The more things change

Introduction 

This is the last but not least project in PLP this year. It had been so fun and I am sad we had to end it. I really hope we can continue learning next year. So, sad stuff aside this is my summative blog post on the last quarter. This blog will explain everything you need to know about my journey through European settlement and all the people involved.

Answering the driving question

Driving question: What does European settlement mean for all the people involved.

This is what I think the answer to the driving question is: When the Europeans came to North America, they effected lives of Indigenous people that lived there in many different ways. At first, the Europeans influenced their lives positively, however later they took over and basically destroyed their culture. So, European settlement was a continuity but what changed was how they treated the Indigenous people and that effected their lives negatively.  

Launch

Research on the Cove

Here we researched all about the history of the Cove and how it evolved overtime. It was super interesting to learn about where  Seycove came from as well. We also learned about other places in Vancouver and how they started, like Moody Ville. Even though Vancouver isn’t the most ancient society, it is still super interesting to learn how things evolved and changed over time since the first settlers came here.

Building knowledge 

Survival challenge

This is where I met my project partner for the first time and I am pretty sure this was meant to be a a partner building exercise. What we had to do here was to choose a survival tip and make a one minute long video that explains how to use that tip. I was super exited to meet my new partner Max and this was probably my favourite part of this project.

3 groups research

After we finished researching about the Cove, we went back in time and started to research about the three groups who made Canada. The first group we researched about were the French. They were the first Europeans to land in Canada. The next group we researched about were the First Nations, the people who where here first. They were a big help in European settlement. After, we research about the possibly biggest group, the British. The British started the Hudson’s Bay company and eventually created Canada. All of this research really helped me understand the history of Canada and I really loved learning about it.

Life in a colony

This part was another Iron chef where we all had to research about one type of people who had been living in Canada at the time of colonization. There were different types of people and it was important to learn the impact they had on European settlement. I learned about the coureurs de boiswho basically a un licensed traders. I loved this part and thought it was a really fun way of learning who was in the fur trade.

Milestone 2 

For the Milestone 2, we had to make a graph and we were given an example of continuity and change. We then had to use that example and compare it to life in the time of the fur trade and today. We also had to rate its importance out of 5. This was super helpful in getting me to learn about continuity and change. I think this was very important, because it was one of the main things in our project going forward.

Milestone 3

This is when we started our main project. The main project was basically an infographic with some facts, graphics, and a thesis explaining what happened in the time of European settlement. We had to find out what our thesis was and add all three of the facts that where needed.

Develop and critique 

Using evidence

Here I learned how to find and use good evidence. This was really important for me since I will have to use evidence more and more, and finding good evidence is important. This was important when we had to find evidence for our facts in the actual infographic.

How to make an Infographic 

We learned how to make an infographic by listening to an outburst video. This YouTube video helped me learn nine key concepts in making an infographic. The most important ones are: it needs to be simple, the pictures need to explain the writing, and it needs to be pleasing to the eye. This helped me and Max create a better infographic since we understood more on how to make a meaningful infographic. 

Infographic Milestone 4

This is where we finally got to put all our knowledge together and complete our infographic. After a couple of revisions that helped us make our infographic as good as possible, we finally finished and ended up with an amazing infographic.

Info graphic below….

Present and reflect 

script and video

After we finished the infographic we were tasked to make a video with a script that explained the infographic. After we filmed that, we had to post it on YouTube. I learned a lot about making a YouTube video pleasing and how to make a good description. 

YouTube videos…

Core competencies

Identifying continuity and change: I learned in this project how to identify continuity and change in almost every subject. I think this was a super important aspect in my learning since it opened my eyes to different changes and continuities in the world.

 

Using evidence: Learning about how to find good evidence is very important for any future projects, because I need to know how to find good evidence in order to make the project as well constructed and true as possible. I learned to look for multiple different sites to see which source of evidence is the most stated over all the different sites. Now I know to make sure that the sources people are writing are good and trustworthy sources.

Conclusion

I think that this project taught me a lot about many things in life and I will definitely see the world differently from now on. I cannot wait to for Social Studies 9 where we will learn more about important events in history and how they have made continuities and changes in our life today.

DI

Introduction

DI was one of my favourite projects that we have done so far. Even though it was really hard and at times very challenging for me, we pulled through and created an awesome project. I cannot wait to share with you in this blog post all about the project, about my DI group called ‘The MMM’, known as ‘The Mechanized Mechanical Mechanics’, and how we created one of the coolest videos ever.

Learning the rules

First off, I want to give you a bit of an idea on what Destination Imagination really is. Every single year students are supposed to choose between four different categories: technical, scientific, engineering, and fine arts. Every year they need to come up with new task for each of the categories and have to make something out of it. There is a twist though, it’s not all butterflies and rainbows! There a lot of rules to follow and choices  to make in order not to get disqualified. Our group was the engineering group. In order to make sure we new exactly what our task was and what the rules for that task were, we decided to split off in groups. Each group was responsible to read one section and find out all the things that the section said to do and also all the things that it said not to do.

Planning the building and writing the script

Our task was to create a building that resembles how opposites help each other. Also, we had an option to choose from different building and architectural styles and we were supposed to select one of each. Since the building was supposed to show how opposites attract, we decided to make the architectural style and building style opposites. The most opposite styles we could think off was Renaissance vs Postmodernism. We chose the Renaissance as the architectural style and the Postmodernism as the building style. We all decided to research on one of the two styles to make sure we fully understood how those styles looked. Originally, we were going to make a dome that was half fire-half ice, but at the end we could not build the dome because of time restraints. So, instead, we made a huge rectangular box with one big spike on the top that posed as a movie theatre.  As part of the project, we also had to make a script. I was not really involved in the making of the script, but the story was mainly about old and young people settling their differences to make a wonderful work of art.

Creating the video

Another task was to creat a video. When we created the video, we had to give everyone an equal part in the play. Since the play was based around old and young people fighting, we decided to have acting roles such as one old person, two young people, and one millennial in the video. There was also one narrator and two builders. I was given the role of the first young person. The story started with two people deciding to build a community recreation center for an entire town to enjoy. They didn’t really know how to make everyone happy, so they decided to try mixing two opposite art styles, postmodern and renaissance, for their design of the building. Even though the design was really nice, the mix of the art styles was not enough for the old and the two young people. They decided to add a new part of the building, a theatre. This was a big mistake! They wanted old and young people to engage with each other, so they chose to make a giant basketball court that everyone can go to play games on. After the video had been recorded, one of my team members edited it and added sound effects. The video turned out to be awesome! I had so much fun acting this out and would love to do it again.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I hope we have a project like this again and that in the next DI project I will be able to create something extremely cool. This project was very challenging and really helped me realize how competitive DI is. 

Link to video…

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