Julia’s Journey

A guide to my learning

Unboxing Me 📦

By

On April 4, 2025

In Maker

How might I tell a story about who I am and where I’m going?

I believe a story can be told in so many different ways. They can be conveyed by speaking, dancing, artwork, singing, and really any way you want. This is what is special about you, no person has the same story, you are one of a kind. 

In this project we explored the importance of organizing your life. With so much going on, it is hard to stay accountable and focused, but this project has focused me on setting goals and using organizations tools. 

What do you really want?

This was the name of the book we read. To make sure everyone was taking in information, our teacher asked us to complete the activities within the book while reading it. I chose to do the activities in my bullet journal. I have been bullet journaling for a long time, and it really helps me express my thoughts onto paper, while doing it in a fun and creative way. The book really got through to me because I sometimes struggle with what I want to achieve in life. It made me see that making goals, short term and long term help, and they help with what you want to achieve in the long run.

What is a SMART goal?

A Savvy, Measurable, Active, Reachable, Timed goal is a SMART goal. This is a great way to help set and achieve goals. An example of a non smart goal is “I want to improve.” This is not specific and it doesn’t follow any of the criteria of setting a SMART goal. An example of a SMART goal is “I want to improve at shooting in soccer, because now that the goalies are better my shots need to be low and hard. To show my improvement I want to score a goal in a bottom corner by the end of the month.” This goal follows all the SMART steps. When goals are this specific, they are easier to track and make for yourself.

Staying Organized

In addition to reading this book, we learned in depth about the apps Things, and Calendar. I have been using Things since the beginning of grade 8 and it has kept me on track and made sure I don’t hand in any assignments late. We learned to start time blocking in calendar. It tells you when events start and end, and you can even categorize them by colour and name! Once these 2 skills were set it was time to be set free, although for them to work you need to keep up with adding things to your calendar and assignments to Things. 

Final Video

The driving question for us to answer was ‘how might I tell a story about who I am and where I’m going?’ 

In the video, we included keynote animations which we had created beforehand. This was fun because in the video the pictures moved, and I thought it was fun to create them. We also included some goals we made and our plan to achieve them in the future. Although my final career decision hasn’t been made, I want to become a lawyer of some sorts. If I set myself up for success then I should give myself choices in the future, which is incredibly important.

Conclusion

Staying organized comes in many shapes and forms. You can be a messy person but have a base organizational person. You can also be a neat person and input events and scheduling right away! Do whatever works for you, but remember to stay on track and focus on the end destination, the final place you want to get to.

As my future is incredibly important to me, I want to set myself up the best I can. That starts now. This project has walked me through goals, organizational systems and really learning about who I am and where I’m going. These things all matter but the second I’m not organized it gets thrown away. So, I need to keep up with the systems I’ve put in place, and keep on track.

Thanks for reading!

Destination Imagination Regionals

By

On March 12, 2025

In Maker

And just like that it’s Destination Imagination time again…

Challenge

This year I was assigned to the Engineering high wire act. I was in a group with Gemma, Esther,  James, and Quin. I thought we worked exceptionally well together, and our final performance was a success. 

Preparing

Within the weeks leading up to the tournament, our group had a ton of fun writing the script, getting costumes together, and rehearsing. 

We started off with our script, making it funny, relatable, and easy to follow. I think our script is one of the best things about our performance. We worked really hard on all of the pieces to our presentation, especially the props. They really add to the overall effect when the story comes together.

How We Created Our Story

Hire Wire Act

That was the name of our challenge this year, the engineering one. We were tasked to create a transporter that moves along the tournament provided cord to complete weight(s) transport. We also had to tell a story in the form of contemporary circus. A daring display, and an ensemble spectacle also had to be present in the performance. 

At the very start of our DI journey, we still had everything to do. One class, Gemma was singing a Greatest Showman song, and our story sparked from there. We re-watched parts of the Greatest Showman and crafted our script by taking existing parts as well as incorporating our own ideas into our take on the ‘Greatest Showman’

Our performance told the story of 2 young boys on the lookout for adventure. When they get in trouble and find themselves in an orphanage, they escape to create a circus!

After provincials I will give our story in more detail.

I was really proud of our group, especially because of the props we built, as I said before. I found our group worked well together, especially because everyone pitched in and brought something different to the group. This years DI went a lot smoother than last year because I had done it before and I felt more confident. 

Team Reflection

Our whole group thought our performance went well, and all that was left to do was continue our success into provincials! Our one thing we want to improve on is to not have a bunch of time left over after we present, because we were just waiting for our machine to finish its rounds after we finished. It was a bit awkward but not the end of the world!

Reflecting Back On Last Year

In grade 8, I felt our group wasn’t ready on DI day. We weren’t really prepared, and everything was quite last minute. This year, we had our lines memorized, props built and everything done on time. I’m really proud of our final product, and I hope we continue until provicials!

Thanks for reading, be ready for provincials coming soon!

Mid – Term Presentation of Learning 📚

By

On March 5, 2025

In Uncategorized

Welcome to my Mpol 2025!

Ms. Kadi, this is my Mom, Katie. 

Pol Declaration

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

As I begin to look back on this year, I realize it has been quite a journey. Coming into my second year of high school I had some big expectations for myself. I wanted to achieve all my goals and have a successful year. “Failure is success in progress.” – Albert Einstein. Lets rewind to September and retell my learning story.

VMV’s

I chose 3 success behaviours to focus on at the beginning of the year, agency, self regulation, and communication and collaboration. 

Agency

  • Own up to my mistakes in front of a group
  • Learn to accept constructive criticism in a more positive way
  •  Set achievable goals

Self – Regulation

  • Balance my sports and school by only taking the amount of time needed to complete the assignment
  • Attend tutorial time to be in a focused learning space
  • Finish work before due date, not being stressed is a priority

Communication and Collaboration

  • Communicate with teachers if needed, help is okay
  • Support peers by critiquing their work when asked
  • Group work is challenging, share the work between everyone

Reflecting back upon my Vision, Mission, and Values, I think I have really opened up and adapted my style of working in a classroom this year to work with my VMV. I know that I will never be a perfect learner and I will always have flaws, but taking these steps and following my VMV has helped me become a better peer, student, and person. 

Maker

Everything we have done in maker this year has been fun, engaging and interesting. My favourite project of all has to be Unboxing Me, which we are currently still contributing to. This has opened me up and exposed me to real goal setting and learning who I am as a person. We launched the project by starting to read the book called ‘What do you really want?’ Every chapter we were to complete an activity, but you could choose if you wanted to do extra. I have bullet journaled for a few years now, and it really helps me pour out my feelings onto paper. So when we launched ‘Unboxing Me’ I knew I would love it. 

Science

Lately, Science has been quite enjoyable for me. Everything we have learned has made sense to me, and really taught me to take a step back and look at the world from a different point of view. For instance, our ‘Watt the Heck!?’ Project really Opened up my eyes about electricity. We completed an energy infographic, I selected Hydropower, and as I researched all about it, I figured out it is sustainable, and it does affect our environment. It helps save energy and is a sustainable way to generate energy.

Humanities

I was looking forward to Humanities 9, because it focuses a lot on history. The past is something I’ve always been interested in, and this year we are learning in depth about the significant timeline of the past. A powerful project that told the story of the past quite well, was the one we completed for the Winter Exhibition. Vive Les Machines À Métaphores dove into the revolutions. We started by reading a book labeled animal farm that showed the point of view of animals living during that time. After reading the book and creating an infographic about Animal Farm, we moved into groups specific to a revolution. I got assigned to the Haitian Revolution with Maya, Madeline, Ella, Chloe andMilaina. We first learned about the revolution individually by researching and creating an infographic, then came together and built a metaphor machine (Rube Goldberg machine) for the winter exhibition. I was really proud of how our group came together to collaborate and communicate to come out with a final product we were all proud of.

Successes in and out of School

So far this year I have focused on keeping up with my goals and completing them to the best of my ability. Especially over the last few weeks I have really started to do well in a lot of things. I have worked so hard to get to where  I am and I really hope to keep it up. 

Starting off with out of school, I recently got an invite to play 2 ID camp days with the whitecaps coaches. The players who got invited were 2008s 2009s and 2010s. Only around 30 people were there, which is an incredible achievement for me. Right before stepping onto the field for day 1, an email came in inviting me to a BC ID camp. I am really seeing my goals in soccer coming to life right in front of my eyes.

 

School on the other hand has been a lot this year. Throughout high school, each year is getting more and more difficult. I just have received my grades for PLP in the last few weeks, and my goals are real! One of my goals at the beginning of the year included achieving extending in all PLP subjects. This latest report card reflected all the hard work I have put into that goal. I am so proud of myself, now I just have to keep it up!!!

Things I need to Work on

I have many things to work on to help me improve as a learner, but here are a few that stand out to me:

  • In group work, making sure everyone’s voice gets heard 
  • Pausing my work to go help a peer who needs assistance 
  • When collaborating, making sure everyone gets a chance to participate 

To help me improve I can:

  • Attend tutorial times to work in a focused learning space
  • Asking for help when needed, by both peers and teachers
  • Communicate with my group to figure out roles within

How can I grow as a Learner?

I have talked about my VMV, classes and what I can improve on. I have spent so much time reflecting back on the year its truly amazing to think we are already halfway through! Even thinking back to last year, I have grown and changed both as a person and a learner. I feel as if I have grown in group work, making sure everyone gets a chance to participate, which was tough for me last year and even at the beginning of this year. I can always grow more, become a different better version of myself, but one of the main things I can do to help is complete work to the extending level. I love the feeling when a project was just marked and you get a 💯. To keep on top of this I will hand in work before the due date, attend tutorial times when needed, talk to teachers and parents for support and get lots of sleep!

Conclusion

Thank you for listening to my Mpol, I appreciate you listening to my learning journey so far this year.

I will reflect upon this post in my Tpol in June.

Lost In London

By

On March 2, 2025

In Humanities

For the past month or so, our class has been working on a project called Rise of the Frankenstuffies. We have started out by learning all about the background to the Industrial Revolution, and then we started our final assignment for the project.

Our iMovie was the final assignment to show our learning progress throughout the project. 

Driving Question

How can we, as writers, weave historical details into our creative storytelling to convey a clear and impactful message?

I think a big part of historical storytelling is making sure the information is accurate, detailed and informative. Connecting the audience to the storytelling and how the story is told is important. When the readers are interested and engaged in the story it makes more of an impact because they care about the problems in the world, and how they can help to fix them. And example is the Covid 19 pandemic. In the past there had been multiple pandemics such as the Plague, the Spanish flu, Smallpox and many more. Covid taught me a lot about how much impact people can have in the world. First responders worked day and night to make sure communities were the safest possible. Every night at 7 everyone in my neighbourhood banged pots and pans together, played instruments and even the bagpipes making noise to show our appreciation to our first responders. Even though we couldn’t come within 6ft of each other, we stuck together and got through the pandemic. Weaving details into storytelling can make an impact on the world to connect people and to bond over things we feel passionately about. 

What is the Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution happened from 1760-1840. A revolution is ‘a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.’ As I learned about revolutions, and Haiti before winter break we had a good start on what a revolution is. Check out my post here.

Within the Industrial Revolution many things happened, such as women starting to work in factories, coal mining and railroad being built. So many things impacted the Industrial Revolution and this project was one to summarize it.

To first get into the swing of things we watched a BBC video and were told to create doodle notes on provided templates. I had a ton of fun creating these notes, as doodling and visually learning help me remember information well.


Urbanization Game

This assignment was designed for us to get a feel for how packed the towns were when new inventions and people were starting to get added. We started out by having few houses and a comfortable town. As the game moved along more things were added. Things escalated quickly as soon as more people arrived. More people means more food, more housing, more roads, more more more. When everything adds up, you can see how crowded places can get, and fast.

Puzzle 

In this puzzle we learned about a specific part of the Industrial Revolution, then filled in the other parts from other classmates who learned about other things. I learned about Transportation, and I found it interesting to compare to today’s transportation. 

Now that we had learned all about the importance of the Industrial Revolution we could start with what it had all lead up to, our Frankenstuffies! We started by cutting up our old stuffies and sewing them together! I had a lot of fun creating mine, I found it oddly relaxing to take them apart and put them back together. With our stuffies complete we had a few more things to do before filming and editing could begin; our hero’s journey and storyboarding. 

Hero’s Journey

This was the part that took the most time because we had to basically write out our entire story, but separated into categories. The categories signified how the story moves on from the beginning to end. Each category represents a part of the story with lots of detail describing the events going on. 



Storyboarding

Storyboarding was so much easier as soon as the Hero’s journey was done. All I had to do was take the information from my Hero’s journey and put it in the storyboard and accompany it with some drawings.

Filming and Editing

I struggled with filming because it was tough to get the stuffy to be straight, not wiggle and cooperate with me. Since I had decided to weave my story through with Madeline’s, we needed to film our stuffies together and have them be in most scenes with each other. It was a complicated process to get filming done, and we needed multiple people to help with holding the stuffies on the green screen someone to film, etc.. Editing was a completely different story. I struggled a bit with iMovie working, because my images were zoomed in too far, and I had to figure out how to zoom out and have the image the correct size. My green screen on top of the image, then was floating, so those images needed to be zoomed in, but not to much or else it would be blurry. Lots and lots of tweaking and changing my movie later, I started to drift closer to my final draft. We all handed in 3 different drafts. Draft one was just to show we had something done.

Draft two, my feedback was this:

And eventually, our final draft was handed in! It was done! 

Conclusion

I enjoyed this project because it was a challenge for me. My strengths do not include storytelling / writing, and creating videos. The more of these things I do, the better I become at them, despite how I feel about them. It’s ok to not enjoy something, because you’ll get better the more you work at it. 

I found learning about the Industrial Revolution very interesting to learn about, as it’s something I’ve never learned or heard about it before much. I learned so much about how the world has evolved. The more information I take in about the past, the more puzzle pieces I can stitch together to look at the big picture. 

Thanks for reading, another post coming later this week!

Watt The Heck!? 🧬

By

On February 12, 2025

In Science

Throughout the last month or two in Science we were learning about electrical circuits, and sustainability. To demonstrate our learning for this project we created board games! These games displayed our knowledge of electrical circuits as well as our ability to close a circuit so the light brightens up the room!

Driving Question

How does electricity shape our society and how can we generate it more sustainably?

Our society relies on electricity much more than we think. We are constantly turning on lights, running the oven or microwave, or charging our devices. These things we sometimes take advantage of; why wouldn’t we? But when these day to day uses are taken away from us, what do we do? We had a few power outages before winter break, where some houses, including mine didn’t have power for around 2 days. During this time, I really thought about how much we rely on light, power and especially wifi! Everyone just takes it for granted, because its used for day to day things – video calls, school, work, charging electric cars. 

We can reduce electricity use by turning off lights and when our devices are fully charged, unplugging them. Using minimal air conditioning and heating also has a big impact on saving electricity. Solar power (using solar panels), wind mills, and hydropower are the main sources we can use to make energy more sustainable.

Sustainability Infographic

I really enjoyed creating this infographic because I learned more about how I can help save energy not only within my home, but in other places as well! I chose to learn about Hydropower for my Infographic because I felt like it could be interesting to research, and I also didn’t know a lot about Hydropower. But the big question we were answering is, ‘is Hydropower sustainable?’ Here’s my answer to that:

Hydropower is sustainable. Many rivers and streams get fed into the reservoirs and man made lakes, so the water supply is constantly being renewed. A Hydropower plant is not affecting the water from the environment because when the water is done being used for energy it returns downstream and continues its path through rivers, streams, and eventually to the ocean. Hydropower produces no air pollutants and has low greenhouse gas emissions, so Hydropower is sustainable!

Electricity Board Game

I found the learning in this building knowledge was difficult because of the materials we used. We experimented with making little lights light up with batteries. Once we had gotten the basics buckled down, we could move onto the bigger, better things. Our assignment was to create a board game to demonstrate our knowledge of electrical circuits. 

To make this game, we needed to draw an image, tinfoil the inside of our shoebox, and then add the wires and batteries to make the light illuminated. I struggled with lighting mine up, the tinfoil got messy and it fell apart. The good news is I understood the concept, so I could help others with making theirs light up!

Reflecting back on this project, we handed in a comment to Showbie what electrical concepts we used to make our game, and if it worked or not. I struggled to get Shreks nose to light up, but I learned a lot about electrical circuits, electrons, protons, and neutrons.

Conclusion

Our society relies on electricity, and everybody takes it for granted. If we could lift our heads up and follow an action plan to make energy more sustainable it would make an immense difference in our lives. Turning off lights, short showers, unplugging devices, are all simple things that could make a difference in our lives. I stride to practise these things because with climate change, green house gases and fossil fuels, we need to change the world sooner rather than later. People need to realize that these things are important soon, otherwise things will never change for the better.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

Julia

Vive Les Machines À Métaphores❄️ Winter Exhibition

By

On January 13, 2025

In Humanities

Happy New Year!

Over our winter break, I have gotten the chance to reflect on the project we had worked on for several months. To prepare for the chaotic Winter Exhibition, we learned about revolutions and Crane Brintons stages of the revolution, and we read an old book called Animal Farm.

This is my group, and this journey through learning, and the Exhibition we took together was an amazing experience.

Driving Question

What Factors Precipitate ‘Revolution’ and How Have They Shaped the Modern World?

A revolution is ‘a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.’

Many factors can impact the beginning of a revolution including government injustice, economic crisis, growing intellectual opposition, and weak rulers. When these instances are ignored, or put lower in the list of priorities, other governments, and/or the people of the kingdom will break down and not function as before.

These factors shape today’s world because each one of them is still happening somewhere today. Government injustice is a name for inequality, where in some countries people don’t have the opportunity, the choice to vote. We are very lucky in Canada to have such amazing lives and not have to worry about starving, or being unsafe.

In the Haitian revolution, the people of Saint Domingue were ignored and enslaved, which meant day after day of endless work in extremely harsh conditions. When the enslaved peoples took a stand, it didn’t bring peace to their world right then and there. They had to fight tough battles, with lots of sacrifices. Although Haiti is still an extremely poor country today, back during the revolution, the brave and inspiring people set an example to fight for your rights and equality today.

Animal Farm

The book we read to kick off this project was called Animal Farm. It was an oldbook, with differentiated opinions, but the ideas and plot of the book hit hard. This book was hard to follow, but when I spent time really trying my best to understand
it, it made me understand the basics of a revolution. When we finished the book, we were assigned the infographic to make. An infographic is a visual chart used to represent information and data. In our case, the stages of revolution displayed in Animal Farm.

Click here to review my notes

The Haitian Revolution

Heading toward the date of the Winter Exhibition, we had to know what we were doing for it! We discovered that we were to make metaphor machines (Rube Goldberg machines) to represent our specific revolution. My group members were:

Ella

Madeline

Milaina

Maya

Chloe

Before we started creating our machines, we learned about our revolution individually so we all knew what we were doing when we got together. I worked very hard to understand the Haitian revolution, and I am very proud of my infographic outcome.

First, to understand a revolution and the stages of it, we focused on Crane Brinton and his stages of a revolution. The 4 stages are the Moderate, Incubation, Crisis, and Recovery. We used the information and notes we made on Cranes theories to create an infographic. Little did we know, more infographics were coming our way! I had trouble understanding Cranes theories at first and translating my knowledge into an infographic, but the help of my teachers and peers made a difference. When I understood what was going on, I could participate in the class conversations, which benefited my learning because I could then apply those topics into my infographics.

This is my individual infographic:

Individual Infographic

After we had completed our individual revolution infographic, and we all understood our revolution, we then created a group infographic with all of our information combined into one very detailed infographic.

This is my group infographic:

The Haitian Revolution:

Government Injustice: The people of Haiti, or back then called Saint-Domingue had four groups of people. 1. The big white planters who owned the plantations and all the slaves. 2. The wealthy free people of colour. 3. The poor whites who worked as artisans and labourers. 4. The slaves who made up the majority of the population. Slavery was a big factor because their owners had full control of their lives. Economic Crisis: The slaves weren’t getting paid, despite the extremely long days they worked harvesting sugar. The slaves worked so hard, people would frequently die because of the harsh conditions. The people at the top of the chain had freedom, money, and a risk free life. Military Victory: In August 1791 a massive slave lead war broke out. Among the leaders was Toussaint L’ouvertur, a former African slave. The Spanish, led by Charles IV, had supported the slave revolt and joined up with the slaves against the French. In October, 1793, the British decided to invade Saint-Domingue, and now the French was outnumbered so they decided to free the slaves. To turn the tides of the war, L’ouverture switched to the French side. Luckily for the people of Saint-Domingue, L’ouverture was an able politician and he turned the colony toward independance.

Rule Of The Moderates: As the slaves learned about the current situation with the government they became upset and began to thrash out. The French gave the crops and materials to the slaves, and forced them to work endless days to prepare and harvest the crops, and then the sugar and coffee go back to France. The French make so much profit here, and the slaves get nothing out of it which is why they decide to act out and fight against the French. The slaves were lead into battle by Toussaint L’ouverture along with few others. L’ouverture became an officer in the Spanish military. A while later, L’ouverture decided to switch over to the French side. L’ouverture, with the help of Jacques Dessalines was able to win the civil war after 13 months of hard fighting. L’ouverture was arrested and shipped to France where he died in his prison in 1803.

Civil Or Foreign War: France tried taking all the weapons away from the slaves, but they fought back and won against the French despite the French military having more training and better weapons. The French were exceptionally cruel and executed women and men, and trained man eating dogs from Cuba to kill some fighters. Radical Gain Control: In 1799 Napoleon ceased power in France and had big plans to reconstruct France’s empire. To carry out his plans, Napoleon needed money. He decided to reintroduce slavery into Saint-Domingue to make the money he needed. The Haitians fought back and won which shattered Napoleons dreams of creating his very own empire. Radical Revolution: When the Spanish, British and slaves were all working together, the French were thinking ‘we are not winning this battle,’ so they decided to free the slaves and all would be well. Previously, the slaves had been treated as the French property so it must have been quite a change for the slaves.

Radicals Ejected From Power: On January 1st, 1804, Dessaline, who had defeated the French declared the island of Saint-Domingue independent and reintroducing the name Haiti. The original name of the island had been Haiti before Columbus arrived and changed it. The declaration of independence was a rejection of France to a certain decree, European Racism and Colonialism. Haiti was the second free and independent state in the Americas. War Or Peace: Although Haiti recovered in that time period, nowadays Haiti is still in debt to France. The Haitian independence debt means that Haiti owes France money from what they helped them with in the revolution. Since they are an independent piece of land, they need to pay off the land fees to France as well.

 Conclusion

I really valued this opportunity to work with the amazing group I had, and the chance to learn something really valuable about the Haitian revolution. Of course, our group had its ups and downs, but we pushed through and ended up with our metaphor machine working about 80% of the time, which is a huge success for us.

Thanks for reading!!

Running a Remake 🏃‍♀️

By

On December 13, 2024

In Maker

Making our Run! Remake video was a hard but rewarding challenge. We went through many different stages, with trial and error. Overall I had a really fun time making this video with filming, editing, and working with my peers. We came to class one day, put into random 3-4 person groups and told to make an exact replica of this Run Horror Film. 

Driving Question

How might we learn video skills by recreating a short film?

Creating a short film is a lot of hard work because of all the small clips we need to film. I really found it challenging filming the 1-2 second clips, because they had to be incredibly accurate. I learned a lot filming this because it made me realize that I need to pay attention to the small details in the original and then use the same angles, time, speed, and costumes. This was a difficult assignment, but I think we did well to make an accurate recreation of the horror film.

This was a really challenging video to recreate because it needed to be the exact costumes, length of time and sound effects. We went through many different steps to finally finish our final video, but all our hard work paid off because I am proud of how it turned out. 

Film Day #1

The first draft video we made I was with Eloise, Samuel, and Ian. We went into the forest with a plan and excited to film. Our video did not turn out very close to the original, but thats okay, because we got a second chance a couple weeks later. I would add our first video on here, but I lost it when iMovie updated for some reason. I enjoyed working with my group, because I feel we collaborated well, and supported each other. 

Redo!

After watching all of our videos in class, our teacher announced we were to make a whole other version of this video, but this next video required a ton of planning. My next group I was assigned to was with Tyler and Siena. Siena and I were away in Phoenix for a soccer tournament on the designated film day, so we filmed on review and completion day the next week. I was very proud of this next video because we had the correct costumes, and we were prepared and ready to create a remake!!

Although this video took only one day to film, we spent a lot of time preparing for film day with making a screenplay and storyboard. 

Screenplay and Storyboard

A screenplay is a script of a movie that helps direct and have a plan when filming. We had to make a screenplay to help us create our plan of action. 

A storyboard shows the different scenes that we are going to be filming. We made a storyboard describing what happens in each clip of the video, with a drawing and a description of the clip in each box of the storyboard. 

Filming and Editing

I think our filming went very smoothly this time. Part of it was that we didn’t have a time constraint because we weren’t filming in class. I didn’t really help all that much with editing, because editing was mostly a one person job considering we weren’t together, and Tyler did an amazing job!

Filming this video was extremely challenging because you had to run with the person in order for the filming to look good and accurate to the original video. It was hard running with the camera while trying to keep it steady. I enjoyed the editing part of this assignment, because with Tyler and Siena, with them both knowing what they were doing, it went very smoothly, and we finished efficiently. 

Conclusion

I enjoyed this project because I learned even more about filming techniques and editing throughout this assignment. I loved working together with both groups, and I really enjoyed the challenge of assignment, because it helped me zero in on my editing and filming skills. 

Thanks for reading! Be ready for my next post, Winter Exhibition is coming up quick!!

Take Your Kid To Work Day 🗂️💼

By

On November 15, 2024

In Maker

Take your kid to work day is an annual thing the grade 9’s do every year. This year was my year, so I got to experience many wonderful things within my dads company.

Driving Question

How does experiencing a workday shape our view of career choices?

For my workday experience I had the privilege of going to my dad’s work with another classmate, Madeline. My dad’s company is Xenon Pharmaceuticals, and he is the CEO. The goal of Xenon is to help patients with neural disorders, and developing innovative therapeutics to help these patients. I thoroughly enjoyed my day at his work, and all my dad’s colleagues worked so hard to make this day the best it could possibly be. There were 9 kids including me and we did everything from learning about brain tissues, learning about what the different jobs look like, and even doing science experiments. Xenon is in the process of creating a drug that will help patients, mostly with epilepsy. Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes recurring, unprovoked seizures. Not all seizures are caused by epilepsy.

Co-Op Students

At Xenon, we got to meet 3 different Co-Op students, two that worked in the lab, and one that was looking at slides under a giant microscope. These students were really inspiring because they entered the Co-op program at UBC and tried around 50 times to get into a company that would take them, and didn’t rest until they had a job. They take an 8 month break from school, to come work in a real life job, where they have been studying and get to learn from the people who do it every day which is so interesting. I am really inspired to go into this program because I think it could really help me make a decision on which type of job I’d like to retire to. At the moment I am interested in going to law school, although I don’t know for sure. I think becoming a Co-op student could really help me with finding a job I would be happy and excited going to every day, and have the experience of working in a real life scenario.

Our Job

I knew this day was going to be no relaxing day without a job to do. Our assignment was to make a video about TYKTWD, and include an interview, what you did throughout the day, and different shots to include in the filming process. 

Video

For privacy reasons I can’t publish my video for the world to see, but I can definitely show some pictures!

This is my dad in the lab. He is the CEO of Xenon Pharmaceuticals.

 

 

This is Madeline and I, with our name tags ready for the day!

Thank You Letter

After we finished with TYKTWD, we wrote thank-you letters to the mentors we shadowed for the day, I wrote to my dad. This was mine:

Hi Dad,

Thank You for your time and energy for making “Take Your Kid to Work Day” possible. The interviews I acquired were very valuable, and my experience helped me understand what you do for your job, and what a normal day looks like for you. I appreciate the time you and your colleagues took to make my day fun while educating us. I learned so much from the day such as what each job looks like and the cool things that happen in the lab. I loved looking at the brain tissues and moving the computer around to see the tissues under the microscope. I learned a lot about the Co-op students and the time they have spent in the lab. It sounded like every one of them enjoyed it, and I hope to be involved in that program someday. In our Maker 9 project right now, our driving question is, “How does experiencing a workday shape our view of career choices?” We used storytelling and videography to show how experiencing a workday can shape our views of careers. I have sent you my Take Your Kid To Work Day video on iMessage, and please feel free to send feedback to help make my video the best it can be. Thank you again for your time and patience in allowing me to come to your place of work for the day!

Sincerely,

Julia

We learned how to send a proper letter, that was professional and sounded well put together. Although I only wrote to my dad, it was important to practice writing emails like this for the future.

Conclusion

Overall, this day was so rewarding and I am so glad and grateful I got to experience this. Thank you to everyone who made this possible it was truly amazing. Take your kid to work day shaped my view on career choices because I got to learn about the different jobs people do, and see what a real job looks like day to day. Thank you to everyone who made this day possible, I really appreciate everyone who made this day possible.

Thanks, 

Julia

The Wilderness Must Be Explored 🥾

By

On June 19, 2024

In Humanities

This year has flown by. I enjoyed every second of it because it was just so much fun. Before I registered it, I was in Oregon having the time of my life! There was so much that happened in this project, and in this post I will be telling the story of how the spring exhibition came to life.

HIKING QUARRY????

As you may know, this project was all about advertising. We hiked the rock as a class, and when we got to the top, our assignment was to ask strangers why they came on the hike. Most said either because they saw it on instagram, or they heard about it from friends or family. After we collected that information, we had to take a picture of the peak for our advertisement we were making. This is the picture I took: 

When we finished our hike, we went home and we tasked with making a first draft of an advertisement for Quarry rock. We all had to make an original catchy slogan to go with our ad. My slogan was ‘Life’s Better At The Top.’  

This is my first draft of my Oregon ad. My feedback was that it was ‘missing something.’ I thought for a while, and came up with an ad that looked like this. 

This is my first draft

This is my second draft

I had added pictures of us along the hike, although my teacher and peers then thought it looked too crowded, which I agreed with. I pondered about how I should make it more eye catching when it hit me. I changed the shape! Everyone thought my ad looked so much better  in this format.

This is my final draft

I think this advertisement hit the right spot. It has contrasting colours, a catchy slogan, and some other photos to get a viewers eye. If I were to revise this once more, I think I would make the letters of my slogan a thicker solid font, so it has more of an effect on being bold. Other than that small change, I think that this ad was a good start to my journey of creating ads!!

OREGON

I won’t put too much information in this section, because we did so many fun things and learned about the coolest things. If you want to read more about our field study along the Oregon coast, then you can flip through my adventure book! 

In our adventure books, we added information about the places we went, videos of us trying new foods, zip lining, and having the time of our lives! I found it a bit challenging to keep up with all the places we went because every new place had a new page.

EXHIBITION TIME

As soon as we arrived back home from Oregon all focus turned to the Spring Exhibition. We were all put into groups around 5-6, and were assigned a theme. My group consisted of; Madeline, Ella, Cece, Griffin, Marcus, and me! We were all tasked with making individual ads with a consistent font, theme, and layout. This is mine: 

We also all had a colour pallet that we were sticking too. It was mostly dark forest greens, and deep blues to go along with natures colours. I think our colours really represented Oregon well because I saw a lot of those colours while I was in and along the Oregon coast. After everyone had a 👌 in Showbie, we got the go ahead to start building our stations and our merch. Our merch was created by different people in our group, and all the articles of clothing, or water bottles had ‘Oregon’ somewhere on them. Our group slogan we created was ‘Oregon, discover your potential.’ Here are some examples of our merch my group and I designed together:

GROUPS

Within our group of 6, we decided to focus on 3 main attractions we stopped at. Because our theme is discovery and learning, we chose the Tillamook Creamery, Fort Stevens, and the Yaquina Head Tide Pools. Ella and Cece were responsible for the Tillamook station and they chose to make a milk the cow diagram and a diagram of how the cheese gets made. Griffin and Marcus built a cannon and had information to go along with it, and Madeline and I created a touch pool, where all the sea animals could be touched and felt in the pool (they were all fake). I think our stations were a huge success and everyone really enjoyed them. 

After putting so much of our time into making our ads and our station a success we were done! All that was left to do was clean up. I think that our entire Spring Exhibition presentation was a success, and I loved that my group and I worked so well together in this project. 

SO, HOW DOES LANGUAGE INSPIRE ADVENTURE?

This was our driving question for this project and here’s my answer to it. 

Language can inspire adventure because it can be verbally communicated to excite someone into wanting to do something or it can be something that is written such as an advertisement. As we have been working on creating and designing our very own ads, I have learnt the principals for using colour, font, and other things to make my ad stand out and be unique and original to me.  I think a slogan is a great way to use words and make a person want to be involved with whatever the ad is saying or telling you to go. Adventure can be a fun way of getting out of your comfort zone and becoming a new version of yourself. I think language can be used in a fun and creative way to persuade someone to go on an adventure. Language plays a massive role in inspiring someone to do something or go somewhere.

THANK YOU FOR READING

Thank you so much for reading my post all about our Oregon trip and the Spring Exhibition. This is my final post I will be making in grade 8, so here I come grade 9, and good bye grade 8! ☀️

Time to tPOL!!!

By

On June 18, 2024

In Humanities, Maker, Science

Statement of Learning

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

I have grown and changed so much throughout grade 8, and overall I loved my first year at seycove. PLP was a new program for me. Despite hearing some things from Charlie, I didn’t know too much about how it worked, the learning we were going to be doing, and how I would like it. I am really enjoying my time in High School and PLP, and for now it is a perfect fit for me. 

In my mPOL I set goals for myself and reflected on my learning plan, and in my tPOL post I will be talking about my year in grade 8 as a whole, talking about a few selected success behaviours and setting some goals and things I hope to achieve in grade 9!

RESILIENCE

In the category Agency, I chose Resilience. An example of resilience would be working through DI (destination Imagination). DI was an interesting experience.  I’ve done DI before, where we got first place, but this was nothing like doing it before. When I got my group, I was thinking ok, we can do this, but oh boy was I ever wrong. We did our plans, and got our story sorted out, but we still had a script to write, costumes to make and find, and props to build. We dedicated 2 pro D days to making our props which turned out really well! The only problem was the DI competition was a week away, and we needed to practice and figure out the other small details. We ended up spending long days at school, and the weekend memorizing lines. I think the competition went relatively well, although if we had more time I think our story could’ve evolved and been a little better. Over the course of finishing our performance I got frustrated a couple times. Yes, sometimes I like things to be done my way, but that isn’t always the answer. I think that when I get frustrated I tell myself things that need to get done, rather than making and doing unnecessary things that aren’t very helpful to my group. I need to focus on bouncing back and spreading out the work so that everyone can be successful in my group. For me, showing resilience is being flexible with my peers, listening to their ideas and communicating my thoughts openly. In the end, DI went ok. If my group used our time better and bounced ideas off each other earlier I believe we could have done better. You can read about my first DI experience here.

ENGAGEMENT 

The next success behaviour I am going to talk about is engagement. Compared to the beginning of the year, I have gotten so much better at class discussions and participating. At the beginning of the year, I felt like I knew what to say and that it was at least somewhat right, but I didn’t want to mess up or say the wrong thing, so I didn’t say anything at all. This was a huge mistake because as I spoke up more, and became more confident with my ideas and thoughts, I got more things correct, or it was a good idea. Now when a question is asked, most of the time, I can shoot my hand up and present my idea, and be confident in myself. Of course, my thoughts aren’t always right, and I have gotten better at accepting that. Sometimes I’m thinking along the right lines, but it just doesn’t quite fit, or sometimes I am 100% on the wrong track, and need to rethink everything. Being wrong and correcting your answer to make it right shows learning because you can show what you learned by explaining why your answer is wrong. I can show my engagement through my blog posts and even in my mPOLS and tPOLS! Here are some examples of my blog posts:

Consequences of Colonization

All About AR Maker

All About Atoms

COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 

For my third and final success behaviour I chose communication and collaboration. 

With teachers: I have become so much better at communicating with my teachers openly. As I learned about my teachers, and got to know them, I became aware that I am not wrong to ask questions. Asking questions shows you are engaged and aware of what’s happening around you. I ask my teachers questions in person and on iMessage, whenever I need help because its not wrong to need help.

With peers: In group projects, I feel as if I am a trusted and responsible group member. I will do my part in the project, and accept and give feedback. I think I demonstrated this best at the End Of The World project, where my group was sometimes off task, and needed some reminders to hop back on and stay as engaged as possible. 

With Technology: I believe I am responsible with my iPad in class, and I am always doing what is expected of me. I stay on task, and do my best to get my work done in class. I had some trouble in the earlier stages of the year, when messages would become distracting, but now I can block those out, put on DND (do not disturb) and focus on the task at hand.

SCIENCE

I learned so much in Science this year that was all new. Last year we didn’t get to do fun experiments where we could involve our hands and be creative in new ways. Where as this year we get to balance doing fun experiments with learning cool information to then using that information and making our projects with it. The project we just finished doing was called Small But Mighty, and in this project we were taught all about cells in our bodies which we demonstrated through our immune system character cards. I was really proud of how I took the feedback I got on my field journal and made it better. I struggled the most with making my observations precise and accurate. 

Another project we completed in science was our scratch video game. This game was another example of how I showed resilience. I found it very frustrating that scratch kept glitching and game deleted several times, but I kept at it and eventually I got it. Coding is something I can continue to work on, and the more I do it the better I will get at it.

HUMANITIES

Humanities has been an up and down subject for me all year. Some projects I thoroughly enjoyed, and some I disliked. In life, you can’t choose it all, so I dealt with it! We have done so many projects this year from writing songs to presenting to grade 11s! The most recent project we did, the Spring Exhibition, was the one I chose, because I think it shows my success behaviours I chose the most. The project on the spring exhibition all started with our field study along the Oregon Coast. As we went, little by little we added to our ‘adventure book’ which was a document of the activities and things we did. Other than the book, our project was all about advertising. We were split up into groups for the Spring Exhibition and my group got the theme Discovery and Learning. We were to represent the theme of our group in our advertisements about the Oregon Coast. I love that everyone in my group collaborated and contributed to our dazzling final result. I think our presentation at the exhibition turned out great and it is definitely something to be proud of.

 

 

Over the course of the year, worldview is always something we put into consideration. ‘How does this affect your worldview?’ ‘How does this project influence your worldview?’ These were questions we were peppered with and they will always and forever stick with me. It helps me put myself into other people’s shoes. The Oregon trip influenced my worldview because all the little stops and stores and jobs people do can change a persons mind.

WHAT HAS HELPED ME GROW AS A LEARNER?

2 small things have helped me become a better learner in and out of school.

  1. Attending Tutorial 
  2. Using The Things App

PREPARING FOR GRADE 9

Looking back on my grade 8 year, I have learned so much about how PLP works, how my teachers teach, and how my peers work. Although grade 8 is a difficult year, I love that I now know that getting revisions is ok, and learning from your mistakes is great, because you are a better learner from it. 

A goal I am setting myself for next year is being more efficient with my time. I feel as though I spend more time on my work than I really need to. To make it become good to great takes time, but not so much that I am only adding little things at a time. 

I feel as though I am ready for next year, and I hope that it is just as fun or even more so than this year! I have become more confident in myself as a learner and a leader in the classroom, so I hope this shows through next year, and the following years as well.

Thank you so much for listening to my tPOL!! Have a great summer!!! ☀️⛱️

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