The New Normal

RhiannLeave a comment

 

Hey guys welcome back to my blog. Today’s post is a bit obvious due to the title, but I’ll tell you anyways. For our second to last maker project we decided to focuse it around COVID-19, we have all been affected by this terrible event, this project has given us an opportunity to record and share what’s been happening in our communities during this pandemic.

To start of the project we learned more about what’s happening due to COVID-19, to make sure we had some extra facts to throw into our own videos. We also practiced our video making skills, with an iMovie trailer. 

These activities were helpful for me because it was a way to build my video making skills.

Next we focused on building knowledge of what was going on around us. Even though we are living during these times we still had to make sure we had all the facts and important details we would need. To do this we looked at different articles and overall researched more about COVID-19. By doing this we were getting all the info for our video, (which we would soon begin) and using technology to connect with the world around us. 

When I had explored a lot of websites and sources it was time to become the source. I started making my video. Like many do, I began with a plan (aka pre production of my video essay.) I began with some brainstorming and then created my storytelling diagram or my very first draft. 

Making a story telling diagram was really important because I got all my ideas out there and organized. This also got me thinking of how and what I would need to include to meet the driving question. 

Next I took my storytelling diagram and gave it images, sounds, shots and overall more ideas. I made a storyboard. Making this story board wasn’t easy, I had a bit of truble visualizing want I wanted this video to look like.

Once I had a clear vision of what I wanted my video to be It was time to make it. 

 

DI 2020

RhiannLeave a comment

Hi there and welcome to my DI 2020 blog post. I once again enjoyed DI and ended up with a really good team, Malaika, Emily, Jude, Anthony, Noah and me. We decided to choose improve for our challenge and were quite happy with it at first.

To learn more about this challenge click here

The first thing we had to do was read rules of the road, which is a booklet that gives the rules of the tournaments and the challenges, then we had to read our challenge booklet where it gave our challenge debrief and the different forms we needed to complete for our challenge.

Then we got into the steps: recognize, imagine, initiate and collaborate, access, and evaluate and celebrate.

In the recognize stage we mainly set the foundation of our challenge. We came up with a team name, imagined a solution, learned the power of constraint/think inside the box, look at the scoring structure and clarify any questions.

In stage 2, imagine, we built on that foundation of stage one and started generating some ideas and started signing forms like the interference form, then we also started laying out some goals for this challenge.

Next is the initiate and collaborate stage where we started creating our sound box and research more about the demands for our challenge, we also finished the forms for our challenge and started rehearsing.

Stage 4, in this stage we looked back on our challenge details and assess what needed to get done and what had already been done.

Finally stage 5, evaluate and celebrate. In this part we take our challenge to a regional competition. Luckily the tournament was hosted at our school so our classes teams wouldn’t have had to move their props as much as other schools. The tournament was a lot of fun. I got to watch a ton of my classmates challenges as well as other schools challenges. My team’s challenge was a bit later on in the tournament although our instant challenge was earlier. My favourite part of this day was probably our instant challenge since we did really well. The it was eventually awards. the awards ceremony was a lot of fun, most of our grad 9 teams got 1st and I was happy for them, we sadly got second but got first place on our instant challenge. It turned out to be a great experience.

Now it’s time for provincials

Oh wait

What?

I just heard that it’s canceled because of covid19 and how we need to stay home and safe.

When I heard this news I was quite sad because I love DI unlike others, I also love the competition and supporting my friends in their challenges. But then I heard some amazing news. DI PLP zoom tournament. If your wondering how this would work. I didn’t have the slightest clue. But after FaceTiming with my group many times we were able to do a skit over FaceTime, yes it might be hard but we ended up doing great and it was fun to see everyone and also cheer on my other classmates. We also did an instant challenge which was a performance one where we create a skit(we we already mastered for our challenge) even though we went a bit over time we did great.

Hope you enjoyed this post. If you want to know of my prior grade 8 DI year click this link. Make sure to check out my group member’s posts as well(their links are on their names at the top of this blog post)

Stay safe and stay home.

Metaphor machines

RhiannLeave a comment

Hey there, welcome back to my blog recently in scimatics we have been learning about electric circuits and metaphor machines.

Let’s begin with the stepping stones. The first stepping stone we were assigned was junkyard wars where we grabbed random stuff and made a cool machine.

Then we started on milestone 1 our project mind map, this mind map is really good for understanding of what to plan for and hope to achieve for this project.Milestone 2 was that we did an electricity lab and created some simple circuits.Milestone 3 was a Khan Academy test where we assessed how well we understood these concepts so far on learning through textbook pages. Our 4th milestone was our blueprints for our machine, we started with simple ideas and soon expanded to our main idea. We started measuring and putting together equipment for our machine.After looking back on the project we never completed a milestone 5 so I will skip again to milestone 6. Milestone 6 was that we had to create and present a video about our ideas for our machine and film our machine in use. The video didn’t turn out to be the best quality but it at least shows our work.

After handing in milestone 6 we had a multiple choice test. I have not yet gotten my mark but feel that I did well. And of course milestone 8 is what you are reading now.

After reflection I think that personally I did quite well to learn and understand electricity and electric circuits. I also think that I really did well on the competency,

Communicating: Communicate ideas, findings, and solutions to problems, using scientific language, representations, and digital technologies

Me and my group did a really good job with our communication and we worked really well to  create the metaphor machine. We were also able to find and solve our questions and problems as in how to relate a circuit and how to get a marble to power it. But in the end it was great.

Riel | Hero or Villain

Rhiann1 Comment
Hey guys welcome back to my blog today I will be talking about our most recent humanities unit.
Our first assignment was to find a current event that had a connection in some way to the indigenous. I found an article about my elementary school putting a indigenous drum in each classroom.
We next did a stepping stone where we answered some questions on our topics that we chose. My topic was The disappearance of the Bison of 1800’s, the essential questions I came up with were:
⁃ How did the buffalo disappear?
⁃How did the buffalo disappearance affect our relationship with Native Canadian people?
⁃ Have the buffalo reconstructed their population?
⁃How many buffalo were there before this major event?
⁃How has the buffalo disappearance affected our climate?
⁃How many buffalo were there after this event?
⁃How has the lost of buffalo affected our lifestyles?
⁃Did anyone try to stop this from happening?
⁃ How have the buffalo regrown?
⁃How has this event changed the food chain?
These questions helped me get a bit of an understanding of what happened in this time. Once we got our topics we started reading “Louis Riel, a Comic Strip Biography”. For each part of this book we had to wright a paragraph answering these questions:
• What important events happen in this section of the book?
• What characters are involved or introduced?
• How does this section of the book portray Louis Riel? (Heroic, coward, brave, crazy, etc?)
• Explain who holds the “power” in this section of the book.
After reading part 1 of the book we had to do a ton of research on our topics.
The next stepping stone after part 2 of reading was done was that we needed to start our caption, we were planning to create an instagram post on our topic and use the research as a caption:
There once were over 2 million bison that roamed the beautiful North America all of a sudden European settlers decided to move in and were looking for food and fur sources and sadly stumbled upon a beautifully elegant creature. These settlers depended on the bison for
food and fur and sooner or later all those majestic creatures downsized from over 2 million to just around 100. This was a tragic day for all bison loving people. Luckily those people have help
the bison regrow and avoid extinction now there now about 2,200 plains bison and about 11,000 wood bison roaming wild in Canada(13,200 total). Sadly there are still being hunted. Would you be a hunter or a preserver? #savethebison #animalrights #PLP9
We also had to include 3 or more hashtags.
After reading part 3 I got a fever and ended up missing around 5 days of school which meant I missed a little bit but gladly was able to catch up. Next we finished the book and our insta photos for our post and finally posted it. After that we still had work to do, we had an in class debate on if we think Riel should or should not have been hanged. The pro side won even though we got the most points deducted. We got all of Wednesday’s class to wright a paragraph/essay about if we think Riel was a hero and a villain due on what we read in the biography. And today we answered some treaty questions:
 • What is a treaty?
a deal that transfers land.
• Why are treaties a good way to negotiate co-habitation?
they are a good peaceful way to settle compromises
• How were First Nations people in many cases misled?
they didn’t give them what they promised
• How do Canadians view treaty negotiations today?
they are still being used today as a negotiation system and it is considered valid by law.
Our final milestone is the one you are reading right now, yes a blog post is a milestone for us.
The competencies that outlines this project were:
Connect: How do I understand my own and others’ personal connection to texts I read, listen, and view?
Understand Ethical Dimensions: How do we decide if the actions and decisions of the past were fair or unjust, or should or should not have been taken?
From reviewing and reflecting my entire unit and how I did personally, I think I did a really good job of making ethical decisions based on my paragraph on how Riel is either a hero or villain and our instagram caption. I think the assignment that best brought out the connect competency would be the current event, instagram caption and the debate.
Hope you guys enjoyed reading about our unit on Louis Riel, stay tuned for more fun post.

Confeder what? ………Confederation!

RhiannLeave a comment

Hey there and welcome back to my blog post today I’m going to talk about our most recent humanities unit. For this unit we learned about the confederation of Canada and how all the colonies joined together.

The first Milestone that we did was that we had to read a textbook exert about the consequences to joining confederation and to not joining confederation. Then we wrote an essay about what led to confederation using the knowledge we received from this textbook and from past knowledge.

Then we got into groups of 4 or 5, each group was given a colony. My group was Kaden, Gabe, Ally, Grace and me and our colony was Nova Scotia. I was super excited since Nova Scotia is a beautiful province. Once in our groups we were given our second milestone, we had to research the pros and cons to joining and not joining confederation in the point of view of Nova Scotia.

After researching all this and more we were assigned our 3rd milestone, for this milestone we needed to create proposals that would give Nova Scotia benefits and also give the other colonies benefits.

Milestone 4 was that we had to start creating our commercial to promote our proposals to the rest of our class. This was a lot of fun to creat the script and with coming up with fun ideas. But it was also challenging to get the bass and pull together an entire commercial and what we wanted it to look like.

Milestone 5 was the second to last milestone and it was for sure the best part. This was the creation stage of our commercial, where we got to film edit and publish our commercial, for this commercial we used a green screen and tried our best to interact with the moving picture behind us. Our video turned out great.

To Finnish this project we were to listen to everyone’s proposals and sign the bill. In our class only one colony signed but in history 4 did end up signing and the rest followed.

Now as I reflect on this project I mainly see 2 competencies, evidence and create. In this project we had to research a lot to be able to actually make reasonable proposals, we also had to create a commercial using our skills and strategies.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this. Peace ✌️

Combining like terms

RhiannLeave a comment

Hey there, welcome back to my blog. Recently we have been learning about combining like terms. The first thing we did was a mini project where we had to build something out of lego and then search up the cost of each brick we used, we decided to create a house type thing. We ended up making a very big model.

Afterwards we learned a lot about like terms. How polynomial meant more than 3 terms, binomial meant 2 terms, trinomial meant 3 terms and monomial meant 1 term. A term is when there is a variable for example X.

We learned more about all the key facts and terminology for combining like terms.

While we were working through like terms me and Ally partnered up and started on our project. This first thing we needed to do was create a poster that outlines our project and what we hope to accomplish, we wanted to put our strengths together and create the best project ever.

We decided to create an architectural model made with popsicle and use like terms to estimate how many popsicle sticks we used. After that we started creating our model. This took around a week and a half to two weeks to construct. After finishing the construction we did the math. This took a while since we had three stories and used a lot of popsicle sticks. Once done the math we started on our presentation, the first thing we did was make the keynote, For delete we started with an intro page math page summary page driving question page and results page and then once we finished our keynote we made a short summarize script that we could expand on.

Once it got to presenting day we had everything ready but one thing happened, one of our levels broke in half but luckily did not ruin the presentation. The presentation went great and at the end we did a surprise instant challenge where we had our class in groups make the tallest thing out of 10 popsicle sticks in 2 minutes. Everyone did amazing but there were no clear winners.

In conclusion although this project was short it was a lot of fun and I think I learned a lot from it.

M-POLs

RhiannLeave a comment

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 weaknesses. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.

 

Today I will be talking to you about the projects I think I’ve better improved on and the projects I could have done better on.
The project I think I improved on the best would be our revolution project, in this project we got to use our video skills learnt in maker to create videos about the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and the American revolution. For this project if we didn’t do so well on the first video we could improve on the next. I found that this project is the best to reflect on and be able to improve on, and I found that my group really did improve as we worked through it.

The second project I think best represents my productive work is the scimatics project we are working on currently. For this project we got to choose our group, our driving question, and what we are doing to contribute, but we have to somehow incorporate like terms into our project. Me and Ally decided to pair up for this project, we decided to use both our strength in this project by doing something creatively engineered while using math. We decided to create an architectural model of our own creatively designed art museum made entirely out of popsicle sticks. As we are working on this we are also working on learning combining like terms, me and ally end up finishing fast so we are able to use our time more effectively for our project.

 

The project that I think I could have done better on would be our Star Wars exhibition project. For the maker side I was creating a storm troopers helmet. I found that during this process of creation I didn’t use my time effectively to spend better time on the helmet, if I managed this better I would have been able to have made a second prototype. The humanities side didn’t go well either, I had to miss a day for nutcracker and I found that I didn’t use my time effectively to complete my story drafts and that I wasn’t able to effectively wright it the way i wanted it to turn out.

Another project I think I could have better improved on was our chemistry unit. I found that during this unit I never really understood the concept of chemical bonding. Because of this I was unable to represent my animated chemical bonding story as well as I hoped. I really wish that I took the time to better concentrate and understand chemical bonding, As I look back now I wish that I went back to the curricular competencies and defined them further to my better understanding.

What is your learning goal that you want to reach by the end of this school year, and how will you meet it? My goal is to reflect back to the competencies that are required in project and represent them in my own words on my learning portfolio.

Lightsabers at the ready

RhiannLeave a comment

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…..

  • Endor Moon

Our class knew that this December the new Star Wars movie was to be released in theatre. So we knew that for this years winter exhibition it would be based on Star Wars. So lets begin.

We started this unit by learning the different aspects of story telling and story plot. The different aspects we learned through this unit were: Departure, fulfillment and return. There are other aspects of more detail such as plot, setting, character, conflict, point of view, symbol, theme. I found that though learning these aspects it gave me a better understanding of a story plot in the way of details.

While learning these new concepts we started our project for the humanities side. Our goal was to write a story about a character that somehow helps in the Star Wars franchise and had to relate to a certain planet. My group (Ally, Kaia, Asha, Liam, Ben and Ryan) got the planet Endor. This is great since one of my favourite planets. This was also great because it gave us a variety of characters to write about. After a lot of discussing review and research our group decided to write about an Ewok named Nicki. This Ewok appears at the end of the 6th Star Wars movie (return of the Jedi) doing a cartwheel at the celebration. My group decided to have our character help in the battle of endor by having her distract some imperial troopers.

We had to do quite a lot to create this story, first we came up with a brief plan for the story, then we split the story into seven parts so each member of the group could write a part. After deciding what parts we wanted we each made a plot diagram describing exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. After this we started our first draft of our story. I think that it was good for a first draft but not as good as it could be, so I worked harder on it and tried to make it as best as possible for the final draft. Once done our final draft we printed it of and put on a board for the exhibition.

As all of this is going on in the humanities side of this project we also had the maker side to all of this. Now here’s where it gets crazy. We had to create something that has to tie in with the part in the story that we wrote. This took me a while to figure out since I’m quite creative and can’t always think of just one idea. But I eventually came up with the idea of building a stormtrooper helmet out of cardboard. This took me a while to research but after a while I found a video of someone making the helmet out of cardboard. I tried my best to recreate the helmet. After three days of hard work it was complete, in the end it was created with cardboard, hot glue gun, news paper and paint. It did not turn out how I wanted it to be. It was too tall and narrow, i got the measurements wrong on some parts and some parts were bulgy. But it was still really cool that I was able to accomplish it.

Then it was time to get ready for exhibition. This was a lot of fun to put together but took a lot of work. The first few steps were to receive our designated room and create a floor plan to show how we want to set up our room. This was just the start of it, our group collaborated with a grade eight group. Our goal was to make it so if you walk into our room you would be transported to Endor. This goal was a bit exaggerated but that mad us set our minds to it. We had to go out and get all the supplies we needed so our group decided to split up the jobs.

Food:

• Ham solo’s – Simon
• Yoda soda (mountain dew)- Ryan
• Ewok jerky (beef jerky)- Rhiann
• Cambylictus berries (fruit and candy)- Kaia
• Ants on a log (cream cheese)- Evelyn

Activities:

• Pin the tail on the ewok – Kaia
• Endor trivia – Ryan and Dries as part of pamphlet
• Photo Cut-out – Ally, Rhiann, Kaia

Tables:
• Grade 9’s – 4
• Grade 8’s – ??
• Food – 1

Projects:

• Ryan – Spear
• Liam – Imperial Shuttle (clay model)
• Asha – Animation (travel ad for Endor)
• Rhiann – Stormtrooper Helmet (cardboard)
• Ally – Hologram (Princess Leia)
• Benjamin – Spear and heart (paper mâche) (paper mâche dented helmet)
• Kaia – Environment Replicator (VR Animation)

• Quinn – Eco-friendly civilization
• Simon – Star Fighter
• Evelyn – Anti-slavery poster
• Raymond – Music Remix
• Sophia – Models of trees
• Dries – Timeline

Ewok Village:

• Scream Box as Ewok hut – will paint 3 or 2 sides
• Dries and Liam are residents in village
• Admiral Akbar’s Snack Bar is inside village
• Asha is designing it

Great Tree:

• Cardboard
• Green paper

Forestry and Plants:

• Asha, Ben, and Kaia will bring in plants
• Everybody else is encouraged to bring plants

Lights:

• Wrapping paper over lights
• Rhiann – Lightup Bluetooth speaker, three starlights, curtain light
• Benjamin – lamps that can change colour
• Kaia – string lights, green Christmas tree lights
• Asha and liam May be able to bring lights and white Christmas lights
• Part of overhead lights will be turned off

It so quickly fell on the day of exhibition, for the past week we had been getting organized. While sitting through some of my other non PLP class I sat and worried that it would be a huge mess and that we wouldn’t have time. Once that 3:00 bell rung I was feeling panicked. After a few hours of rushing around we got it done, it looked amazing, it might not have been what we wanted it to turn out but it was great. We got a quick break to devour some pizza and then they would let the spectators in. When I say spectators I mean everyone’s families come to see all of it.

As I look back on this project I reflect on what I could have changed, improved and even my accomplishments. Through this project I was able to learn how to communicate better, show my work in a creative way and a written project, and was able to enjoy a project and just calm down when things are tough.

Thanks for reading and sorry for it being so long.

remember to just chill🌿❄️

The Bonding of friendship | a Chemistry story

RhiannLeave a comment

Did you know that if different elements bond they can create a compound?

Today I will be talking about our latest chemistry unit in scimatics. We started of by learning about chemical bonding with this we started our first experiment where we had to follow these instructions:

 

 

 

 

 

After following these steps we had to observe and reflect on some questions and reflect on the reaction and changes.

 

 

 

 

 

After this we learnt more about chemical bonding, formulas, covalent compounds and many more things to help us with our project.

We eventually heard about our project and how we have to create a short story on chemical bonding. for the longest time I couldn’t figure out what to focus the short story on. I eventually sat down and thought through “what is bonding? What is a form of bonding we see daily?” Then it hit me. Friendship, that’s what I’ll focus my story on. So I started out by drawing my borh models.

 

 

I had a bit of trouble understanding how to draw a borh model but after some time I figured it out and got that accomplished. ✅ the next step in this process was the story board, I new I wanted it to be focused on the bonding of friendship but it took me a while to figure out the foundation of the story.

 

 

Then we started animating on explain everything, it took longer than I thought on creating this. First I animated, then edited, then added music and voice over, and finally I handed it in. I thought I completed it and was proud. But then I was told to revise it and better show how the chemicals bonded and that I did not represent it enough. I took this as good advice and worked on it quite a bit to animate that extra part. Once I submitted it for the second time I got the mark back and realized that I could have done better.

 

 

In conclusion I wish that I could have worked harder to better understand the core competencies on this project and to better represent the bonding of chemicals. I hope to do better on our next unit.

One of the curricular competencies that I can work on is

communicating:

formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon 

I think that to work on this competency I have to go over my work and try my best to better understand the demands and expectations of a project outline to communicate the message though the next project.

 

 

 

 

Opinion post

RhiannLeave a comment

Hey there do you like movies, Star Wars or more specifically the Star Wars prequels? If so then this opinion piece is for you.

Recently my class has been working on a Star Wars unit where we have to create a story on a side character and create something to represent our story. While working on this my mind has recently been filled with Star Wars. So I decided to re-watch some or if I have time all of the movies.

I decided to watch the prequels since I’ve enjoyed those most in the past times I’ve watched this trilogy. I don’t know what it is about the prequels that I like more than the original movies.

The movie I will be discussing is episode 2: the clone wars which happens to be my favourite.

Ok so let’s get started. This movie starts when someone tries to assassinate Senator Amidala but fails by not noticing that there is a decoy. From this event Anakin and Obi One Kenobi are assigned to protect the Senator and catch who is trying to kill her. The second attempt in this assassination is that the 2 Jedi can sense what happens in the room Padmé is in. They sense that something is in there and rush to the rescue and see two slug things which are highly poisonous. Anakin immediately kills the creatures right before they poison the Senator. They follow the assassin who gets killed with a poisonous dart before she can say anything.

Amidala is at a huge risk on her life right now and so they secretly transport her to Naboo with the aid of young Anakin Skywalker once arrived he confesses his love to her by saying the best meme ever “ I hate sand” that iconic moment is now one of the biggest jokes in my class. After confessing this love he is friend zoned by the Senator and is now becoming a closer and better friend to Padmé.

 

As this is happening Obi One is on an adventure of his own. Chasing a bounty hunter, planets that are wiped from the archives and discovering a secret clone army. On this journey he discovers that the trade federation are trying to side with the new Sith.

Anakin is becoming distressed with visions of his mother, he and Padmé go on an adventure round Tatooine to find her. But once Anakin finds her she dies in his arms. His mother was taken by sand people. Anakin gets furious and enraged so he kills all of these demons that take his mother.

After this has past there is quite a big battle between the trade federation and the Jedi with their new clone army.

In the end Padmé and Anakin get married in secret.

In conclusion the reason that this is my favourite Star Wars movie is that I just like the story, the characters and everything about it. Especially that it show more of Padmé’s personality.