“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 opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

This year has been one of my craziest. Through exploring Alberta, team-bonding at Loon Lake, creating so many videos, and much more, I have changed a lot. Looking back at who I was at the start of the year feels like seeing a different person. A lot of this year felt like learning experience, with many failures, setbacks, and frustrations. That mixed with the combination of being growing teenager left me struggling quite a bit. Though, a lucky skill I have gained from PLP is reflection and growth, so having such a hard year left me with so many opportunities to learn about myself a grow. 

Now, let’s take a closer look, and jump right into the nitty-gritty of my grade 9 year!

Seeking help

I started this tPOL journey by looking back at my learning plan. Right away, I saw something I have been working on my whole life, and talk about quite a bit. Seeking Help. I wrote, “I want to get better at asking for help when I start to need it, rather then waiting until I am overwhelmed and start to negatively effect my work.”, which is still very true to me. Throughout this year I still struggled with this, but I am so proud to say that as I come to the end, I feel I have grown in this area! Though I still have projects where I struggled to ask for help, I think my last two were filled with a lot of good communication and help-seeking on my end! I would like to look at my most recent project, WWI con, as a strong reflection of this. Throughout this whole project I was very good at seeking help, largely through my peers! I was constantly asking for suggestions to make the process easier and opinions on my drawings. Having that support made the hard repetitive process so much easier, letting me create something I am really proud of in the proper time.

Resilience 

The next success behaviour I want to talk about is resilience. A pattern that I have become very aware of is a struggle of resilience during projects at most inconveniences. I find that whenever I start to struggle, I have a really hard time continuing, trying again, or trying something new. Through my reflection skills, I think I have found a contributing factor to this, which is my ego. I think I have a really hard time admitting to myself that I am struggling, that I need to redo it, my method was not as good as another, etc. I do always end up continuing through the project, but sometimes that might take a very long time or from lots of encouragement from others. 

A project I found this in was my Frankenstuffie video. This was a very very difficult project for me. It took my a very long time to create, through an honestly unenjoyable process. I became frustrated and overwhelmed quite quickly, but I didn’t want to admit it. This led to tons of procrastination, continuously making the whole project harder and harder. When I reflect on my process throughout this project (and many others that go along the same line) my biggest wish was that I didn’t let one small roadblock set me so far back. 

I believe that improving my resilience will help me in so many ways. Being resilient can lead me to stay on track, which leads me to not stress about the timeline, which leads me to having an amazing project experience. My learning experience also goes a lot more smoothly when I can experience struggles without being fully set back.

Focus

The last success behaviour I want to talk about is focus. On first thought, I would say that I am a focussed person in class and at home, but on deeper reflection, I can see I do struggle in this area. I think a reason why I have not talked about it before is something I mentioned earlier, my ego. I know it seems like I’ve brought up my ego quite a bit now, but honest self reflection has been one of my biggest discoveries this year! I have been able to admit that when given class time to work on a project, I can lose lots of focus. This leads to me not properly use time that I have been given to work and complete projects. 

I would still like to say, I believe I can be very focused, especially when learning. I tend to struggle more when creating my work.

A project I noticed I struggled focussing in was my “ In the name of nationalism” project. So much of this project was the actual creating, and because of the amount I had to create focussing and using class time properly was key. I would get distracted by my surroundings, which could be students, sounds, or even my own technology use. For that specific project, I found myself getting distracted very easily, which created so much extra out of school work. I can look back at projects now and see how when I was focussed during class, I completed my projects on time and to a standard I was happy with.

I am actually really happy to say that focus is something I have to work on. Obviously I am not happy that I struggle with focusing, but I am very happy that I am now aware this is something I can improve on because I think it will really help me.

I hope that as you have followed through my tPOL, you can see that I have become quite aware of success behaviours I can improve on and have improved on this year.  I wanted to be really honest with myself in this reflection process, and set goals for myself after reflecting. As I did in my first TPOL, I have one major goal for next year. For PLP grade 10 I want to become more self accepting of what I struggle with. I have been aware of some specific struggles of mine for a long time, such as perfectionism and my issue with seeking help, but I tend to have a harder time accepting my struggles in areas I find more “ common”. I think this is partly due to my, as mentioned before, ego. I have such a hard time admitting to myself that I struggle with something I wasn’t aware I have struggled with before. After one specific conversation with a teacher I had this week, I feel like I have been able to fully look at myself in a new way. That conversation made me aware of so many things about myself, specifically how I have a hard time admitting to myself what I struggle with. 

Knowing that I can be more comfortable with growth gives me hope and excitement for next year because I feel like I am giving myself more opportunities to grow and have a better learning experience.

I hope you enjoyed my tPOL and I hope you had an amazing year!

“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 opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

My 9th grade so far has been filled with many new, fun, challenging, frustrating learning experiences. 

There have been so many ups, but so many downs (so much growth 🙌). I can already say, this is the hardest school year I have had. I have seen new versions of myself through different situations, and how I handle them. At the start of the year, I wanted to have a very strong academic year (which I still do), but as projects passed, new priorities arose. 

Everyday I learn, which I can wait to tell you more about.

Let’s get right into it and start strong with my “Thrill-Us” marker project! (Which was a ‘horror’ to make!)

Thrill Us!

Maker, unsurprisingly, was the title holder for “worst project”! This is a very negative way to start, but on a positive note, I feel reflects so much of my growth, learning, and areas for improvement. This project I am reflecting on is the Thrill Us film project, which my friends and I got to create. Immediately, I had to learn how to straight up create short film (which in itself is filled with so many aspects), but I also I had to this while working this many creative differences. I like to think of myself as a strong collaborator, which I still do see myself as, but I have never needed to work so closely which a group on such a creative project. 

We ended up with a very unique concept that could have been such an amazing short film. The important detail we forgot as we created storyboards, characters, and plot summaries. Our plan involved unheated water…. In the winter. Sadly, we also were terrible at scheduling ourselves enough filming and editing time. So on the Tuesday night, we filmed our movie. On the Wednesday, we realized almost all of our footage was terribly shot, and unusable. This project was due the Thursday night.  So that Wednesday, we realized we essentially failed. After creating such an intricate, unique, creative concept, our execution could not create a project anyone was proud of. 

Now, after such a hard fail, we had to quickly bounce back. And we BOUNCED. We were given an extension to Saturday, and within that time we had to alter/revise our idea, film, and edit. Together, after learning how to work with eachother, we created a new story(which did not involve water!). Even in the few days we had, we made sure we started filming right away, giving us more time. 

This project was an eye opening shockwave to the importance of time management, and balancing creativity with what’s realistic. I have now noticed myself reflecting to this project when I start new ones as a reminder of how much more challenging a project become when I don’t plan well enough. But, I do still create very challenging projects for myself, sometimes on a tight timeline. When looking at a recent humanities project “Rise of the Frankenstuffies”, I planned a very complicated and time consuming animation to make. I did end up completing it very close to the deadline, but still a little late because of the crazy-making-process.

Now that I can recognize this within my projects near the end, I need to become able to understand faster, and come up with solutions for when I do discover my project idea is too bold. I need to improve my learning plan, so I can meet the deadlines to my projects, while still having work that I am proud of.

I also would like to add how proud I am of the project, in the sense of how my team recovered, and created an insane short film (a piece of film media I will forever be proud of).

Louis Riel!

The next project I want to talk about was a RIEL hit! My Louis Riel project led me to creating a multi-paragraph response to the driving question: How has the portrayal of Louis Riel changed over time? When I first went into this project, I remembered thinking “this is going to be super easy!”. Turns outs, I struggled. Like, a lot. 

We spent lots of time learning about Riel, which I felt did really well with. I became quite engaged in my work, and even enthusiastic. Then, when we actually had to start writing, I couldn’t do it. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but during that class on Monday I stared at my iPad as my peers around me seemed to know exactly what to do. Right after that class, I had a mini panic attack, which led me to finally asking for help. But within the time my humanities class started and when I was crying in the counsellors office, I could have asked for help. I also could have worked on not letting myself get to that point. Experiences like this have been happening my whole life, largely due to my perfectionism. I believe the reason I could not start writing my paragraph in class was because I wanted to get it right on the first try, but I knew I couldn’t, because I didn’t understand fully what to do. And because I wanted to be able to get it right my very first copy, a part of me believed I shouldn’t “need” to ask for help. 

Before this project, I thought I had a very improved control over my reactions to situations likes this. In my learning plan, “improving coping strategies”, was a very big goal for me. It is something that effects me a lot. This project made me realize how much I still have to develop, while also leading me to very helpful strategies! Because I became hyper aware of my emotions in this time, I actually turned to social media looking for ways other people keep themselves calm. The two strategies I now use as much as I can are 1. Box breathing  2. Asking myself “will this matter in 5 years?” . Now these strategies might seem strange, but have really helped me in following situations, such as moments in the “Rise of the Frankstuffie” project, and Di. 

Even though I wish every project could go smoothly, I know most won’t. But, by the end of this year, I want to have done at least 1 project where I am not so strongly upset, panicked, and overwhelmed. I want to have a strong method for me to use during project so that I can let myself have help, and not be so freaked out that my learning experience is ruined. I have already come up with some strategies, but I now will also be asking for suggestions and HELP from my teachers and peers to be able to complete this goal.

Thank you for reading to my mPOL. This reflective experience has actually been very helpful, in reminding myself what is important, what my goals are, the crazy year I’ve had, and how much I have learned. 

How do the choices we make set our future path? -driving Q

In what felt like the middle of no where, my class grew from a bunch of kids in an iPad program, to a team. 

For 1 week, my whole PLP grade went to loon lake for a Team-Building and Leadership retreat. During this retreat we learned a lot about ourselves, but also about eachother and community. I think that everyone that was on this trip took at least one thing away from it, but I know that I personally took away a lot. 

Throughout the week we worked on a booklet, which was filled with activities that helped us understand many things, like what a successful leader, what type of leader I am, my strengths, etc. Before we went through this book, I thought I already had a really good understanding of this, but I actually learned so much more. 

One of these things that I learned that really stuck with me was identifying my leadership style/styles. My leadership style is encourager. This style is pretty self explanatory; I am very encouraging, I celebrate achievements, I give lots of support, and lots of appreciation. I feel like this fits me perfectly. Now I know my leadership strengths, and where/how I can support my team the best. 

Another thing that really stuck with me are my emotional intelligence traits. I am emotionally self aware, I have group awareness, and I am empathic. Knowing these continues to help me use my strengths when working in a group, but also helps me understand what I need to work on. I know I need to work on optimism, adaptability, and emotional self control (a trait I think might be the most important to have!). 

The book wasn’t all we did while on our trip, we also got lots of hands-on actives. Some of these were like high-ropes courses, rock climbing, and archery. Through these activities I found the groups we were placed in started to grow, and created a sense of trust within everyone. More trust was built as we grew into more intense activities, like the trust fall. For this trust fall, one person stood on a chair which was on a table, and fell backwards into the arms of classmates. This activity was really big for me, because it was one of the first times I have trusted my peers so much. Falling from so high is really scary, but having a team there for you makes it so much easier.

This was such an amazing week, I learned so much but still had so much fun. I got to think about so many different things, and do so many things. But before I leave, I need to answer the driving question! “How do the choices we make set our future path?” Everything I ever do will effect me and my future, even if it’s in the smallest way. But these small effects can lead to much bigger ones. Going to a small retreat for one week in 9th grade might not seem very impactful, but that one week taught me skills in need for my future, and taught me how to get there successfully. Being a good leader is one thing, but understanding why you are a good leader and how you can be an even better one is so much more. 

Hey blog! I lied, if you have read my most recent post. I said I would be blogging for a while, and you would probably see my in September, but here I am, blogging AGAIN, the day after I said that. 

I do get to talk about something a little more fun (in my opinion), which is my spring exhibition! This was my first Spring Exhibition, and I loved it!

For this exhibition my grade did a project on advertising and making advertisements (Medium is the Message), and our final product was showcased during it. This was the last project we did in humanities this year, SO LETS TALK ABOUT IT. 

My driving question for this project was: “How does advertising persuade, sell, and influence society?” 

Like I said, this project was all about advertising. We started by learning about the basics; what a target audience is, advertising techniques, advertising appeals, and looking at professional advertisements. This was really interesting, and really fun. I think this was my favourite pert of the project. Then we started taking what we learned and putting into a “persuasive chart”. That’s just a funny name for it, what it really was was a chart with ads we got to pick, then learn about. We had to wright what types of techniques and appeals they used, and what we thought the message of the ad was. I liked this project, but I really struggled with it. My teacher, Ms. Willemse, was gone for this project, so we had a substitute teacher. I know it is very hard for substitutes, so I’m not blaming him, but sadly he couldn’t answer some of the questions I had. I struggled a with the criteria, and understanding the expectations Ms. Willemse.

After the persuasive chart, we started making our REAL ads! What I forgot to mention earlier was that some of the project was done while we were on our Oregon trip! And during our Oregon trip we stopped at lots of different companies, companies we would advertise for! My company was Marine Discovery Tours. I got to interview the owner Fran, and ask her questions about her business, her advertising, and her life story! I recorded our conversation, so once we got back to school, everyone advertising for the company could write down notes. This part was pretty cool because I got to know my group a lot better just by sharing this information. I had to go ask them questions, and answer questions they had for me. 

Then came the exciting and very important part! Making the ads. After learning about advertising and learning about my company, I got to make a print ad for them. I found this very hard at first, but slowly it came to me. My problem was I had no idea where to even start. I had an idea of what I wanted, but making the first draft was really difficult. I think I made it so hard for myself because I am scared of failure, and I didn’t want my first draft to be a fail. LOL. It was. And I am ok with that. I wasn’t ok with it being a failure as I was making it though. And right after handing it in I wanted to make a new BETTER one, so failing worked out good for me! After lots and lots of drafts I finally created an ad I was happy with.

Now that I made the ad, I was ready for the exhibition! Because my grades “theme” was advertising, each group had 1 booth that they all shared and decorated to match the theme of their company! I loveddddd decorating so much! I think my group did AMAZING and I think our booth looked great! Presenting was also pretty cool. Having so many people come up and talk to me about my work always makes me feel good, because it makes me think my work is good enough for them to have to ask/talk to me about it. I also really enjoyed the exhibition because all my team came! My coach, and all my friends!! It was super nice of them because none of my family could make it, so seeing them made my day. It was also a surprise, and I love a good surprise.

Overall this project was really fun, same with the exhibition. I feel like I have answered the driving question with this reflection, the keystone I have done, and my final product. What do you think?

Hey blog, this is my tPOL (transitional presentation of learning)! Basically me talking about my school year, and reflecting on it. I’m also going to be answering the driving question: “why do you feel your ready to advance to the next grade level?”. 

Pretty scary question to answer right?

It’s good though, because it really makes me think about how I did this year. What did I do good on? What did I do bad on? Did I really learn from my victories and mistakes? I guess you will get to find out with me! Get ready to read a LOT, because it might take me a while to answer this.

“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 opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

This year was my first year in high-school, in PLP, and also not school I had been going to my entire life. I know this was a similar experience that everyone in my class had, but it still effected me very much. I have grown not just as a learner, but as a person. Being surrounded by so many talented, smart, creative, and inspiring people has been such a privilege. 

Being around theses amazing people keeps me always reflecting on myself. I know this isn’t a great habit, but I often find myself comparing myself to others. So when someone succeeded in my class, I would think how I could be more like them. I think this has helped me for the better.

After the quick introduction, let’s jump into it by looking at science!

Science 

I had science for my second term this year, and I had a blast(mostly). I have always really liked science, though I have not always been great at it. This year especially I found myself struggling. I find biology really confusing, so learning about it everyday for like 4 months was pretty hard on me. I had and amazing teacher, who made this experience a lot better, though I still struggled. One of my projects was “Mind over Matter”, and I have to say this is the project I am the least proud of, out of all my projects this year. In this project we learned all about matter, and at the end of it, we made a video game that reflected the knowledge we gained from the unit.

This project is my least proud for 1 main reason. This reason is that I feel I took an easy route for my final keystone, and did the easiest, mindless game I could. And that is embarrassing, and doesn’t reflect the learner I want to be. I feel that I could have done so much more in the project, but for a reason I can’t quite figure out our I didn’t. I feel like I have let down my teacher and class when I think of this project, because normally I see myself as a smart and leader-like student, but this project changes that. Luckily, I can take away some things from it. One thing, is that I need to work on my dedication. I do care about my education very much, but sometimes I almost forget that. I continue through each project to try and take the extra step, do the extra work, and put in the extra time. I have seen this as a pattern of mine fore a while now, so I know I need to do something about it. For next year I want to make this a big goal of mine. I feel it will make a big difference in myself as a learner.

Maker

I had maker in my first semester this year. Maker was a very interesting class, I learned a lot about the technology I use everyday, and became very confident using it. Most of my Maker projects were pretty easy and straightforward for me. Now, except for my Pandora’s box project. This project is one of my favourite projects I have ever done in my entire life. The process of it was not, but that makes the outcome so much better.

I am a very ambitious, creative, and persistent person when it comes to art projects! For this project, we learned about the movie avatar, and then we did a project off of it. We connected avatar to the real world, and got to present it through a artefact that we made. My real world connection was about nature and the negative relationship. The humans had with the nature on Pandora, I am in nature activist, so this was first thought for me because I care so much about this topic I wanted to do something really big and really impressive. I decided to make a hanging tree model of a tree that was very important to the native animals on Pandora in avatar, something that is important to know about me is I am a perfectionist so when I came up with this idea, I knew I needed it to be perfect. This made it really hard because I ran into lots of problems during it. making the tree and hanging it was so hard and took so long and near the end, I was kind of done with it. They were lots of times where the tree broke, or times when I couldn’t hang it the way I wanted to. Instead of giving up and doing something different, I kept with my plan and ended with a beautiful gorgeous piece of art that I could not be more happy with.

This shows my skill of perfectionism, which now I am happy to say is a skill. I talked about this in my mPOL, like how I’ve find perfectionism strength and weakness. I’ve talked about how I wanted to find the perfect middle, so it could be a strength, and I feel like I have finally gotten there. Obviously there’s always time to improve, and I will never be perfect, but I am definitely getting better. I also showed some of my less academic base skills, like my creativity, and art.

Humanities 

The last project I want to talk about is my “The Medium is the Message” project. This project was all about advertising, and in the end we got to make our own ads for real companies. This is a project I really struggled with, for lots of reasons. For one, we were working on it during our Oregon trip, so I had a hard time remembering to do the work because we were always doing stuff! Then, the following week, my teacher wasn’t there, so that made it harder for me to ask questions that only she could answer. I already find myself having a hard time doing work if I’m not a 100% sure of what I’m supposed to be doing, so for those two busy weeks I always felt unsure of my knowledge and projects. 

Another part of the project the project I really struggled with was making the actual ad. I know that I am creative, and I know I can be a good artist, but having the thought of my work being related to a real company scared me. I didn’t want to disappoint the owner of the business I was advertising for, because I thought it would be almost disrespectful showing her something she didn’t approve. All of these thoughts made my start to the project really slow, but finally I was getting somewhere. I got lots of great feedback from my teacher, which really helped my ad improve. Sadly, I didn’t get any feedback from my class, even when doing feedback activities. Not getting feedback was really hard, because feedback from my peers is very important. Just getting feedback from my teacher can be pretty tricky, because sometimes I take the feedback a little to personally. That is something I want to work on next year. Taking feedback more positively and openly, and then actually trying it. I think I wouldn’t have struggled so much during this project if I improved that skill of mine.

So, to answer the driving question, I feel I am ready to advance to the next grade level because I am still learning, improving my skills, understanding my weaknesses, and growing as a person. And the fact that I am aware of this is why I feel I am ready to advance to the grade level. 

Thank you for reading my tPOL! This is gonna be the last you’ll hear from me for a while, but I’ll talk to you when I become a super cool 9th grader. 

I had a really good time going to Oregon with my class. We went to lots of cool places, became a better team, and learned a lot. We learned a lot about our humanities project and a lot of information related to it, but we also learned lots of other things.

The project I am working on is about advertising, and in the end I am actually making an ad for a real company. My company is Marine Discovery Tours, which I got to interview on this trip. I learned a lot about what I should be putting in my ad, like the way they want their customers to first see them, to the colour scheme we should use. Talking to the owner was a great experience, and gave us all this information. She also expressed that she wanted a new logo, so now I know I should redesign it and make a new one for my ad. 

I didn’t just learn about my company though, because I am only one of a few kids advertising for them. I got to see so many other companies (companies my friends could be advertising for), and how they are successful. We didn’t just go to small companies, we also went to really big ones like Tillamook! Going into Tillamook was a great way to see success, and paying attention to advertising techniques they might be using. 

I definitely got inspired and got my brain moving for this project.

Now like I said, I didn’t just learn things that had to do with my project. I also did lots of “other learning”. One thing that I learned is that I lose things very fast. I lost my wallet twice (found it both times), and I left my bag on the bus after we had fully unpacked and locked the bus. Luckily a teacher saw it and gave it to me. Losing something so important like the wallet, even for a short period of time, made me realize I need to stay more organized. 

Another thing I learned is that I sleep best in busses in really weird positions. I fell asleep very fast every bus ride, and was fully energized for the next stop! This was a very positive thing I learned about myself, and I plan to use it in the future.

The biggest, and most important thing I learned about myself is that I like yogurt. It was like a love story. After visiting the Tillamook cheese factory my teachers were inspired to buy Tillamook food items for breakfast. This meant the magical Tillamook yogurt. At first I told myself I wouldn’t have any, because after all I don’t like yogurt. So I went along my merry way eating breakfast until… I finished eating everything on my plate and was STILL hungry. I didn’t want to eat anything I had already eaten, but I knew I needed fuel. I  decided to try some yogurt. I went up to where the all the food was, and saw a few yoghurt cups left. The flavours were very limited, but I found a fruit that looks like a blackberry, and because I like blackberry, I decided to pick that one. I grabbed the yoghurt and walked back to my table. I sat down, took the lid off, and had my first bite. To my horror… I loved it.

Overall my Oregon trip was really good, and I would definitely do it again! I made a journal during this trip, that talks about what we did in more detail, where we went, and everything we learned! Check it out!

FUN FACT: I am actually doing it again, but instead of with my class I am doing it with my family this summer.

Photo dump time🥳

In this science unit I learned a lot.

Keystone 1: In what ways do we interact with and describe matter?

In Keystone  we learned about: what is matter, chemical and physical properties, and quantitative and qualitative observations. After learning all about these things, we got to make a “Who am I?”. A “Who am I?” is describing on object using physical properties, chemical properties, quantitative observations, and qualitative observations, so that someone can guess what your object is. I picked a block of wood.

I really enjoyed this project, getting to make the “Who am I” was really easy to make. I really enjoyed the math component, finding the mass,  volume, and density.

Keystone 2: How does the kinetic molecular theory contribute to different states of matter?

In keystone 2 we learned about: the different states of matter and how they change, diffusion and osmosis, and the kinetic molecular theory. All of this lead to my favourite project, the gummy bear diffusion. For this project we created our own question, came up with our own procedure, and the recorded our observations to answer the question we made. This was a group project, so I got to do it with my two friends Sydnee and Ailie! Our question was “Do different temperatures and types of water effect the rate of diffusion?”. 

This project was really fun, I love hand-on experiments. This was definitely my favourite project of this unit.

Keystone 3/Final Project: 

In keystone 3 we learned about: atoms and the structure of one. I liked this part a little less, just because it confused me. The project was fun though, we made a video game! We used scratch, and had to make a video game that reflected the knowledge we gained throughout our entire unit. My video game was a true or false game, which was pretty easy to make.

Overall, this science unit was really good. I’m not the best at science, so it always makes me really happy when I finally understand. I learned a lot and feel more confident in my science abilities.

Try my video game ⬇️!

Small But Mighty was my first science unit. For this unit I learned all about the immune system and public health. Through three keystones and 1 finish line project, we were answered the driving question: “How can our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public health?”. 

This whole project was really fun. For keystone 1 we got to do lots of hands on work. We made Petri dishes, and a field journal documenting the progress to answer the driving question: How do we interact with microorganisms here at school? With the petri dish’s and the field journal, we had to make a hypothesis and prediction. Mine was “The washrooms that are used more then others will have more microorganisms”. 

I really enjoyed this project, because normally we don’t get to do hands-on work like this for our projects! I also really liked coming up with a hypothesis because it made me use my brain in a way I don’t think I normally do. It felt like a challenge to come up with an original hypothesis I liked, and actually wanted to answer. It took me a while, but I am happy with it.

My next keystone (#2), was making my immune system character cards. We learned about the immune system, before this keystone, specifically about the B-cells, T-cells, Antibodies, White blood cells, and macrophages. We then made a “character” card for each of these. I based all of my character cards off of “Barbie Life In The Dream House” characters, because I will forever be a #barbiegirl. 

This project was really fun because I got to draw each character. I hadn’t drawn in a while, so it was a reason to use my creativity again. I wasn’t feeling to confident about how I did though. We didn’t just draw for our character cards, we also had to write about them, and what each cell did. I feel like I could have given a better description, but I was feeling rushed because we didn’t have as much time as I would have liked. 

The third keystone might have been my favourite. For this keystone, we got to make posters de-bunking a myth about vaccines. I made a poster with my partner Izzy, de-bunking the myth about microchipping through vaccines. 

I really enjoyed this project because I got to work with my friend Izzy, and learn about people’s theories on microchipping. I have always been interested in conspiracy theories, the government using microchipping as one of them. I loved doing research about it, because getting to find all the reasons to why this didn’t work was like a puzzle. I had to find lots of little pieces to build into one big piece. I found lots of really good articles on people de-bunking this myth, and then reading people disagree with them. I also really liked that this project reflected real-world issues. Lots of people don’t get vaccines, and that effects everyone. Making this poster could hopefully give people a new look on vaccines, and make them re-think their decision.

The last thing I made was a public health poster for kids. This project was pretty simple. All we had to do was incorporate a drawing of a pathogen made by elementary schoolers, have a snappy slogan, and show your knowledge over what we learned this past month. Other then this project, I am confident I did well throughout the unit. This finish line project is something I am not so confident about. I feel like my poster add a lot less detail then others, and was missing some elements. I noticed lots of peoples had facts on them, while mine doesn’t. I know I don’t have to do what everyone else does, but it is something I wish I could have incorporated into it.

Overall, I am very happy with this unit, and am over proud of my work!

How do you think I did?

For this humanities project I got to create a historically accurate diary made by Christopher Columbus. This diary had to answer the driving question: “What sparked global exploration and what was the impact?”. 

I had lots of fun with this project, coming up with ways to talk about events that lead up to European exploration while still making it seem like a journal was a real challenge that got my brain working. I also had a word limit (I may have gone a little over) which made it really difficult to fit all the information I needed and wanted, and making sure story actually sounded good. I think I did really well with this project, and I think I shared what sparked global exploration and what were the impacts really well. I had to write in the first person, so talking about the future is really difficult and different. I really liked this final project for this unit because it challenged me.

I did notice throughout this project I got a little “lost”. I was very unsure of what my diary had to look like, and seemed to be struggling to stay on task. In the future, I think I have to continuously remind myself to stay focused, because it was all the little things I missed that left me so unsure.

I hope your read my book, and I hope you enjoy it!

Do you think it answers the driving question?

I made my Triptych with the editing app SuperimposeX! I used historical paintings from the Renaissance, with the historical innovations to create each panel (except the middle because I didn’t need historical innovations for that one!). I also had to edit my face into each panel, because my Triptych is staring me!

Learning about the Renaissance was a journey for me; it started hard, but slowly became easier. It was hard for me at first because I was learning so much information so fast, and I had to takes NOTES! I was very overwhelmed, but as I took more and more notes, I got used to it, and it stared becoming helpful. Because I was learning so much, it was hard to remember everything. But as I took notes, I would have a page of the information I need, and could always look back too.

From this project I took two important things; the skill of photoshop, and being able to take notes again(and actually appreciate them!). I was really happy with this projects, even with its ups and downs, ending with a Triptych I know I worked hard on and am proud of. I also think I answered the driving question: “How did ideas from Europe and Asia change the world?”.

Do you think I answered the driving question?