Posted on June 22, 2016
Scimathics Project
In scimathtics we just finished a science unit on light. We learned about what light is and how it works. We also learned a lot about Ibn Al Haytham and how light bounces off of an object and is directed into the eye. We were then assigned a project. For this project we got to make whatever we wanted to. We just had to make something that shows our understanding of light and tells the story of how Raven brought the light. It also had to include symmetry, colour, shape, refraction, reflection, opaqueness, transparence, and translucence. I was excited for this project because I got to be reactive with it and do whatever I wanted. I also enjoy playing with light so I couldn’t wait to get started.
It was a little hard to start because it was such an open project. It took me a while to come up with an idea but I eventually got one and was ready to go. To start, I made an opaque sculpture of Raven. I used First Nations art and reflection symmetry on the wings, and then put the sculpture in the shoe box. I took the lid off of the box and stood it on its side so it looks similar to a T.V screen. To show reflection I put three mirrors and two lights into the box. The lights shone on the the mirrors and could bounce off onto the wall of the box. I covered the white walls with black construction paper so the light will be absorbed instead of reflected. I have two convex lenses hanging from the top of the box. One of the lenses is translucent and I made the other one transparent by covering it in Vaseline. I put a rainbow on the back wall of the box to show all of the colours. There is a prism on the bottom of the box and a big light shining down on it to show refraction. The light hits the prism and bounces off in a different direction. I put the Raven in the middle of the box and he is standing on two cylinders. My goal of this project was to show how when Raven brought the light out it spread across the world and I feel like I did a pretty good job of that. I was really happy with how it turned out.
Posted on May 30, 2016
How the Renaissance Influenced Western Worldview
Recently in PLP we started learning about the Renaissance. I have to admit I wasn’t very excited for this unit because I find history very boring. When we started this unit I was pleasantly surprised with how interesting the Renaissance actually was. The Renaissance was the time right after the plague in Italy and it was a time of rebirth. I found the Renaissance interesting because it had a lot of similarities to our world today.
For this unit the project was a pretty fun one. I had design a poster that shows how the Renaissance influenced western worldview. In preparation for this I had to make a venn diagram on three influential people of the Renaissance. I had to pick one thinker, one artist, and one scientist or mathmetician and write about there life in the Renaissance. This was pretty cool because it helped me learn even more about how the Renaissance has influenced our worldview today. Once I was done the Venn diagram I got to start on the poster.
Starting off the poster wasn’t easy. To come up with an idea I looked at the three people I compared in my Venn diagram and looked at what they all had in common. I realized that they were all extremely creative and hardworking people. As soon as I realized that an idea popped into my head and I was ready to start. My idea was to show the breakthrough of creativity in the Renaissance and how it has influenced the western worldview.
This was my first draft. On the left is the Renaissance and on the right is western worldview. The lightbulb is supposed to represent knowledge and the colours represent creativity. As you can see creativity is only just starting to become part of the way of life in the Renaissance so that is way you can only see a little of it in the picture. Creativity and knowledge is a huge part of our worldview today and that is way you can see a lot of it on the right. The black represents death, the plague, and everything bad in the world. In the Renaissance the plague had only just ende and there was still a lot of death and evil in the world so that is why there is a lot of black on the left. If you look on the right you may notice that there is still a little bit of black. That is because there is still evil in the world today even though it is way better now then it was back in the Renaissance.
To make this I started off in paper and divided my page in half. I then added the colourful bubbles and light bulb to each side of the page. After I was done that I started a new page and could red it completely black. I then coloured the parts I wanted to be the holes white. I then took both pages into comic life. I placed the colours down first then I added the black page with the white holes. I used instant alpha on the white holes to get rid of them so you could see the first page then I lined them up perfectly and finally I was done. It probably doesn’t seem that hard but it actually took me a long time to get everything perfect. Even though I was happy with my finished product I knew I would have to make a second draft.
This is my second draft. To improve the first one I added words into the colorful bubbles so you knew what they were representing. Also in the first draft you couldn’t really tell what each side was supposed to be so I added a title on the top of each side. My second draft is definatley better then my first because it makes more sense to people even if they don’t know anything about the Renaissance. I enjoyed this project because I got to be creative and do whatever I wanted with it and it was really fun. I hope I get to do more work like this is the future.
Posted on April 20, 2016
Worldview E.E.
Recently in PLP we have been learning about worldview. This was a very interesting topic to learn about. Worldview is the way a certain person views the world. It is there perspective on the world. You worldview could have been shaped by many different things. It could have been shaped by your family, friends, travel experiences, school and many other things. Some people are ethnocentric which means that they believe that their worldview is right and everyone else is wrong. Everyone has a worldview and everyone’s worldview is different.
For this project we had to do an explain everything on our worldview and how it was shaped. We had to tell the story of how our worldview got to be the way it is. I found this project quite challenging. I had never thought about my worldview before so I didn’t really know how it was shaped. I had to think really about it to make sure I had everything I needed. I was quite excited to start this project. I had never used explain everything before and I was excited to see what I could do with it. If you would like to download it HERE is the link It. I started off this project pretty confident in what I was going to do. After I was done the first slide I was so done. It took so long to do the animation and it was way to much work for what it was worth. By the time I was done I was so happy. I don’t think I had ever been as happy to finish a project then I was after that. Explain everything is a good app to use if you have a lot of time on your hands. If you are a busy person I would recommend using a different app.
In the end I got it done and it turned out ok. I do admit I could have worked a little harder on it but I just didn’t have the time or energy. I’m so happy I’m done this project and I hope I never have to use explain everything again. Here it is if you want to watch my Explain Everything.
Posted on March 9, 2016
S.L.C. Post
Recently in P.L.P. I have been working on my student led conference. here are the posts where I talk about the work I have done this year.
Posted on March 9, 2016
Evidence of a Growth Mindset
At the beginning of the year I didn’t even know what a growth mindset was. When I found out what it was I was pretty interested. I was amazed at learning about the effects a growth mindset can have on your life. After learning about what a growth mindset was I realized that I didn’t really have one. I definitely had more of a fixed mindset. I immediately tried to think of things I could do to give myself more of a growth mindset. I started to say “I can” and “I can’t yer” more instead of saying I can’t and I feel like that really worked for me.
Some evidence of my growth mindset was definatley Destination Imagination. There were a lot of times during the process of making our project for Destination Imagination that thought that we weren’t going to be able to do it or that it would be bad no matter what we did. Then I rembered everything we learned about having a growth mindset and started thinking that we can get this done. I started to put more effort into it and think more positively. My group constantly ha to remind eachother that we can get this done and it would be great.
I really needed to have a growth mindset on the last day before we presented because we just found out that one of our teammates was not coming. Through that time I just kept saying “We can do this” and I knew everything would be fine. We also had some malfunctions with are tree a couple of days before and I knew we could fix and I never gave up. The tree ended up turning out great. I was a little surprised by how much of a growth mindset I had during Destination Imagination but I was very happy I had it because it was very helpful.
Posted on March 9, 2016
Work That Shows Growth
I have defiantly grown a lot in my work this year. At the beginning of the year my work was sloppier and was rushed. I goal at the beginning of the year was to get the work done no matter how sloppy it was.My goal now is to always do my best no matter what. My paragraphs have gotten stronger and note taking as improved. I am better at answering questions and am also better at working in groups which was one of my weaker points at the beginning of the year.
The piece of my work that shows the most growth in my opinion is my blogposts. My first blogpost at the beggining of the year was short and rushed. I didn’t put my full effort into it could have been way better. If you want to read it Here is the link. My most recent post is called The Body of Octavius. It shows so much growth compared to my first post. I really put a lot of thought and effort into it and was really proud with how it turned out. My paragraphs are stronger in it and I feel like I did a way better job of explaining what I was doing. I also added more detail so it was easier for the reader to understand. I am really proud in the how much my work has improved since the beginning of the year.
Posted on March 9, 2016
The Work I’m Most Proud
So far this year I have done a lot of work. I am also proud of a lot of the work I have done. It was actually kinda hard to pick the piece of work I was most proud of. I ended up picking the piece of work I felt like I put the most effort into and that ended up better then I thought it would. Out of all my work I am most proud of my quilt square. Right from the beginning I worked really hard on this and I am very proud with how it turned out. If you are not sure which work I’m talking about you can read about it in 2 of my previous posts. First Post, Second Post
The second I was assigned this project I knew I wanted this to be really good. I got with my group and we decided which part of the story everyone was going to do. I was extremely ecstatic when I got my part of the story. I knew exactly what I was going to do and couldn’t wait to get started. I made a couple of drafts but I knew that my final picture was perfect. I had been practicing my sewing skills at home and was very excited to start sewing the real thing. Once I started sewing I couldn’t stop. I kept finding new places I could sew until I knew my quilt was perfect. I was really proud of how I made my square tell my part of the story. Every little detail I added helped add more detail to my story. I was so proud with how it turned out and I hope I get to do something similar to this soon.
Posted on January 13, 2016
Body of Octavius
Over the past few classes we have been working on a body biography. A body biography is a picture of a person that has all the information of the person on it. We were put into groups of about 5 people and each group was given a famous person from Ancient Rome. For the first class we had to research our person and learn as much about them as we could. In the second class we had to pick a colour of paper then trace someone on that paper. Once we had a human shape on the paper we had to cut it out then write stuff on it about our persons life. We also got to print out picture to put on him or we could draw pictures onto him. In the last class we got to finish the body biography and present it to our class.
On the first day I was put into a group with Will, Ryan, Ruby and Tatum. Our person we were given was Octavius Caeser. It was hard to find information on him at first because when you search his name it only comes up with stuff about Agustus Caeser but we soon found out that it was the same person. My group worked really quickly to get information and was able to get a lot of it.
In the next class we picked blue paper then got Tatum to lie down on it so we could trace her. For the position of Octavius we got Tatum to put her hands on her hips to represent strength and power. Once I had traced Tatum we cut out the body and started to figure out what we were going to write on him. Once we had figured out what to write on him we had to pick a place on his body to put it. We had to pick places that had significance to what we were writing. For example we put a lightning bolt in his head and wrote about how he only thought about power.
In the last class we finally got to present. We talked about what we wrote on him and why we put it where we did. We also talked about why we picked the shape we did. In the end I was pretty proud of how it came out. We only wrote significant facts and put them in the perfect places. If I ever did this again I think that I would focus more on not writing paragraphs and keeping it down to a few words per place. I also would put more consideration into where we put each fact. In the end considering how little time we had I was happy with our finished product.
Posted on January 7, 2016
Questioning Star Wars
In school we were given a project to do. Everyone had to come up with any question that they wanted to but it had to be about Star Wars. You then had to do a project to help answer your question. My question was how do they make and come up with the sound effects. I picked this question because I like I like sound effects and I honestly couldn’t come up with anything else.
Before I started to answer the question I had to create a planning sheet. I put a lot of thought into it and it really helped me decide on what I was going to do for my project.
To answer my question I spent days researching starwas sound effects, what inspired them, and how they made them. I then took my favorite 10 sound effects and made a slideshow with them and all of the information about the process of making them. It was pretty tricky to find all the informationo but i managed to do it.
For my project I also created my own character and created a sound effect for it. I created an alien creature that was really tall and skinny with lots of green stripes. To create the sound effect for it I read about the other sound effects and tried to come up with an idea similar to that. I read that a lot of the sound effects were based on sounds of animals so I thought I would try to use an animal. I recorded my dog growling twice and then mixed them together. I then slowed it down a bit and made it deeper. In the end the sound turned out pretty good and I was quite proud of it. I really feel like I answered the question and learned a lot.
Once I was all done my project I was put into a group with people in my class that had similar projects to mine. This was the group I was going to present my project with. The way we presented our projects was really fun. We were giving a planet from star wars and a room in the school. We then had to transform our room into the planet and set up our projects. My group had the planet hoth. We came up with some really creative ideas but it was pretty hard to make them happen. We started off really slowly and were very scared it wasn’t going to turn out ok. We ended up getting help from lots of our classmates and were able to get the room setup. Because we had hoth we had to make the room cold so we opened up all the windows and it ended up being freezing inside. We also added a Wampa Cave out of cardboard and sheets and added lots of white paper to the room to make it look snowy
.
We created a pathway down the middle of the room with lots of tables and white paper.
We set up our projects on the tables and finally the room was done. People started arriving and it was fun showing off my project we also had to have a snack and game at our planet so we gave out Hoth (hot) chocolate and people played pin the arm on the wampa. I had a great time answering my question and presenting my project and I can’t wait until next time.
Posted on January 5, 2016
Quilting the Battle
Making my quilt was pretty fun. Once we got the story sorted out and decided what everyone in my groups quilt would be we got to start quilting. I was excited to start but first I had to learn how to quilt. I got a couple pieces of fabric, figured out how to sew, and then started. I got the hang of it pretty quickly and was ready to start working on my quilt.
I started off with a blank quilt and was ready to do my best to make my quilt tell my part of the story. My quilt is supposed to represent the battle between Bellator and the king which you can read about at the end of this post.
I then started working really hard to make my quilt. I first made the swirly line to help show how the crown was falling.
You can watch some of the creation here. Swirly line Timelapse
It was actually quite hard to make the line swirly and I did make a couple mistakes but I just kept trying hard and eventually got the hang of it. One of the hardest things about making this line was lining up all the stitches to form the swirl.
Next I lined the inside of the crown with gold string. I decided to challenge myself and use the shiny string (which was significantly harder to use) to give the crown a nice shimmer.
You can watch more of the creation here. Crown lining Timelapse
Finally I was getting close to finishing. Next I added blue and green sequins onto the crown to make it look bejeweled. I had to figure out how to put the sequins on and it took my a while but I was eventually able to figure it out and found it quite easy.
Once I was done with the crown I still thought it needed more so I added three shiny silver lines to the top of the sword to show its victory. Once I was done that all I had left was the border. I just did a simple black border and then I was done. I am quite proud of my finished product and I hope you like it too.
Now for the part that will help explain my quilt. This is the part of my groups story that my quilt is based on.
Bellator and the Ending of Time Part III
Bellator has finally reached the castle of the King and most now fight for what’s right. He knows that he shouldn’t have come because he was not asked and as an Alexonian he knows to only to do what he is told to do. As he approaches the doors to the castle he notices two guards standing by the door. He must think of a way to enter without being caught by the guards. Being as smart as he is he quickly came up with an idea. He hides behind a bush and starts throwing rocks into the forest. The guards hear sounds coming from the forest and then decide to go check it out. Bellator quickly runs to the doors and enters the castle.
Once he is in the castle he really thinks about how to kill the king. He starts to sneak into the Kings room. He has no idea where the Kings room his so he must find it without being caught. The king has many servants but not very many of them like him. As he walking through the castle he sees a guard and quickly runs into the closest room quietly shutting the door behind him. He turns around and notices he is in a small room that looks like a study. In the corner of the room he notices a servant. He quickly pulls out his sword and holds the point against the servants throat. The servant asks Bellator what he is doing hear. Bellator tells him that he is hear to kill the king and will kill anyone that stands in his way. The servant then explains how he dislikes the king and will help Bellator in any way he can. Bellator says he doesn’t need help but kindly asks the servant for directions to the Kings room. Once he has directions Bellator heads on his way.
He quickly finds his way to the Kings room. He enters the room and only the king and two guards are in there. He pulls out his sword and the guards charge towards him. They start an intense battle. Bellator slices one of the guards arms and stabs the other guard in the stomach. The guards fall and quickly flee the room. It is only Bellator and the king now. The king pulls out his sword and prepares for battle. The king tries to get into Bellators head by saying how he is too wimpy to kill him. Bellator gets mad and strikes the king in the thigh. The king stumbles back in pain and let’s out a mad groan. The king unexpectedly steps forward and cuts Bellators face. The king then roars out in laughter as the blood pours down Bellators face. Bellator quickly strikes the king in the chest and the Kings falls in defeat. Bellator stands over the king and watches the life drain from his eyes as he realizes this is the start to a new era.
That is the end of my part of the story but you can read the rest of it at my groups blogposts.
Spencer’s Posthttp://www.blog44.ca/spencerl/2016/01/04/our-quilt-project-2/
Alex’s Post http://www.blog44.ca/alexanderh/2016/01/05/i-hate-needles/
Sam’s Post http://www.blog44.ca/samuels/2016/01/05/the-story-of-my-quilt/