Hi! Welcome to my first ever tPOL post. I’m in grade 8 so this is my first year in high school and PLP. TPOL stands for transitional presentation of learning and I did something very similar to this earlier in the year called an mPOL which stands for mid year presentation of learning. Here is the Link to go check that post out. Let’s get into it!

Humanities!

My first subject that I want to talk about is humanities. My favourite unit from humanities has definitely been Argh Matey. In Argh Matey we Got to learn about comics, viruses, explorers and for our final milestone we even got to create a comic. This was very interesting to me as I got to learn about Bartolomeu Dias. Bartolomeu Dias created a new route from Europe to Asia by sailing around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488. I got to create my own story about him and the measles morbillivirus. The project that I definitely found a little more challenging was It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. It was definitely a little more challenging as it was something I have never done before. We created our own lyrics about our worldview and put them to the It’s The End Of The World As We Know It song by R.E.M. it was a whole new experience that I really enjoyed. The other half of this project we learned about the renaissance. We got to learn about history makers. Some history makers are Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Petrarch, and Raphael. Overall I feel that I have improved in this subject a lot especially with my grade. At the start of the year I had a B and now in my last report card I had an A.

Scimatics!

My next subject is scimatics. My favourite subject for scimatics has definitely been Chemistry Coding. For this project we got to create our own Scratch project. Scratch is a coding app that you get to make fun, small coding games. For my scratch project I had a small dinosaur named Tiny who takes you on an adventure home. On the adventure home you had to help Tiny avoid two atoms and a molecule on three different levels. Level one was the lithium element atom, level two was nitrogen element atom and level three was the ozone molecule. The levels were really hard and I myself found it extremely hard to get to level three. In between each level the temperature would increase and it would get hotter which made the atoms move faster. I really enjoyed coding and creating my own game for others to play. For me I think the project that I struggled a little with was definitely The Ultimate Design Challenge . My partner and I decided we would design the inside of a treehouse. This was very hard to do and sadly ours couldn’t 3D print in the end. It was a fun project but a little challenging to get the dimensions right. I am very happy with my improvement in this subject as math or science have never been my strongest suit. On my last report card I got an A which was a good accomplishment for me as I have been working hard on improving in math and science.

Maker!

For maker we’ve been doing something called Destination Imagination . Sadly we were only allowed to do one tournament before spring break because of COVID-19. The second tournament we did online with only our school. In between the two tournaments we got to improve and work on our solution and presentation. I felt that my group and I succeeded very well in the online tournament. We had really improved since the first one and it was very fun. We improved as a group and worked a lot on making sure everyone’s ideas were included which gave us our best outcome. Sometimes it was hard to work as everyone had different schedules but after talking we would eventually find at least one hour to do things together. We also more recently did a unit called a witness to history. I found the unit fun but a little challenging. I love photography so when we got to learn about angles I was excited. It was a little challenging for me to come up with story for my book. It took a lot of thought but after seeing other journalism I figured it out. My grade has improved a lot in maker and I’m really happy about that as I have been trying very hard.

PGP!

I have not really had a chance to improve in PGP since my mPOL. The last thing we did for PGP was Oregon in October which was an amazing experience that I am so thankful to have had.

I am so happy to have failed a lot in the past year as failing is only the first attempt in learning. Failing has allowed me to see my mistakes, fix them and grow. My goal at my mPOL was to make sure I can get almost every assignment handed in on time and use the skills that I’ve learned outside of class. I feel that I have definitely accomplished that as majority of my assignments have been handed in on time there has maybe been one or two that were just a little late but I’ll keep working on that. I have also been trying hard to use the skills that I have learned inside class outside of class too. One example of that was over spring break preparing for our online DI tournament. I tried my hardest to use communication skills and to stay in touch with everyone in my group, I made sure everyone was keeping up and on task. I really think that hard work showed in our presentation. I feel that I am definitely ready to advance to the next grade because of how much I feel I have grown in the past year. My grades have improved a lot since the start of the year. My goal for the summer is to improve my percentage grade because even though I have As most of them are 87% which is right on the edge. I want to work over the summer so I can increase my grades next year.

Overall I feel that I have improved a lot over the past year and I’m really excited for next year. Grade 9 here I come!