their respective specialities we can’t fix those problems. And without the nurses, like your aunt, we couldn’t help our patients recover in full. For the impact on the community part, I guess you could say that the patients, the people that we treat are a part of our community and the impacts we have on their lives, have a kind of ripple effect.” My next question was referring to his decision to continue on the path of becoming a cardiovascular surgeon. I asked, “did you come into this specific field of medicine due to personal passion or another driving force?” He once again, had a strong response. “Well, in the beginning it was all a personal decision but once I reached the end of my residency I’d stared a family and I think that played a role in my choice to continue in surgery. Going into cardio was more or less based on  what I was good at and how much I enjoyed it.”

sasint / Pixabay

Shadowing my aunt was one thing, and it was really interesting to see what a day in the CSICU looks like but the real outcome of the experience was the insight on the working parts of any workplace. I learned from seeing the behind the scenes parts of the hospital that each and every department plays a role in every single patients care and wellbeing. I learned a lot from my interview with the cardio surgeon, who I was honoured to call Dr. Bob. (Yes that is what his co-workers call him). Later on while I was beginning to structure my video I came to the conclusion that it is the roles that every employee within a workplace plays that go towards the overall success of the business, company, or facility. A hospital could not run without the lab pathologists, OR nurses, or first responders and just like any other workplace it’s the way that those who do each job see themselves that makes an even larger impact.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk

✌️Ciara