Category: Uncategorized

The Destination is Our Imagination!

Welcome! This is the last blog post that will be dedicated to the one and only Destination Imagination… It feels like yesterday when I posted my first one 2.5 years ago… Before I start rambling, if you want to hear about my DI Regionals read it here. I don’t want to repeat the same stuff I say there!

WHAT WE IMPROVED

Scientific Seycove team grade 10!

OK, getting into the provincials talk… For provincials my team and I really needed to focus on the aircraft and the aircraft only. Besides having to move around the script because Logan couldn’t come, we didn’t change much storyline/props related. We did revise our team choice element #2 by explaining better what we meant. But, the aircraft and payloads were top priority. We used the same drone and figured out why it didn’t work the previous time, and came up with a payload technique we liked more than the last one. Although the aircraft/payloads might have not worked at provincials 100% (payloads not aircraft) but the effort was visible. This part of the challenge on the last week before provincials is where Logan, Jamie and Daniel stepped in and worked hard.

A BURN CHART, PIE CHART AND DESIGN FOR PAYLOADS WE MADE BETWEEN REGIONALS AND PROVINCIALS

COMPARING GRADE 8 TO GRADE 10

My first blog about DI posted, March 2017

So, as this is my last blog post of DI I want to revisit my grade 8 DI blog post and see what I thought about it, what I learned and any skills I wanted to improve on. Let’s take a look. Ok I just re read my grade 8 DI blogs and jeez was I hard on DI. I never fully “loved” DI, but it definitely grew on me each year. This year I definitely tried my absolute hardest to go into it with a positive and excited outlook, and It definitely helped. The negativity I have towards it in the grade 8 blog post is fully understandable as DI is super frustrating and will make you cry at least once… (HA) Anyways, as the 3 years went by I tried to almost take the DI part out of DI and just look at it as an awesome team learning experience that will help me grow my tool box of skills. I definitely am happy my blog this year isn’t a “I hate DI” type this year, and I’m happy about how my perspective has changed majorly.

BIG REFLECT TIME

We won 1st and 2nd place!

Before I get into full reflection, we got 2nd in the overall challenge and 1st in instant challenge. (We did really well in the instant challenge and feel very proud of it. ) Anyways, being genuinely honest, this DI was the most frustrating out of all 3 DI years, personally for myself. I sometimes felt my time and effort put into the presentation was hidden by the other side of the team not doing what they said they would. I really worked my butt off this year for DI. I found myself prioritizing it over everything else, and spent the most time I have on DI in all of the years writing, painting, making, practicing etc. Being honest, I would get upset about how I worked everyday after school for a few weeks while some others did nothing… But I sat and thought about how if I removed grades, DI, school from this experience, I’m leaning new valuable skills. My grade may get lowered, my team may not win but I’m gaining new patience and persistence that I probably wouldn’t have without DI.

I didn’t think the best part of DI was the performance, I think it was the new outlook I gained on my work ethic and how to perceive an experience. While I am proud of the things I did for our DI presentation, we didn’t complete our challenge fully which was make a flying aircraft that dropped payloads. It wasn’t a EPIC WIN, it was more EPIC LEARNING MIND EXPLOSION. Learning how to deal with frustration in group projects, and to continue to work super hard is something I’m going to have to know for all the future grades, university, and whatever career I’m in.

So long, Destination Imagination!

 

Kevin!

For this math project, I created a character named Kevin who needed to find a phone plan that works for his busy and travelling schedule. Kevin needs 6 GB per month, out of country roaming, and unlimited calls/texts. I found plans for Bell, Telus and Rogers that were all very similar, included the same data etc… But Kevin needs to know which is the cheapest!

This is where the equation y + mx + b comes in… To find the cheapest plan for Kevin short and long term we had to do some math to find the intercept points. Where the intercept points are, is where the plan costs are the same. We solved these graphically and algebraically.

THE MATH

The data for the math of the project!
The equation…
Solving graphically
Solving algebraically!

With all that math out of the way, we learned if Kevin needed to leave the country for under 5 days per month, TELUS was the way to go. If he left the country for more than 5 days, ROGERS is the winner.

CIRCULAR COMPETENCIES!

UNDERSTANDING, AND SOLVING: The math for slope intercepts confused me a lot at the start. It took me a while to fully understand what it all means. This took a lot of practice and studying. Once I understood it, I made sure to solve the equation aka the driving question for this project. I feel this is the main competency I used for this project as it was a lot of Math, determination, and brain power!

CONNECTING AND REFLECTING: I used mistakes I made in the math process as learning opportunities and always made sure to learn how to fix them. I connected the project to a real world thing people have to decide, which is phone plans with out of country roaming. I feel the character Kevin also made the project more humanized, and relatable as all PLP students ms will be Kevin once we are kicked off our parents phone plans :D.

COMMUNICATING AND REPRESENTING: The keynote I made I think fully represented the math I did, in a visually nice way. I communicated the project well, and didn’t have a script because I knew the math and topic well. I justified the math in my project when questioned if it was correct, and revised anything needed to be fixed.

Overall, I think this is my best project this year and I’m proud of myself for understanding and doing this project!

Destination Imagination — Year 3

DI, DI, DI. That’s been my past few months. Ive done Destination Imagination in the previous years and you can check out my posts for them here. (DI grade 8, DI grade 9.) My goal for this years DI was to learn something big and new. And well, I did that while being reminded of important other skills which ill go in to depth later. If you want to learn more about Destination Imagination and see why they are doing these tournaments, check out this link. 

Grade 8 on the left, Grade 9 in the middle, and Grade 10 on the right.

WHAT IS IT?

This year’s DI I was given the group consisting of Isabelle, Melika, Logan, Daniel and Jamie. We had the technical challenge, ON TARGET! The point of this challenge was to have a aircraft that could carry payloads across the stage while having a story that incorporate the other factors well and uniquely. So, instead of breaking down each little thing my group did and how we did it, watch the video of the presentation then I’ll explain what I created and what I learned from it. 

THE PRESENTATION

WHAT I TOOK FROM IT

I’m going to breakdown some parts of the presentation I worked on and what I left from creating them. First, the script. This wasn’t actually my job to write it, but I ended up doing it for… some reason. Well at first we had a script that Isy wrote but I had to reword everything to make it shorter, faster to the main point, and simpler. Script writing always strengthens my patience and wow they take a long time. They aren’t necessarily hard to write, just time consuming and you have to make sure you’re timing it, reading it aloud, and making sure all the words flow together like its not a scripted presentation (which it is.) 

Another aspect of this experience I learned from was the assignment of roles. I discussed this in my PGP, and in my DI self assessment, but I’ll go over it here too. The part I think we failed at the most was the consistency in everyone’s individuals dedication and time given for DI. Some were spending weeks working everyday after school, and others didn’t really do anything. This is one of the most frustrating experiences Ive ever had as when someone promises me and says they CAN do something, I believe them. And when it doesn’t happen, and there isn’t time to fix it, its kind of “heartbreaking.” This teaches me to not always fully trust others with extremely important tasks even if they volunteer and promise to do it. 

Something I also learnt from, is that not leaving things last minute, is….. AMAZING. Isy, Melika and I had done the costumes, script, backdrop, props, and more all before the week of. Coming into the week before DI is already stressful enough, and having all the things done beside the aircraft made me feel a little better. The girls including me did well on time management, and we made sure to have it all done before the week of so we could practice with everything. I’d definitely use this same technique for anything similar to DI in the future as it lets you focus on other things while still having something important going on.

OVERALL REFLECTION 

Although we won first place, I wouldn’t call this DI a full victory. We never ended up creating a aircraft, and that was half the marks so realistically beside the first place, we didn’t complete the challenge. I hope for provincials we can get it all together and finished (I’ll update you in the DI provincials post.) Im happy with myself in the aspect of I went into DI with a positive attitude, and although not getting the challenge I wanted (scientific) I rolled with it and tried to enjoy it. This DI was definitely the hardest for me out of all 3 years as I was frustrated, worked a lot and still didn’t have a fully working presentation. If I was to redo this whole DI experience I would make the aircraft a group challenge instead of only half the group working on it. This might have resulted in lower quality script, story and backdrop but at the end of the day the aircraft is more important that any of those. 

The crowd we presented in front of!

Looking forward but stressed for provincials. I’ll update you once the day comes! 

14643 Years

In 14643 years, the Caspian Sea wont exist anymore. Why do I know this? This unit in math we focused on Linear Equations but to take the math to real world problems, we used the data from something connected to climate change. Adlih & I decided to focus on the water level in the Caspian Sea, as the depth is getting lower every year. How did we figure this out? Take a look at the keynote Adlih and I made.

THE MATH

y =  depth

m = rate of change (-0.07 meters per year)

x = time

b = depth of lake right now  (1025 meters)

With the base equation of y = mx + b we added the values listed above and made this graph, which expresses how long it will take until the Caspian Sea doesn’t exist anymore. 14643 years. That’s around 180 lifetimes until the sea isn’t there.

CIRCULAR COMPETENCIES

CONNECTING AND REFLECTING: Because this project is using mathematics in real life situations, I had to do a lot of connecting. Research to connect for example m & b to a number/value. After this, I had to reflect to make sure everything ran through smoothly, and if not, educate myself/ask for help and revise.

UNDERSTANDING  AND SOLVING: To do this project, you needed to understand fully the math before diving into the rest of it. I made sure through paying attention in all class discussions and lessons, and through asking for help that I fully understand the math. On the solving side, obviously you had to solve the driving question through your project and we did that by finding out there wont be water in the Caspian Sea in around 14000 years!

QUESTIONING AND PREDICTING: Because this project is very opened ended, adlih and I had to decide and perdict what a good place/temperature to focus on. This included predicting as not all seas/lakes/oceans are going to rapidly change like the Caspian Sea, so through trial and error we decided the Caspian Sea would be an interesting yet challenging place to do our project on.

MIND MAP

While this may seem vague, even though linear equations seem scary, they are pretty simple when you break them down.

 

 

 

 

Chemistry! Chemistry!

This right here is the newest science project my group and I created! This unit was on CHEMISTRY! The task for this project was to choose a chemical reaction, decide on a driving question, find an experiment that relates to the chemical reaction and driving question, create a keynote, and present! Before I dive into what I learnt, take a look at my keynote I made with Marshall and Tamara.

THE PROJECT

I am really proud of the keynote my group made, and I felt confident presenting it to grade 11s.

MY LEARNING

To express my learning, here is a mind map!

More of my learning was talked about in the keynote.

CIRCULAR COMPETENCIES

For this project, we got to make our own rubric. I’m going to share it here, and then go through some of them and show and explain proof of how I used them.

COMMUNICATION: This curricular competency is visible in the project as in every single slide there is little text, no distracting visuals and we would go into more depth more conversationally. Instead of reading a script we just made sure we knew what we were talking about so when our slide came up, we didn’t have to stare at our ipad. The slides, the information and us talking all are communicating with the audience.

PROCESSING AND ANALYZING DATA AND INFORMATION: For this project, there was a lot of research necessary. We needed to learn a lot about a acid base neutralization In order to make a whole presentation about it! I did research on where it occurs in our bodies, what it is, how it works, and an exciting experiment that can show acid base neutralization in a fun way.
I had to filter through a whole bunch of information to find and write things that were correct and simple to communicate with the audience. Also, the experiment took a lot of trial  and error in order for it to work. Every experiment we did we made sure to analyze the data to improve it.

PLANNING AND CONDUCTING: We did tons of planning and conducting. To tackle a project like this, it takes a lot of preparation and organization. My group worked really well dividing up the work and figuring out how to conduct the experiment safely, as this is a very very important part of this project. Planning and conducting are very important in big projects like this.

QUESTIONING AND PREDICTING: To make this project interesting and have a learning outcome, we made sure to come up with a good driving question. This took a lot of questioning and predicting. “How will we answer this later on?” “Will this make sense to the audience?” “How do we make sure everyone understands the experiment?” Questions like that started discussions in our group which causes revisions, which ended us up with a presentation we were all proud of.

Jacoe’s MPOL

Its MPOL season! Here is the blog where I talk about the goods and bad, and everything in between. Instead of me rambling, lets get into it!

Of the work you completed so far this year, what are you most proud of? 

Me filming for the trailer at lunch time in my house!

Looking back on the past few months, my favourite work I have created has been my book trailer. I made this a few months ago, and it was basically a mini luca project as no one really stepped up in the group. I was okay with it though, as we kind of winged it and there wasn’t much prep… I wrote the script, filmed, and edited. I definitely think this work shows how I can work in different areas of a project, and I’m proud of myself for taking on so much. I had a really strong vision for this project, which was really cool,  This is one of those projects where I am happy to show family and friends and I don’t even cringe once as I’m so happy with the outcome. 

 

What did you struggle with this term?

I don’t have any pictures of myself presenting so here is one of kai!

I really struggled with with the cray cray unit. We did the en Essay on the driving question, a mini Pecha Kucha, the Seattle video, the sweat room Paragraph and the winter Exhibition. I had never done so many projects on one question. I found myself getting frustrated the closer I got to the end of the term as I kept thinking, “how many times do I have to answer this?” And being like “if they don’t like what I’m saying what do they want?” As I like to say It, I felt I was ‘OVER-LEARNING…” Looking back I understand that we just weren’t answering the question correctly, but I definitely did struggle with just stop being stubborn and getting things done.

                                      

What does your work reveal about you as a learner?

Filming for the “CATCH!” Video

From science videos to maker recreation videos, I feel it’s obvious that I spend a lot of time paying attention to detail. It’s the little things that add up to make something good I think. My science “can cousins be twins?” video along with the maker “catch” and “99 cent store” videos are all proof of this. In my science video I made sure everything was drawn with detail, and that the script was clear and made sense. In the maker videos I cared about the lighting in the video, having the exact same font that the original video, on a prop we made etc… I feel this is a odd but helpful skill to have.

The props emily and I made for the “99 cent store” video

 

What are the goals you would like to set for yourself for the remainder of the year?

Rules of a new math game I made!

I took this pic out of my PGP book, as these are two goals I think are achievable by the end of grade 10. Goal 1 is a goal I’ve had for a while. Ive improved on it, but not mastered it and there is definitely room for improvement. I want to balance my outside of school life and in school life better. I am going to do this by using my calendar that I talk about below, and I recently added a desk to my room which surprisingly makes me get work done way faster. My second goal is to raise my grade in Scimatics. I feel my grade doesn’t represent the learning I’ve had this term, and I want to change that. Theres some sort of disconnect of my work and my grade and I need to find a way to figure it out, but I’m ready for the challenge. 

 

How I’m staying organized! 

The desk in my room where I work — very important

With these goals I’ve set, specifically the balancing school with outside of school life, organization is really important. Knowing when I’m doing something and how I’m doing it, so I can use the other times for whatever I want.  We were strongly encouraged to try out time blocking and I really liked it, but not the media of it. I don’t like the layout of the calendar app and I don’t like how precise it is. So I took matters in my own hands and found a way of time blocking I liked. I could pretend I like the calendar time blocking so the teachers are happier, but what do we get from that? Nothing. So, I’m sharing the way that works for me.

Last weeks calendar

Overall, this year so far has had a lot of ups and downs. It has definitely been challenging, but I’m happy i’ve experienced all of it. I’ve gotten to use skills I built in grade 9 especially in video making, and got to revisit presenting in front of audiences. I hope the rest of the year goes by smoothly, and I learn a lot. 

My dream board

Seattle 2018

This blog post is going to be about Seattle! While I’m writing this, I’m wearing a Seattle shirt to get in the mood. In early December my class, my teachers and I traveled to Seattle at a crisp 5:00am! We went to Seattle to dive deeper in our driving question for our unit, ‘WHY DOES IT TAKE A CRAZY PERSON TO CHANGE THE WORLD?” We went to Microsoft, Amazon, Centry Link, Chihuly Garden and Glass, the space needle, MoPOP, and so much more… So thats what I’m going to be talking about. What I saw in Seattle, what it taught me and what I used my new found knowledge with! Then ill show you the short documentary Logan, Daniel and I made.

AMAZON

We spent almost 3 hours wandering the city exploring the Amazon headquarters. The things I saw really stood out to me, so that’s why I’m talking about it. I noticed a strong theme throughout the buildings. Everything was very thought out and it seems like they really care about the little things. From handing out free bananas to letting workers bring there dogs into the buildings, everything builds up into this amazing campus feel. I can tell they worked hard to make it feel like a community and I think they were very successful. Amazon taught me no matter how big your company is, allways put the customers first.

MICROSOFT

After this Seattle, I gained a strong respect for Paul Allen and Bill Gates. These two individuals are so smart and passionate about what they do and it shows in everything connected to there name. I didn’t know how amazing Microsoft was before this trip as I don’t own any Microsoft products (besides Minecraft >:D) It was amazing to get a tour of Microsoft and everything to do with it. This company showed me if you are passionate about something, why not focus your life around it?

CHIHULY GARDEN

I was speechless while wandering this gallery. Chihuly’s art is something I’ve never seen before, so big and bright. I could have spent all day in that building. Outside was just as magical. Logan, Daniel and I wandered around outside In the gardens portion, and wow it was just as beautiful inside. I was busy filming with my group for the video so I only got to walk around for about half of an hour but it was definitely one of my favourite half of an hour of the trip! Chihuly’s art shows me no matter what you make, no matter what people say, you can be successful.

CENTURY LINK

As someone who couldn’t care less about football, I’m surprised how much I enjoyed this tour of Century Link. Seeing something as big and something as iconic as this field was crazy! All the broadcasting rooms and rooms for the photographers were so interesting, and it all made me want to go to a football game… Century link opened my eyes to a whole knew world.

MOPOP

This place blew my mind! I was wandering around with Kai for a bit, then Isy and Adlih. I loved the fantasy room, horror room and the music making room. Everything was so well thought out and super engaging. Looooooved it. They had something for everyone. I want to go back one day and explore a little more as there was sooo much to see. MoPOP is amazing and showed me that YOU should create and share what YOU love.

SPACE NEEDLE

I don’t have much to say about this besides it was just so spectacular. I literally was laying on the clear glass for almost half an hour because it was so memorizing to see the city below me, Cars looked like toy cars, people looked like pieces of dust, and buildings looked like little lego bricks. I definitely want to come back to the space needle.

So, what did I make with all this cool info and experiences? My group Logan, Daniel and I made a mini lil documentary focused on Pete Carroll the coach of the Seahawks, Bill Gates, and Dale Chihuly.

THE VIDEO

Before I blabber about this video, I think you should watch it first!

My group consisting of Logan, Daniel and I was successful, but definitely something that taught me new things. A strong learning experience you could call it. It’s interesting working with people as much of a leader as I, and I think I like it. Having a group where you know they will make good if not better work than you, it’s nice to be able to rely on them. Definitely a group I would like to work with again. Next time, I’d make sure I’m doing as much work as I can because with such strong workers in my group, I didn’t allways have something to work on.

A picture of Isabelle, Adlih and I in the Microsoft building.

Overall, this trip opened up my worldview and I’m so greatful PLP gives me an opportunity like this to learn and experience new things. Everything to the banana stand at amazon, to iFLY, the Boeing Tour, etc… all taught me something without even me thinking about “I’m learning!” I know this experience will stay with me for as long as I can remember because of everything we did.

A special memory I have is having to stay in a room in the hotel with my class to write a paragraph answering the driving question. I know the teachers knew we knew our answers, but where having trouble putting it into words or getting it out of our brain! So, for an hour or two we wrote then showed the teachers then wrote then showed the teachers… This forced me to really dive deep into what I’ve learnt subconsciously while wandering around Seattle. Why am I telling you this? I feel even though staying in a room at 10:00 very sleepy, writing until we have our ideas down  might have not been the most fun thing on the trip but It was definitely an important building block to me finding my focus point for my Pecha Kucha presentation I did in the end of December and the Seattle video.

See you next time on my blog, oh and I love Bill Gates! Bye!

ALGE-GO!

Hello Blog! Today I am going to be discussing the most recent project I’ve done, the ALGEBRA TILES BOARD GAME! Im going to explain my game, show the rules video, talk about some curricular competencies, and a mind map showing what I learnt this unit. Lets get into it! My partner Adlih and created a game called ALGE–GO! This game uses algebratic expressions and algebra tiles to teach you anything and everything to do with algebra. It requires quick thinking, confidence in your skills, and hard work! Instead of me explaining it on this blog, here is a quick video to show you the game. Enjoy!

THE VIDEO/GAME

MY MIND MAP

I’m really happy with this project, and Adlih and I learnt a lot. To show proof of my learning, here is a detailed mind map of my brain and its algebra knowledge I gained this unit!

THE ACTUAL MATH

To show  actual algebra tiles, I’m going to being using this…

1x² -5x +6 

Another way to get the (x-3) (x-2) is to take 1x² -5x +6 and think “what two numbers multiple to get 6, and add to get 5… 2 and 3! (x-3) (x-2).

CURRICULAR COMPETENCIES

I feel I strongly developed some thinking strategies to solve puzzles and games. Algebra tiles are just challenging to think about sonemtines. Numbers, letters, and shapes? Those definitely take thinking strategies to solve. Algebra tiles are basically puzzles themselves.

I also used mistakes as opportunites to advance learning. I have openly talked about how I want to achieve a higher mark in math class, and this project proves it as I used mistakes from the many  other projects I have done, to improve this one. Examples like the Solar Panel project… I took critique Mr. Gross gave me (to show my understanding of the math better) for this project, and through my mind map, algebra tile equation seen right above this, the video, AND the game itself, to make sure he sees I know the concept really well.

During this unit I feel I also solved problems with persistence and a positive disposition. To curate the rules for it to make sense while being fun, It took time and effort. Redoing, testing, redoing, testing… I also kept a high level of persistence up through the actual math portain of this unit. I did a math test on all of this, didn’t do so well, went home and reviewed everything we learnt, redid the test, got everything right, and now im here explaining it again through my mind map and drawn algebra tiles. All of those steps definitely show persistence and positive disposition as I never gave up no matter what!

 

Luca Making Music?

Yes, it’s true. I have made a song. Although it may not be perfect (or close to perfect) I love it. Why you ask? Because its the first song in garage band I’ve made! When Ms Willemse introduced this project, I was a little confused as I was thinking, why is she making us make music that’s going to be bad anyways? I soon realized its harder to make a bad song on garage band than a good one. The app is formatted in a user friendly format, and there is plenty of help on the app if your confused. 

I started by creating a new project and chose the theme ELECTRO FUNK because, why not? Before I started making the song, I wanted to go for a 70s disco energy. I then started tapping a bunch of random buttons and soon got the hang of it. I listened to all the sounds and figured out what I liked, then practiced a bit. Once I was ready to record, I pressed record and tapped the same buttons I did while I was practicing. I then used the FX button to warp and filter the song which sounds pretty cool, and then listened through it a few times to make sure I was happy with it. In between all of this I did a lot of playing around with the app which was a lot of fun!

Looking back on this experaince, I will definitely start using garage band for future videos I make in PLP. It’s simple yet fun and sounds good yet is easy. I’m excited to play around with this app more in the future.

Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda

Hi blog! This lovely Tuesday I am going to be talking about one of my favorite projects ever! We started the new unit “Story of My Life” and were immediately given the choice of 5 different books to read. More Happy Than Not, Dumpling, Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Don’t Get Caught, & Perks of Being A Wallflower.

I decided to read Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda. I explain why I chose this book on my other Simon blog post linked here. My group turned out really good and the members are Maggie, Kai, Morgan, & Tamara. Check out there blogs later to see there POV of the project!

Why are we reading this book you ask? Well, our assignment was to make a movie trailer for the book with the driving question in mind.

Driving Question: How do authors use text to teach us more about ourselves?

Now I will get into breaking down the project and what I learnt from it.

PREP BEFORE VIDEO

First of all, I needed to read the book. I really enjoyed this part as I really like reading (paper copy’s only though 😊.) I’ve seen the movie for this book, and I honestly like the book storyline better. The characters were more considerate and realistic. Anyways, once done reading the book my group got to working on the trailer outline. Being honest, this step really confused me. It wasn’t a storyboard but wasn’t a script… Kai volunteered to do it. We ended up with a good outline, but very vague. We didn’t have time to make it perfect as we had to start filming! I wrote out a script for the video the night before we were filming and I was hesitantly ready to start filming…

The last thing we did before filming was watch an example of a good trailer to inspire us.

FILMING + EDITING 

Continue reading →