Hi folks and welcome to today’s post. Todays post is all about the confederation and the commercial we created about it. For this quick little project we studied the Canadian confederation. We learned about the history of the birth of Canada and the conferences that started the whole thing. We were divided into the different colonies that were part of the confederation talks and we got to actually simulate the conferences our classroom. Now as I want to jump into my learning, let me give you a little starter info. The colony I was assigned to was Canada West (modern day Ontario), my group members were Ryan, Anthony, Finn, and Alex, and our driving question was “How and why did Canada develop into a nation?”. And now with that basic info we continue to what I’ve learned.

One of the most helpful milestones this project was the “Why Confederation?” Response. For me it was really good because it kind of lit my fire of interest about the confederation and made me want to know more. The other thing I really liked about it was the fact that I got to practice my writing. I’m not the most excellent writer and this project was mostly about videos, so it was really nice to be able to practice my writing some more. It was also the perfect example of the EVIDENCE competency. The evidence competency is all about using evidence to support the things you’re saying, and in this milestone you had to use evidence. We were supposed to write 1 – 2 pages about the reasons for confederation and you had to do that using the evidence that we found in the textbook we read. Overall this milestone was incredibly helpful to my learning in this project and was one of my favourite tasks as well.

The second milestone that really helped me was the final milestone the green screen video or our final commercial. In this milestone I was tasked with writing the final list of demands. This forced me to really think about what the demands would have been like back in the day, and how to word and write things so that it aligned with the other colonies. It was also really interesting to talk and make deals with the other colonies. There was plenty of discussion and trading of points and ideas, but there was also debating and coming to decision. All of these things are very applicable to the real world and are things my parents do in their jobs all the time. This milestone also fits in perfectly with the CREATE competency. The create competency is usually about using literacy skills in the texts you create. But this project was much more about videos. So for me in this project the create competency was much more about the video skills I used and learned, and in this project I learned a brand new skill. In the final video I learned to use a green screen. Now it was fairly easy but really useful to learn. Given that this has been a year of videos and will continue to be, I’m always glad to pick up a new video skill so that I can use it to create even more stuff in the future.

Personally I think I learned a lot from this project. In my opinion the most important thing was definitely the debating and and agreeing on ideas, because as I said it’s a very useful skill, and one that adults use in their lives daily. But in this project I also think I learned a lot content wise, even enough to give a shot at answering the driving question. The driving question was how and why did Canada develop into a nation and I think I have an answer. Canada developed because of economic need, the opportunity for extra land, and the need to become something. Canada had been under British rule for quite a while at this point and people weren’t just ok with that anymore they wanted freedom and a country of their own. And there were many people who made it happen. People like John A. McDonald who were driving forces to create the country we call Canada. It was a long process, but I think the country we have today, although flawed is worth it.

Anyhow I think that’s a wrap folks,

See y’all later,

Holly