The Zookeeper (The card game)

Hello again, it’s been just over a week. This post is about our latest project in Mathematics. It was a pretty fun one once we started. The focus was exponents and everything related to them.

Mindmap:

As usual we made a mindmap at the start of the unit with questions we had, and things we already knew. However I wasn’t there for the first week back from Christmas break, I was away. So I didn’t actually make that mindmap until the end pretty much. But it’s right below.

If you click on the image, you can look at it in a bigger format.

Project:

Our task for this project was to make a game that uses exponents. The game anybody created had to include at least 3 exponent laws. It was a partner project but since I wasn’t here for the first week and my partner wasn’t here for the whole project, I was put into a group with Izzy and Jason. That turned to be a successful move.

 

Our rulesheet

 

My group’s game I think showed estimating reasonably very well. To win the game you had to have a certain amount of points, but you couldn’t use a calculator to know if you’d reached the amount. So when you thought you were close, you’d call and you’d calculate. If you went over, or under you busted and had to start from scratch. It was very easy for me especially after the first few rounds because I just memorized the results of several equations that were big enough to actually win like 9^3 or 5^4.

The whole project was also tied with a the curricular competency of develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving. Since we were creating a game and then playing it ourselves and showing it to others, I think we met this curricular competency.

The fact we made our own cards for our game could tie our game to the curricular competency of showing mathematical ideas though pictures. To get points in the game, you had to make mathematical equations and estimate what they were right in front of you. So clear cards would help think it out and understand the concepts better.

I think my group could use this curricular competency in reflection, connect mathematical concepts to each other and to other areas and personal interests. I think this because our whole group likes cards games quite a bit, so when we were told to make a game we turned to cards straight away, or at least I would’ve.

Overall I think this project helped me understand the exponent laws better because we had severe allergies of them in our game and playing agame will make it easier  to learn just like sometimes a song will help as well.

Well that’s about it, hope you enjoyed this post.

Power is a wonderful thing (or is it)

Hello again. Today you’re here reading about my latest Humanities unit. The Power and how it affects us as humans. But actually though, the driving question was “How does power alter relationships between individuals and societies?”. Let’s get on with it.

Power

Book:

There was one person we most studied during the unit. This person was very controversial in Canadian history, Louis Riel. We read a comic book (displayed below) about his life. We read for four weeks and every week we would have to write a quick summary of what happened in each part and discuss it with our group. Between the discussions we did smaller activities about other people or things from that stage  in Canadian history. Near the end we did a debate ,with a very questionable winner, about Louis Riel being evil or good. I was on the side where we were making points about why he was an evil man. Personally I don’t really think he was a bad man. However we lost the debate because my good friend Emerson from the other side said what he had just said didn’t make any sense and sat down.

However we now know that Louis Riel is the man responsible for Manitoba Boeing a province. And his moustache is one of the greatest things your eyes will ever see.

The comic book we read throughout the project.

 

Animation:

Louis Joseph Papineau
My Power Person

 

Our main project for the unit, was making an animation. But about what? Everybody in the class chose a person important in Canadian history and we had to show how they had used the power they had and if they had empowered some people or disempowered them. To actually animate something yourself, you need to draw a lot. I wasn’t ready to make like 1500 frames for an animation so I used my lazy brain to come up with a solution. I asked my teacher if I could use PuppetPals2 where all the characters are already there and you can move them around. And she said yes. That was some good news. Any ways I picked Louis-Joseph Papineau, a French Canadian lawyer and politician. However his era was before Canada became it’s own country. He did live enough to see it though. The story of power I told about him in my animation however was the Lower Canada Rebellion. Being a French Canadian politician in a British colony, he wanted reform. May I add that this colony was Lower Canada where the vast majority of people living there were French Canadian. Louis Joseph Papineau was a great public speaker which took him far. The French Canadiens wanted more representation in the colony but Britain wouldn’t let them. Papineau kept pushing until eventually it sparked a rebellion.

If you watched the animation, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something.

Quick reflection on the unit:

I came in a bit late to the unit missing a few things about power but I was just in time for the project. It was actually pretty fun to make my animation, however I wish I put a bit more time into it. I was happy with my final result but it could have easily been better. I learned a few things on PuppetPals and that it’s a lot more useful than I thought it was. I didn’t use FlipaClip because I’m not a very good drawer and when I had kind of tried it, it didn’t work out to well. I like group projects better, because everybody can have their own specialty meanwhile in individual projects you have to do everything. I came out of the project knowing a little more about early Canada, and some key people for the formation of the country we live in today.

Congratulations you have reached the end of my post.

Good Night Ladies and Gentlemen.