An Average Post About Nuclear Development

On August 6th 1945, over 100,000 people died, approximately 80,000 instantly. This was the bombing of Hiroshima using the newly developed nuclear bomb, little boy. The focus of this project was the development of nuclear science (more specifically the Manhattan Project) and its consequences on the world, both good and bad.

During this project we asked ourselves, “How did splitting the atom change the world?” and explored many affects that it has or had on the people of the world and us personally. There were many ways that nuclear advancement has shaped the current world we live in, these being important things we could often think about like healthcare and medicine, or things we might not think about like food production in farming. Many of the important effects that the advancement of nuclear science had on our world are explained in this borderline propaganda movie from 1952.

Throughout this project, we learned about the categories of historical significance from the acronym NAME and applied it to the Manhattan Project and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.

Novelty
Applicability
Memory
Effects

This can be explained in this more in-depth video

To get a new perspective on these circumstances and help see them as less of a historical piece and more of a real event, we read the book “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. This book takes you into the perspective of six residents of Hiroshima through the days following the dropping of “Little Boy”

The final product of this project was a speech to be made in front of our class. For many members of our class including me, public speaking isn’t something that we were comfortable with. this added another layer to the learning from this experience, allowing us to begin overcoming some of the fears or difficulties that we face ourselves with. The objective of this speech was to convince the audience that the Manhattan Project was a historically significant event.

Do you think that you could order the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the name of hundreds of thousands of others?

This is the decision that had to be made in the face of power that the Manhattan project contained.

The power to change the world, for better or worse. The Manhattan project caused the deaths of over 200,000 people in the few years after its completion, but prevented possibly even more.

But what does that mean for us in the present time? How did splitting the atom change the world? I will answer this question using our criteria for assessing historical significance.

The first criteria that we use to assess historical significance is “how important it was thought to be at the time” The amount of effort that the US government employed to hide their development of the bombs from the public eye, makes it very clear that even the initial effort, without considering the consequences and outcomes.

It is very clear that it was thought to be of utmost importance at the time. The bombing of Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also thought to be important enough to cause the Imperial Japanese regime to surrender, thus leading to our modern age of peace.

The second criteria depends on how many people it affected. While not directly affecting that many people in the beginning, the manhattan project eventually affected at the very least, the people that did the research and the 100-200 thousand deaths from the atomic bombs.

This is quite the significant number of people, especially considering that those are just the deaths that the Manhattan project caused.

The lasting effects of the manhattan project extend much farther, affecting modern medicine, farming, and much more.

The developments funded by the us government for war, unintentionally catapulted our use of radioactive isotopes into the modern era. Thirdly, is how deeply it affected people.

This deep impact can be seen when you look at the families of the Hibakusha, those who were affected by the atomic bomb.

The bombs that were dropped on Japan as a direct consequence of the manhattan project not only killed over a hundred thousand people, but stopped possibly more than that many people from going to ware in the near future afterwards.

The developments to our modern industry have saved many lives, and affected the economy equally as much.

The fourth and fifth criteria reference the events ability to influence people and their beliefs for years afterwards. This criteria is interesting because they regard our lives today.

The manhattan project and its direct consequences have moulded our worlds modern power dynamic. This is because of the seriousness of modern nuclear weapons, and the damage and moral implications that using them would cause.

Today, many believe that using nuclear weapons without purpose is as close to evil as you can get. The sixth and final criteria we use to assess historical significance is whether or not it lead to other important events.

The manhattan project can be directly linked to the Cold War, and many other modern problems or situations regarding nuclear power or weapons.

Overall, the splitting of the atom has changed the world in many fields.

This change has affected most of the world’s people due to the developments in sciences, agriculture and more.

It’s deep, widespread, long lasting, and residual effects on the world and its people, have shown us that war is a strong developing force for humanity; even though war is a terrible thing in and of itself.

Thank you.

 

This is a video that I found that focusses on nuclear energy

This project has shown us the best and the worst that human beings are capable of, both of which being very significant to the development of the very society that we, and many others live in today. Can you imagine a world where we haven’t advanced nuclear science past the nuclear bomb? what does it look like? I find it very difficult to do so because I know how much of my life relies on the products of nuclear science. Nuclear science has revolutionized our world.

An average post about laser mazes

Hello again! Yes, I have returned… However, the SBC is over all of these posts will be post about my classes! Anyway, lets get right into this post!

This post is about the latest project that my class has completed. It was called mazer tag. To start off this project we did a fun little activity where we hid our target and took turns shooting our teams laser at the target using a laser pointer and a mirror. My team won (of course) and we moved on to the next activity. The first milestone of this project was a mind map with all of the questions and facts we knew about light going into this project.

Here’s an image of the mind map I made!

The second milestone for “Mazer Tag” was a quiz on the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem is an equation that can be done with a right triangle.

Here is an example of the equation.

The third large task we were assigned was a poster for our school’s winter Star Wars themed exhibition celebrating the release of the new movie Star Wars the Rise of Skywalker. In this poster, we had to show the laser maze that we created, along with the formulas to find the third side of the triangle (the hypotenuse).

This was my group’s poster.

The fourth task for this project was to design your laser carrier. When I say carrier I mean the Star Wars object that is meant to house your laser maze.

[insert sketch of laser maze here]

 

The fifth thing that we created in this project was, of course, the actual “laser maze” here’s a picture!

This is the laser maze my group made. It’s a venator class star destroyer from the clone wars.

The final milestone included writhing this project is the Star Wars exhibition. (That’s the day im writing this post) the exhibition is a fun, exciting event where we decorate our rooms and present our projects. The laser maze happens to be one of those projects this year!

 

Now I’m going to be talking about my performance according to the curricular competencies.

 

Communicating and representing: this competency was about showing formulas and math in understandable, and correct forms. I did this by creating a clear, informative, and easy to understand poster explaining the formula regarding the hypotenuse of my laser triangle.

 

Applying and innovating: this competency was about teamwork. I did well with my team by effectively finding jobs for everyone to do at most times and completing my share of the project on-time.

 

Questioning and predicting: The last competency for this project was based all off of personal interest towards the target subject. I think that I performed well on this competency by showing that I was truly interested in the subject at hand by doing research not only on the Star Wars aspects but also the math and science part too.

 

Anyway guys, thanks for reading this far into the post and I will see you guys in the next post! (It might be about the exhibition)

-Keenan

 

 

 

 

An average post about reflecting

Hey guys! This is the final post for the SBC 2019! I hope the title didn’t mislead you to thinking about light reflecting… I meant reflecting on all the thing that I’ve done in this year’s SBC.

 

I’m going to start off with what I thought was the best art of this year’s SBC. I definitely thought that the best part was the music week. I LOVE music. To be perfectly honest, listening to music is one of my favourite things to do! Anyway, onto the next thing. I think that this particular one is kind of important because, well, its regarding the future of My Blog! I’ll be using my blog regularly for the next few years for showing the work I do in school. I don’t know what kind of changes I’ll be making in the next few years but im absolutely sure they’ll be great! Well im happy that I got to participate in all 8 weeks of the challenge this year and I’m sure I’ll be doing it next year too!

During this challenge, I learned a lot of things about blogging as a whole. One of the more important thing that I learned during the SBC was about how people interact and feel when they are on the internet as opposed to real life. The most fun thing that I learned on this wild ride of 8 weeks, was the tools that a blog can give you and the fun times it can bring you.

I also learned how to use HTML!

Now, this is a plan that’s going to explain what im going to be writing about in the next while on my blog after the SBC ends. Ill be publishing reflections on all of the project we do in school (a lot) along with some about off-topic stuff like what im interested in and such. I hope people will continue to visit my blog but to do that ill need to continue to put lots of effort into these post im doing!

Until next time, bye!
-Keenan

I’m glad I got to participate in this year’s SBC!

An average post about holidays

Hey again!

today I’m going to be talking about celebrations and holidays. The first thing that I’m going to share with you is a story of a Christmas Day from 3 years ago.

This story will focus on my dog Lyra. Lyra is an annoying little creature but she is VERY cute and funny. Usually she runs around the house like a maniac with her ball but on Christmas Day she was acting all happy like she was an angel. Of course, we didn’t know why she was acting like the best behaved thing ever but she was. Everyone in my family really believed that this was Christmas miracle. We opened all of the presents (Lyra had hers opened for her) and she didn’t even run around with her new toy. We were all surprised to see that Lyra seemed to somehow know what day it was. On December 26th, of course, she was back to being the annoying little thing that we knew was there.
I know it was a short story but I hope you enjoyed! Now, I’m going to show you a photo that represents Christmas in my family.

As I’m sure for many of you, a Christmas tree is the main symbol for Christmas for you. But for me, this Christmas tree is very special because it is fake. It is special because my entire life I have had a fake Christmas tree. 

I hope you enjoyed my festivity post! See you next time!

An average post about emojis

This is the week 6 SBC post (WOOHOO!)

To start this post off I’m going to do an emoji math test!

🤡 + 🤡 = 36

🍞 x 🤡 = 54

🍞 + 🍜 = 9

🍜 + 🤡 x 🍞 = ????

if you know the answer to the problem be sure to comment it down below!!

This next one is an emoji guessing game!

 

Can you guess what movie this is?
🕷🧔🏼

 

How about this one? It’s a sport from a movie!

🧹🏏⭕️

 

Now, if you guessed those then good for you! This next, and last section is going to be a piece of art that I made using only emojis.

 

This is the photo I made! I chose winter because it’s just around the corner and it’s my favourite season!

 

I hope you enjoyed reading my post!
See you next time!

An average post about media

How does what we read, hear, and see influence us?
This is a great question that requires lots of understanding to answer. That’s why it was the “driving question” for our media/advertising unit named “The Media is the Message”.

This post is the “wrap up” for our project and it is also a reflection to look back on what we learned and apply that to something to show what we have learned.

We started this project with no expectations for what it was going to become. This was a huge surprise when it became something so impactful and important. In the first important activity we did was the dissection of an apple ad titled “welcome home” it is a very abstract and colourful ad. This all had a purpose though. The purpose of the flashy colours and abstract art style was all to create a memorable, fun, smooth ad. The big idea with these concepts was to make consumers remember the ad when in a store or when they are shopping in the electronics department as a whole. In this lesson we had learned that with big companies they wave the air reputation around to age abstract ads like these with “hidden” messages.

In the second important “milestone” as we call them, we performed a “survey”. This was a “survey” for two people. Yourself and a close family member or friend. This ad was supposed to show the impact of advertising on you or others, for example: one question on the survey was “have you recently bought anything solely on advertising?”. This question was there to show that whether or not advertising had a big enough impact on you for you to actually buy something just because it looked good in an ad.

This is the advertising survey. My answers are black and my mom’s are purple.

The third tsk we had to complete was the “persuasion chart”. It was a chart thats purpose was to have you explain what each print advertisement used in terms of techniques to get the reader hooked. This was an interesting project because you chose the ads yourself. This meant that you had to go find them all and perhaps use ones that had an impact on yourself.

This is the “persuasion chart” this was to show how ads persuade you.

The fourth step in this project was an analysis on a book called the highest tide. This was a book that we had been reading throughout his entire project so far. However this was the reflection that had to explain what effect media had on the main character of the book. This was to show our understanding of the message the book was trying to send to you about the effect of media.

This is the cover of The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch

The fifth and sixth task we had to complete were nearly identical. The difference was that one was after the other so that we could use our learning from the first to improve the second. The first of those 2 tasks was an advertisement for a local business. First we interviewed one of their employees for information on what sort of advertisement they were looking for. Next, we would create the advertisement by making drafts. We would get feedback from our classmates on what they all thought was good and what could we improvement. The second version of this assignment was to make an advertisement for a business in Oregon. The only difference between this and the local business were the fact that we got feedback from teachers not students this time.

This is the ad I made for High Life Adventures.

An average post about music

Hey again guys and gals! Today I’m back at it again with the SBC! This week was all about music.

I’m gonna start this week’s post off by telling you about the instrument I play. The instrument I play is………. The saxophone! I’ve played the saxophone since I was in grade 4. I still don’t know hat attracted me to that particular instrument but I know that I had fun even when I wasn’t very good at playing it. Anyway, enough about me, its time to tell you about the saxophone. The saxophone is a very nice sounding instrument if you know what you’re doing. It is one of the most widely known jazz instruments out there. This is because of its iconic ability to play melodies very well in almost any song along with the way the sound blends with other instruments. The saxophone is mostly known for the tenor saxophone which is in the medium to large size range. There are 4 very common types of saxophone, the first being the tenor saxophone, next is the alto saxophone, then, the soprano saxophone which is a very small saxophone. The last common type of saxophone is the baritone saxophone. It is a large instrument, the largest in the saxophone category even, because of the size of the baritone saxophone, the musician has to wear a harness to support the instrument’s heavy weight.

obBilder / Pixabay This is a saxophone! YAY!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my instrument!

 

In this part of my week 5 post I will be taking a survey. This survey is about your favourite music type! Please comment the type of music you like to listen to, maybe you’ll have the same musical tastes I have and enjoy hip hop/rap music, or maybe you love country music or pop! I wont judge you no matter what you say so, please be honest with your opinion!

 

 

This, the final part of this week’s blog post I will be showing you my playlist! Please, take the time to go to every video in here and tell me in the comment section what your favourite song was!

 

1. NF The Search (Full Album)

I chose those songs simply because I love how they sound and I think that they all convey an important message to those listening.

2. Lil Tecca Ran$om

 

Again, I chose this song because I think that it sounds great. I don’t think this sing is trying to send a very important message though.

 

3. Marshmello Happier

This is the final song of my playlist. I chose this song because it really has a great message that it tries its best to tell you when combined with the music video.

Well, with that I am concluding this week’s SBC post! I hope you enjoyed!

An average post about my Tectonics Book

Hey guys, this is a different kind of post from usual as it is not a post from the SBC. This is a post from my class. It’s about my tectonics book.

These are some of the questions I had at. The beginning of the project along with my answers I found along the way

One of the curricular competencies was having an understanding and appreciation for the evidence gathered about plate tectonics. I think I used this skill to understand and gather much more information than I could have otherwise.

Another curricular competency was to demonstrate a sustained curiosity about a scientific topic of personal interest. This one is very important because it can tell you whether you actually wanted to learn what this unit had to offer or not. I think that at i was absorbed in the topic at hand and really wanted to make a good tectonics. That in itself required a lot of knowledge about plate tectonics in general.

This was the big idea of the project. “The theory of plate tectonics is the unifying theory that explains Earth’s geologic processes.” It think that this is the most a important part of the project simply because it is the thing that we are striving to understand and learn about. I think that i now understand and can mostly explain the theory of plate tectonics in a descriptive way.

The final curricular competency was to contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through personal or collaborative approaches. I think that I showed this by making an age-appropriate, fun, easy to understand book that would be good for a grade 4-5 person.

This is my book!

An above average post about an above average Oregon field study

Hi again! This post is very special. Why? you ask because it is a post that i chose to do myself. Also, well, its about my class’s field study in Oregon. So, basically, my wonderful teachers decided to bring our class on the annual Oregon field study. This particular field study has been done every year for the past 10 years (I think). This was the best field trip (by far) that i have ever been on, not just because it lasted a week but because of all of the fun stuff we got to experience with friends. The first step to going on this trip and getting to Oregon as scheduled was meeting up at the school with all of our luggage at 6:00am. However, it wasn’t the worst thing ever because it was on a Saturday so we didn’t have to panic. The drive to Oregon was about 8 hours long and most people fell asleep on the bus at some point in time. The first of the really exciting things happened on the second day. We went zip lining! The place we went zip lining was called “High Life Adventures” and it is located in Warrenton Oregon. Our class was split into 2 “tour” groups, meaning we were separated because we had too many people for one group.

This is me on the zip line at High Life

The second to last line was definitely the best because people got wet and once you finished the line there was a person dressed as Sasquatch waiting to make you jump. The best part about that was definitely seeing people’s reaction to being scared like that. To be honest, that was probably one of the best parts of the trip. on the third day we went to the Tillamook Creamery. The creamery was originally only named after its cheese but the factory is now known for ice cream, yogurt, and other assorted dairy products along with its famous cheese. The special thing about the creamery is that you get to eat as much cheese as you want. I didn’t eat much but some people in the class had a little too much cheese. On day 4 we did an Oregon coast quest. They are a sort of scavenger hunt very similar to geocaching but instead of a map you get hints and clues to find the box. When every quest group had finished the quest (or tried to) we went to the Oregon State University Hatfield Marine Science Center. Yea, it’s a mouthful. At the OSU HMSC we learned about whales and intertidal species in general. We even got to re-assemble a whale skeleton!

This is the whale skeleton that we re-assembled.

Oh yeah, whenever I mention a new day you can assume we spent the night in a state park camping in yurts. On day 5 we returned to the OSU HMSC to learn about R.O.V.s (that means remotely operated vehicle by the way) how they work, what they do, and again, we got to assemble one. My group’s R.O.V. was the best, naturally. Or it might’ve been the pilot (also me). Once we had finished and cleaned up our R.O.V.s our class went to visit Yaquina Head’s outstanding tide pools. Yaquina Head’s beach is special though, its special because it’s a beach made of almost entirely perfectly round magmatic rocks. you weren’t allowed to take even one rock home with you because they cannot be re-made or bought to replace the ones people take.

This is a picture that I took at Yaquina Head.

There was a quest there, too. We packed up, ate dinner and camped yet another night in yurts at a state park. Finally, day 6 had arrived. The last full day of this wonder-filled trip. However, that doesn’t mean that it got dull from then on, day 6 was one of the best there was. Why? You ask. Well its because we went to an arcade/all you can eat buffet called “John’s Incredible Pizza Company” the name doesn’t lie by the way, it really is incredible. They even had rides insides the building! We dove right Into the buffet and soon ate all we could. We were given our play cards and we set off for the arcade. Everyone got 20 credits and each game cost 2-4 credits. I used all of my credits and got 200 tickets, which got me a giant kazoo! The teachers wouldn’t let me use the kazoo on the bus though 🙁. That night, being the last night, we slept in cabins (they were A LOT more deluxe than the yurts) I played around on my iPad a little before I went to sleep though. On the fateful day 7, we went to northwest trek. It’s a wildlife reserve in Washington that has a bus that drives though the “free-range“ area. There were goats, moose, deer, bison, and lots of other animals as well.

This is a goat from Northwest trek.

Overall the bus part was great. But, it got better. After the bus tour was over, we went to the enclosed animals area. In that section they had: wolverine, wolves, bobcats, lynx, bears, and even bald eagles. There was one more part to see though. The animals that needed to be put in small, confined areas, for example, the skunk or the beavers, or the otters. They had more animals there than I can even remember! The sad part, that was the last place we would sightsee/learn/have buckets of fun at. The last place. The Golden Corral, an all-you-can-eat buffet of anywhere from cotton candy to steak. They Even had a chocolate fountain! My favourite part about the GC was definitely the chocolate fountain with strawberries. I mean, who doesn’t like chocolate strawberries? Anyway, this was the final destination of the PLP 8 Oregon Field study. The rest of those 6 hours was spent driving back to our school. When we got there we were exhausted  but our parents were there to drive us home and throw us in the shower then into bed.

 

I hope you enjoyed this post about my Oregon Coast Field Study!

Bye for now!