Final exhibition

Recently PLP took part in the spring exhibition. This was actually my first spring exhibition I had ever been to. Last year I created a product for the exhibition, but I was so sick that I couldn’t make it to the actual event. I didn’t realize this until after the exhibition, but I think I like the spring exhibition better then the winter one, it may just be the fact that summer begins right when that night ends! I worked really hard on this years exhibition, we focused on our circle BC trip, and the three main topics, which were industries in BC, First Nation relations, and the gold rush. For my topic I chose to focus on industry in BC. I was so interested in the port of Prince Rupert, and the environmentalism that they talk about in their mission statement and there future plans. But really what drew me to the port was what wasn’t talked about. I wanted to know what they meant when they talked about being the most sustainable port in the world, or how they were actually showing that. And so my exhibition question was formed. Now came the heavy lifting.  

I have recently become very interested in journalism, and so I decided that for this project I would like to make a 3 page newspaper, that can hold a iPad within it. My idea varied a bit from this one at the start but this is what I ended with. I began with the idea of sustainability, and how industries like the cannery are being run dry, and losing income from our poor ecosystems, and I could show this by doing a newspaper which symbolizes the change in direction from classic “paper” to a more reliable source such as an iPad or an Ereader.

As my actual project idea changed my physical object idea mostly stayed the same so I was able to get a bit of a head start on creating my newspaper, and unlike many other people my project relied solely on research or actual information. So the next step was to do buckets and buckets of research and complete a few interviews.

We talked about this step in the launch journal in school, and I believe that this is the step that has stuck with me the most. For completing a project you had to have finished your primary and secondary research. Primary research is basically just using google and asking around with your peers, or creating pole. Secondary research is sourcing someone who would be understanding in the field that your looking into, and then asking them. This is really important because my project wouldn’t have been even remotely the same with out the secondary research I found.

I did a interview with someone at the port of Prince Rupert, and I also did a interview with someone at plastic bank. Now both of these interviews made my project quite a bit more interesting, so I personally think that research is a very big part of ones project, even if it’s not research based. 

The next step I took was creating the actual end product, this took quite a bit because I had to get the layout just right. People don’t really realize just how much work goes into the little things, and since I got quite a few compliments talking about how mine looked a lot like a north shore news paper, I think I did pretty good! The layout took quite a bit of time but once I had it down it was smooth sailing from there. 

On the night of the exhibition I really didn’t know what to expect. I had worked really hard on my project, but I didn’t know what people would think of it, and how they would react to the information. The first wave of people came by and Isabelle’s parents were the first people to come to my station, which made it a lot easier to tell people about my project for the first time. It was a huge hit, and I got a sense of confidence, I also found key points I wanted to cover and things I didn’t need to talk about. I also found myself a sort of script that I really enjoyed saying and made it easier for me to get my point across. I didn’t even escape my station till the end of the night when we all started to pack up because when people came to my station they stayed for quite a little bit, so I couldn’t find time throughout the night to see others, but from what I saw in my room alone, everyone’s was incredible, so I think PLP did really well this year. 

All in all I learned a bunch about environmentalism in platt industries and what that means, and I also had a good time. 

Thanks for reading and happy summer

Tpols

Who am I and what have I learned?

Looking into it.

I am still the same physical person as I was at the beginning of the year. I am still named adlih, I am still a girl, and I am still living in deep cove, and even though my age did change I am still me, but I feel different. At the end of last year I felt as though I was just sort of shifting my gaze from one page to the next, when it came to thinking about grade 10, but stepping back into my shoes now I feel as though I am actually starting a whole new chapter. I know that sounds corny and fake, but it really does feel that way. It’s almost as if I am staring down a whole new challenge, compared to a year ago this time. A year ago I was excited for summer but I knew that grade 10 was looming near by and I was a bit nervous, and almost I felt as if grade 10 would be just another year, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Obviously there was something that changed, something that shifted inside me this year that has lead me to this understanding about school, and even about life in general. I felt like I have grown up a great deal this year, and I would like to share with you why, and how.

(Un)Balanced

I know what you are thinking right of the bat. “She going to talk about how she’s more balanced and she using time blocking… etc.” And now you probably thinking “she’s already thinking about our response to her “balance” section, and she’s trying to make it seem like she knows what she’s doing, and she is deserving of using balance as one of her categories…” and I myself am a bit lost by what I wrote, but what I am trying to say is that every year I have talked about my balance in school, and work, and friends, etc, and I don’t feel like I deserved to talk about it every year, since I have been able to experience it in actuality. I bet every single kid is trying to sell you guys on their work life balance but I really think that this is one that I want to talk about this year. 

Now I am not a crazy kid when it comes to school work. I don’t spend every waking moment doing things, but if I enjoy it I spend quite a bit of time doing it. I am also a busy woman, being 16 isn’t easy, and if you remember there’s a lot of stuff happening in ones life right now. Now my work life balance has always been very strong, I will take a shift every now and then after school, but the shift ends at 5 and then I have the rest of the night to do homework or relax, or really just do what I want. My school-schoolwork balance has also improved very much throughout this year. I felt that last year, it being my first year in PLP, I was a little lost when it came to what amount of effort I should put in, (even though we all all know that it’s 110% all the time!) I felt this year I have found a grove. I was able to see where my strengths and weaknesses are and where I need put more effort in.

https://soundcloud.com/user-335030245/circle-bc-podcast-adlih

A project that exemplifies this is my recent podcast work. I believe that I was able to find a good balance when it came to my podcast and how much work I should put in and when I should work on it. I produced a final product I was really happy with and was able to not overly stress about it during the trip! I found that this is a very important key or token to find and take with you into the future, because I get very very stressed about work and I was able to produce some of my best work this year when I was under pressure! My Pecha Cucha, my circle BC podcast, my PGP project (these are just a few coming to my mind). I felt under pressure during these projects, but I was able to push myself, and find a inner stable and peaceful space during that time. I feel that I produce my best work under pressure and I was really only able to see that when I found a space where I was unbalanced. I feel that being both balanced and unbalanced is very important and that you would have a lesser appreciation for being balanced with out being unbalanced. I was able to understand all this through balance. I cannot dedicate myself to my school work.

Though school work is very important to me, a project comes and goes, and it does not last forever, so I try to keep that in my mind. This is really not sounding the way it should, but what my main point is, is that, I work hard all the time. Like I said in my Mpol, I work hard to have a product I can sign my name on, and so to find a space where I can live my life and create work I am proud of, is a really big accomplishment for myself, and I know that this will play a big role in grade 11!

Style

Throughout this year I believe I have created a signature work style. Take our book trailers for example, I worked endlessly on that trailer, trying to perfect it.

Though there were people in my group that were more well known for their editing, I decided to accept the task and try to make it look exactly how I wanted it. I had a style for the trailer, and I created that. My style is unlike others in the class room because my style shows hard work, and more simplistic choices that risk a lot. When I say this what I mean is that I take a simple task or project and try to find a successful route to the end goal, but modify it and improve it along the way. Take my PGP project for example. Magazine isn’t that creative of an idea, it interests me so I decided to follow it.

Instead of just allowing it to take me to an end goal that isn’t anything I’m that impressed by, I decided to push my imagination a bit. I wanted to see how well I could make a magazine, I wanted to see how much work it was, I wanted to see what it would look like, and how I could put my vision onto a page. I built my style from this drive to find a successful route and then personifying it, to make it truly mine. Another example of my style is even in the pêcha couchas, or even the blog post challenge. In the blog post challenge I was able to show my style when we did the free blog because I was able to pick a something that interested me and style it around that one thing.

Failure

Life’s not about success all the time, if we all succeeded all the time, success wouldn’t feel the same, and we as a species would not be driven to reach success as much. I feel that PLP has always spoken about failure as your first attempt at learning, but only this year did I fully understand this. Obviously I didn’t learn that it’s totally ok to fail, and to just toss everything your doing to the wind, but when you fail it’s important to realize what you can learn from it. I failed countless times this year, but for this blog post I would like to address a fail that I still really don’t like to talk about.

For DI this year I got my team and another team disqualified. This stings to write, and I feel horrible even thinking about it. I thought after some time of thinking about this off and on, it would disappear, but every now and then I think about it and it makes me pretty upset at myself. I spoke to Ms. Willemse and Mr. Hughes about the whole situation and they really helped me to see what I could learn from such a horrible situation. It was really hard at first, and even now I am struggling to understand how to see the good in the bad, and trying to not hold on to every little piece that fails, but instead of the piece that succeeds. But I believe that this is an important skill, and I thought I would share about it here in this Tpol so that you can see how highly I think of failure, and success in school. I also feel this way about other things such as sports. When I skate (skateboard) falling is looked at like failure. When you fall you have failed a trick, or a landing. Though isy has helped me to see that when you fall you get right back up and you realize that you are less scared to fall again because it really wasn’t that bad. When I fall skating now I see it as a step further towards success then the opposite, which relates back to school because being able to see the good in the bad will help me to stay focused on the end goal and not get caught up along the way.

I have been brought every to a whole new level this year. I feel as though I matured and learned so much throughout the year, and am so excited for grade 11, though the summer is really on the top of my mind right now! I wanted to share with you how much has happened and what I’ve had time to clasp a hold of in the past year, and I hope I was able to do that!

I am ready to advance to the next grade because I have learned how to balance and to accept failure, not only have I also learned how to work under pressure but to portray my own style in a way unlike everyone else’s, and for these reasons I believe I am fully ready to advance to the next grade!

It’s nature’s energy

In science class lately we have been working on our sustainable/nature electricity projects. My group (Maggie, Lucas and me) decided to take a different route. We decided to create a pulley to generate our electricity. We had learned a whole bunch about sustainable energy and where we can source it from and how we can source it, so our idea didn’t take to much time to produce! We decided that we would capture the mechanic energy that is produced when rain falls. We thought to harness the gravity pull from the water to turn our pulley and power our lights. Though in the end using a pulley system didn’t really pay off for my group and I. We realized that the effort the person would have to put in to generate electricity is far to much, and that the machine does not run consistently. Our machine does work, but in the future we can think about how the energy sourced will have an impact on the people who buy it.

Here is the video we made to sell our machine. In the video you will see the the comparison between the machine and solar panels. Our machine actually makes more energy then solar panels at this time of the year because the sun is only out for 1/3 of the day, instead of all day. Whereas with our machine we are capable of catching energy all day if there is rain all day! 

Throughout this project we learned a lot of core competencies. I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the 3 core competencies that I think I saw the most of during this project.

The first core competency I used was collaboratively and individually plan, select, and use appropriate investigation methods, including field work and lab experiments, to collect reliable data. I used this core competency because to conduct our research we had to figure out the wats and joules our machine produced before we could tell how long it would take to power a iPhone. We used our field research to figure out the first draft of our product, which we tested and realized what worked and what didn’t work. 

The second core competency that I used was construct analyze and interpret graphs interpret graphs (including interpolation and extrapolation), models and or diagrams. I used this core competency because throughout the project my group and I used graphs to demonstrate our learning. We used graphs to show the contrast between our product and solar panels when comes to generating energy. We also used graphs to show our cost savings over time. 

The third core competency I used was formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon. I used this core competency when my group and I created our diagram showing how our energy gets generated and where it comes from!

GOALS

I am very interested in goals, and what makes a good goal, what drives people to make goals, and how they complete their goals. I really only realized that I enjoyed hearing about goals after I interviewed my first person for my magazine. I interviewed Isabelle Humenny right off the bat. I had a vision of how the magazine would look and I had a idea of how I wanted the photos to turn out, but when it came to the interview I really did not think about it thoroughly. I had a bunch of questions laid out and had thought all about the books I had read, and the habits that I needed to revisit, but I hadn’t realized how much I would learn about goals and the people I interviewed through it. I was amazed at what people had to say about something that is so often overlooked. 

This whole project is about learning something that you wish you knew at the beginning of the year but only know now. I feel like I have learned a whole bunch throughout the corse of this project, from learning to read people better to understanding the meaning behind a goal. I wished that at the beginning of the year I was capable to understand and communicate goals with myself and others. Throughout this years PGP course I was able to realize just how big of a role goals play.

A lot of the time we set goals subconsciously, we only realize that we achieved them after they are done. Or we believe that our goals are not good enough, or deserving enough to be called goals. Throughout my project my interviewees bring me back to that exact point. They showed me their fears of goals, and how they privately over come them, because most the time it’s just the person fighting for their goal themselves.

About half way through my magazine there is a 2 page break where I discuss setting your own goals. I really wanted to incorporate this into my magazine, because goals are deserving of a bit more light. The amount goals are talked about makes them seem like the should be qualified as shady business, or secret information. In this 2 page break I have certain things you should consider before permanently setting a goal. Things like considering if it is a SMART goal, or considering how it will help you in the future, even thinking about why this goal is meaningful to you. The main reason I wanted this in my magazine is because you only ever hear about goals that are absurd, or very very far fetched. Goals of corse should push you, but they should also push you in a direction you are willing to go, and want to follow. I want people to realize that when someone asks you about your goals, you don’t have to respond with “big ones or little ones.” Respond with the one that makes you the proudest, your favourite goal, whatever that may be. 

As I mentioned above goal setting can be hard, and I really didn’t realize just how much it relies on other things mentioned in the PGP course. Things like time management is huge when setting goals. To set your goal you must set aside an amount of time to complete your steps. That’s a very simple example, but it is also important to celebrate after a goal, to make sure that you are reminded of how nice it feels to complete a goal. An example is that when I run, i always treat myself to going to room 6 afterwards. I may not buy something but it feels nice to see people I know and have a nice conversation. 

Goal setting really ties into all of the 7 habits! 

I found something I really enjoyed through this project, I could not stop myself from working on this project. I could not stop myself from tweaking things, and trying a whole bunch of different styles and layouts to find the best one. I poured my heart into the articles and worked hard to transcribe long interviews until late at night. Time flew when I was working on this, and I can’t say that about a lot of projects. 

Here is my magazine, if there is any comments or feedback, please leave a comment, I would really love to hear what you have to say