Humanities

The Manhattan Project Project

faiths Humanities

How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world?

All of  my information regarding the Manhattan Project before this unit came from the TRAILER of the Oppenheimer movie. I knew the US built a different type of bomb and that it had devastating effects that ended WWII. I didn’t even know enough to have an opinion on the driving question.

We started the project with lectures about the people, science, and effect of the atomic bomb. We then wrote a piece on any event or person that we wanted talk about and argue why it was historically significant. My choice was to write about Pearl Harbour which led me to research and gave me a chance to revisit the idea of historical significance which we would be using throughout this project. You can see my argument for why Pearl Harbour is historically significant here.

Next, instead of keystones or milestones like most humanities projects, we dived into the creation of the final product by being put into groups of 6. Our goal over the next few weeks was to research, write, design, and publish an interactive book on the historical significance of the Manhattan Project. Our group took a loooong time to brainstorm ideas for our book but in the end we came up with an original and creative idea for our book that no other group did. Instead of writing the book from an outside point of view, we wrote the book from Oppenheimer’s perspective, and turned it into his journal.

 

For part of this project, two group members went on a field school to New Mexico, and visited the Trinity site and a museum which is where they interviewed people and took photos for our book. Back at Seycove, the rest of us split up the book into sections. As the project manager, I helped split up the tasks and research topics to start the process of creating out book. I personally set goals for each class and made sure everyone knew what their job was when they left class each day. I was in charge of finding and writing the information for the “classified file” and the opening writing about Oppenheimer becoming director of Los Alamos.

 

One of the requirements of our book was making sure each team member was in a video so my group came up with the idea to do a reenactment of Vice President Truman becoming President and then finding out about the Manhattan Project. This emphasized how much of a secret the building of the atomic bomb was even at high levels of government.

Overall my group worked really well together. Everybody did their part and helped to come up with ideas when our book got off track or when our thesis needed to be revised. I really liked collaborating in this project and I think it would have been difficult to do on my own. We could build our ideas off of each other and research and develop the part of the book we were interested in doing. I also liked how we each had roles as it made things go smoother. We knew who would edit the videos, for example, and who to ask for help when designing the layout of our pages. We could rely on each other to do our part while still being able to ask for help and get a response when we needed one.

Much of this project was about communication and research skills. As a group we found it really challenging to find sources that talked about Oppenheimer’s thoughts, which caused difficulty considering it was supposed to be from his perspective. This led to deeper research and creativity. I really love how we had different ways to show our information. We had the classified file at the beginning, newspaper to show the historical significance the end, as well as interviews, a video, and photos. To make our book to feel more like a journal we called the chapters “entries,” crossed out words, and coffee stains on the pages.

Now at the end of the project, I realize how much more to the Manhattan project there is than I thought. It was interesting to learn “little’ details like the government actually built a full town so the scientists could bring their families. It was also interesting to learn more about why the decision to build, and drop the bomb is controversial. Below you can see my group’s final product. Make sure you check out the top-notch reenactment video as well as read why this event is so historically significant.

 

F.A.I.L (Faith’s Advice In Learning)

faiths Humanities, PLP

How can we use the power of written text to inspire the new PLP 8 learners? That was the driving question for the first PLP 11 project. This project was a lot more English based then many humanities projects, which I found challenging. Writing and grammar have never been my strong suit so when we started a project called “Mightier than the sword” I was a bit worried. 

To start off the project we did writing workshops and learned about the writing process. This included learning new ways to brainstorm and finding different techniques that worked better for us. If you click here you can see my writing journal where I reflected on this experience. 

In my writing journal you will also find my academic writing which was the next part of this project. For the academic writing we had to think about the audience and tone  so you can see my process in the rhetorical analysis in the writing journal. I found the rhetorical analysis especially hard in the writing process because its a different type of purposeful writing than I usually do. Normally I write down some ideas and some evidence and then just start writing; for a rhetorical analysis, I had to think about what contexts and audiences affect my writing. The requirements for the academic where to write about why PLP is a good choice for students focusing on whatever aspects we wanted. I decided to write mine on hand on learning because I know this is a type of learning I have found very useful in PLP. I have done a bit of writing in the last few years but this one was much harder then most of what I had done before. This writing was serious and needed research and sources and quotes which all took a lot of time. I wrote many drafts (that you can see in my writing journal above) and got lots of feedback I used for my final draft. 

This brings us to the final product which was creating a piece of writing for the PLP Grade 8s. Now as grade 11 student I don’t interact with the grade 8s on a normal basis so figuring out what they would want to get advice on was challenging. We started off with lots of brainstorming and then came up with questions to ask them during a morning snack/discussion time one morning. I participated in the early group for the discussions and it went really well. I was able to get good ideas of who the Grade 8 are and what they are concerned about for high school. Using that information I decided to write my advice on F.A.I.L which in PLP means First Attempt In Learning. I am very proud of the name I decided to call my writing F.A.I.L (Faith’s Advice In Learning ).  For this writing I liked how I added in my own experiences as well as my brother’s as I felt that it added a more personal touch that gave the students first hand advice. I found the type of writing for this much more casual and fun compared to the academic writing so I found it easier to write. 

I unfortunately wasn’t able to get any feedback from the Grade 8 on my writing but I am proud of what I wrote which is my goal this year to be proud of what I hand in. If you click here you can see my final writing I hope it’s helpful to you PLP 8 out there :). 

 

Ology of Apology

faiths Humanities

 

 

Driving question: How can we keep apologies for past wrongs alive so they are remembered and not repeated today? 

I found this question very complicated as it is a big part of our world. Answering this through our project took a lot of time, research, and collaboration. We started by watching a documentary covering Japanese internment, Chinese head tax, and the Komagata Maru. Even though it only scratched the surface of each event, I realized that Canada has a lot to apologize for in its history. We were then all assigned one of these event to research thoroughly and find primary sources that tell the story. 

For keystone one, we needed 8 primary sources that I could then analyze and use to tell my story. The first step of finding the primary sources was harder than I had originally thought. I not only had to find first hand accounts but also needed the right and readable ones to clearly tell the story from different views. Even though I ended up getting a sophisticated understanding mark for keystone one, I found the actual process harder than just not being able to find the right sources. When I eventually found the sources I needed, I had a very difficult time analyzing and understanding the primary sources. A lot of the language they used was confusing and hard to read because of age. I spent a lot of time doing the writing for each source and reflecting on that reality, I should have used my IEP to ask for less sources so I could’ve had time for creativity on other parts of the slides. Even with that situation, I am very proud of my work and that is shows my sophisticated understanding of the Komagata Maru.

Keystone 2 was more simple we already had all the information that we needed. Our assignment was to write our own ethical judgment with evidence about our event then record it. I found understanding what an ethical judgment is the most difficult part of this keystone.

“Ethical judgments are attempts to assess the appropriateness of past actions and our current responses to them, remaining mindful of present values and sensibilities and considering fully the norms of the time.”

After that I just wrote a paragraph and did an audio recording of my ethical judgment.

Keystone 3 was the visual representation of the project which was in the form of a monument. I was put in a group with my friends, Ava and Ariane, and together we came up with the idea of our monument being a lantern. The lantern had symbols cut into it that were projected onto the walls when the light was on and each of these shapes are connected to the passenger’s experience on the Komagata Maru. One side of the lantern showed their perspective on what they hoped they would experience when they came to Canada. The other side of the lantern represented the reality of what they faced when they actually arrived on the coast of Canada. Here are several of the symbols used to represent the perspectives of the passengers and our understanding today:

  • House: to represent a home/life they wanted to build in Canada
  • Flowers: to show growth and a life that can blossom in Canada
  • Peace Sign: many of the passengers were coming from severe hardships in India and were looking for a peaceful life.
  • Maple Leaf: this Canadian symbol represented their hope to be Canadian and because they were British Citizens, they thought this was possible.
  • Uneven Scales of Justice: to symbolize the inequality they faced by the Canadian Government, media, and civilians.
  • Thorns: to show the hardships and barriers that were put in place making it impossible to stay.
  • Gun: this symbol demonstrated the violence they experienced in Canada and the violence many faced when they returned to India.
  • Handcuffs: this symbol showed how the passengers were imprisoned on the boat that was supposed bring them to freedom.
  • Broken Heart: to represent their disappointment and their destroyed hopes as they starved and were turned away.

The main challenge in making our visual was finding the best light source for inside our lantern. This was the part that I thought would be easy but the type of light mattered. Some were not strong enough which meant that the shapes were not projected clearly, and some duplicated the shapes so that they overlapped. In the end, we used the light on an iPhone to cast the perfect light.

Exhibition

Our monuments were not only meant to be displayed publicly on our blogs, but were built to show at our 2022 Winter Exhibition. The theme of the exhibition was around the blockbuster movie Avatar and more specifically what the fantasy world of Pandora revealed about our own society. 

There were about eight rooms and each room connected to a theme shown in Avatar that we also see in world history and even in our present. For example, my room theme was militarism and my group and I had to connect the idea of militarism to the Komagata Maru incident. How the Canadian government responded with militarism to the arrival of the Komagata Maru was represented visually in our exhibition room, the Combat Zone. On the night of the exhibition, all of the grades in my room were told to start setting up, as the Grade 9 had a layout and plan in mind. Unfortunately, the student who had created and posted the layout was sick and no one understood what he had drawn. We came up with several ideas and moved props around when we were told that we were in the wrong place. After relocating, we found we were missing two of the tarps needed for the plan. Another challenge was finding the right spot for our specific monument. We needed less light  in order to display our lantern but with the move, our projections were not as effective as we had seen in our trials. We solved this problem with the help of the Grade 12 assigned to our Combat Zone. These were frustrating challenges that required some quick problem solving in the moment. 

In the exhibition, I enjoyed seeing what the other Grade 10 PLP class did for their monuments. I also intentionally went and asked the Grade 8’s and 9’s about their projects. On a personal note, I stood up and answered questions about my project. Instead of letting the others talk, I participated with more confidence and I think it is because my group mates were two very good friends. In the end, the exhibition ended smoothly, we cleaned up quickly, and got excited to see Avatar, The Way of Water.

Top 10 Moments of The Way of Water

  1. Hanging out with friends! 
  2. Popcorn with butter and a sprite!
  3. The small details in the movie ( like the ripples in the water) were fantastic.
  4. The fact that the underwater scenes were filmed underwater and looked authentic!
  5. The Bioluminescence! 
  6. Seeing the change in culture between the Tree People to the Sea People!
  7. Kiri developed cool things as a character.
  8. I loved the bond between the Toruk and Na’vi people.
  9. I like that there will be more in the series.
  10. I was emotionally attached to the youngest child of Jake Sully and Neytiri (Tuktirey) and if she had DIED I would have walked out.

MPOL

faiths Humanities, Science

There are two driving questions I would like to answer in my MPOL today.

First of all: How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?

Secondly: How can I sharpen my learning plan to ensure that I reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?

I  showed growth in my communication core competency specifically the communicating aspect of it. I showed this a lot in the working with words poems project where I had to clearly communicate my worldview through poems focusing on a certain literary device. In my Working with Words project, I showed more of my personality and who I am. This is growth for me when I consider feedback from last year and my work on earlier projects which were less personal.

The poem I would like to highlight is the “My Buffoonery”poem. This was an extended metaphor which was new learning for me. I compared my 9 male cousins to orangutans and yet the end of the poem shows how much I care about them.  Another communicating success in this project was the fact that I chose to do an iMovie trailer to introduce myself and the project. I was able to show photos in a fun upbeat way and to give the audience a feel for what my poems would be about. 

Another growth in my communication competency, was in my last scimatics project with showing the different type of bonds though a keynote animation. Using the app to animate in Keynote was challenging but I grew in my knowledge about Keynote animations so I could clearly tell the story about the scientific concept. On the other side of the communication core competency is the collaborating part. I showed this skill with the revolutions on trial by gathering evidence and writing a script with my group. Last year I would not have voiced my ideas as much but this year the Nation X project helped me voice my ideas in order to made a functional society right away. I believe this made it more comfortable for me with my Trial project. I got a good idea about what a functional society wasn’t and that helped me have ideas about what I wanted to say for the Trial. 

The trial project is also a good example of my growth in critical and reflective thinking. Our group didn’t make a strong argument at first and so we revised it multiple times. We even discussed our ideas after school and during lunch with the other team so that we could improve our whole trial. 

In my scimatics project about exponent laws I showed the creative thinking part of the thinking core competency.  I built on my partners’ ideas to make a board game that creatively and correctly showed most of the exponent laws. I enjoyed creating the Exponent Apocalypse. 

The second driving question: How can I sharpen my learning plan to ensure that I reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?

I set profile three for where I want to be for communicating competencies by the end of the year. But reflecting on the Nation X, Working with Words,  the mock trial and the Keynote animation, I think I need to sharpen my learning plan and work towards profile 5. I believe I have achieved profile there and am profile four. One of the challenges I face is confidently communicating with my teachers and communicating more of my personality. I haven’t established a weekly check with the teachers yet which i had written in my learning plan so I will be trying to do that in the next part of the year.

For personal/social competencies, I am working towards profile four where I can recognize my strengths and take responsibility for using strategies to focus, manage stress, and accomplish my goals. I use the THINGS app and my timer and go to LAC in order to focus and manage my time and goals. To manage my stress I exercise, and go to bed on time as much as a night owl can. If school was later in the day like 8 pm my stress level would go down. That is just a suggestion. The main challenge to this area is my anxiety which completely blocks my thinking and strategizing.  

I definitely need to work on being more patient with myself and be more confident with my work I need to be more patient knowing that I might not get it on the first try and that is ok because failing is fine. I don’t make every lay up in basketball or every serve in volleyball and I don’t make that big of a deal of it. I need to think of my learning in that mindset.

 I do go to LAC every morning but I do need to get better at asking for help in class.  I try my best focus on my assignments but I’ve been realizing in my past few projects that I lose focus a lot I need to take more breaks especially in scimatics were we work on the same thing for over an hour I need to get up take a break walk around. 

Overall I feel proud of my growth this half of the year and know that I can make adjustments to my strategies to accomplish my goals before June. 

Working with Words

faiths Humanities

How might I construct text that shows who I am right now? 

Working with words is the project that will show how.

Poetry? Nine poems? Two and half weeks? Stress levels were high.

Similes, personification, assonance? I feel like I’m going to cry.

Through each poem  I showed a little more of my worldview,

Geography, knowledge, time, society, and a few others too.

Family, friends, experiences that make me who I am,

Chocolate, boating, skiing, and crazy cousins.

Beliefs, dogs, moving, and a global pandemic 

Everyone cautious and wary, its become epidemic!

Starting the poems caused a lot of stress,

Writing the meaning statements made me depressed.

But the complimentary texts and About Me Video pulled me through,

To help me show who I am to you.

Working with words is the project that will show you how

I might construct text that shows who I am right now.

Summative blog Post  People and the Environment 

faiths Humanities , , ,

This humanities project’s topic question was “How do people and the environment affect each other.” We had to write a letter about an environmental issue in bc saying what the problem was, showing some evidence, and finding a solution. We would then be sending the letter to someone who could make a change on the issue. 

An important part of this unit was our common lit reading and writing assignments. We read about environmental issues and how they affected people and how people affect the environment. Sometimes the environmental issue was presented through a story or article and one time through a poem called “Turtle’s Song”.  We had to read the writing and answer the questions as well as complete writing responses. I found the “He-y, Come on O-it” the most interesting story even though it was fiction, it showed the idea that people need to be aware of what happens to waste. It doesn’t just go away. Short term solutions aren’t the answer.  For the Common Lit Milestones, I learned a lot about how to write about environmental issues and connecting ideas in between stories. The picture I included shows evidence of my learning as well as shows the curricular competency: I can analyze how texts use literary devices to enhance both meaning and impact.

Another way we were answering the driving question was through the letter which was the product of the whole project. I chose to write my letter about microfibres in our waterways and how they get there through an everyday activity, doing laundry. In hopes of making a difference I chose to write a letter to the Minister of the Environment in BC. His name was Honorable George Heyman. I wrote many drafts of the letter that was critqued by many different audiences. One grade 12 student told me to make my letter more concise. This comment made me shorten my letter and get to my point more quickly. My drafts including my final letter are below. The letter and every step I did to make the letter showed two curricular competencies:

  • I can use writing and design process to plan, develop, and create original, and engaging and meaningful texts for a variety of purposes and audiences. 
  • I can reflect, assess and refine texts to improve clarity, effectiveness, and impact for purpose,   audience and message.

Drafts of letter

Final letter draft

 

Something I found very amusing was the fact that almost NOBODY in our
class knew how to write the address and return address on the letter. The teachers had to take extra time to show us how to do this and give us extra
time to do it! Because we normally don’t use pencils (especially mini ones) it was hard to get the lettering straight and neat. I’ve never personally had to address a letter before. It shows how difference between my generation and ones before. 

 

 

Another evidence of my learning all three of these curricular competencies is the common lit connections multi paragraph assignment. We had to tie the common lit readings to our letter in three paragraphs. The most challenging part for me was understanding what was being asked of me to write. Even after I asked my friends I didn’t understand what I had to write. I understood all the stories and the letter but didn’t understand what I actually had to write. After completing the outline and making a theme statement it was more clear what I had to do. The photo below is the common lit connections that I did with Mr. Harris’ critique on how to improve.

I enjoyed learning about the environmental issues in more depth than I have done in the past. This was a very open ended project where we had to research and find an environmental issue here in BC and find a solution. At the beginning of the project I didn’t think we could come up with solutions but everyone in the class had a great idea of how to solve their issue. By researching how doing laundry affects the ocean so much, I realized that everything we do affects the environment.  Even though I think that there are more destroyers than protectors in our world right now, there are lot of people who are making a change in the 21st century. Everything you do affects the environment. When the environment is affected, we are affected too. SO BUY A MICROFILTER!!

Argh Matey Blog Reflection.

faiths Humanities

 Hi. This blog post is an end of project reflection on a project called Argh Matey! This project was all about the European exploration of the new world! During this project we had to learn about Christopher Columbus with his “discovery” of the Americans, we had to learn about the Columbus exchange, and much much more. In this project we learned about cause and consequences, both the cause and consequences part of the project and the European exploration part were put together to create the end project.   

Before I tell you about the end project I need to explain how we used an app called AR Makr to put together the end project. This app is an augmented realty (AR) app this makes it so you can add 3D or 2D shapes to a room to make it look like it is actually there when you look at it in the app. 

Now combining the three things I have talked about, I made an AR video on the European exploration using cause and consequence! I made a cause and consequence sheet on the European exploration, created drawings for each event, wrote an paragraph explanation, and then I added it all into the AR Makr app to bring it all alive. For example, I brought a boat from Christopher Columbus’s time and also some indigenous people. This showed the Columbian exchange and the start of European exploration of the Americas.

 I enjoyed making the end project even if there were a few problems like the AR app not saving my progress, or the fact that my writing explanation took forever to record. Over all I enjoyed how we put our learning about the European exploration into a new app.  I hope you enjoyed learning about the Argh matey project.

My first experience with DI

faiths Humanities ,

Hi for the past few weeks i’ve been working on a project that has been both fun and stressful, this project was called destination imagination(DI). For this project we were put into groups and in those groups we tried to find the solution to the problem assigned to our group. We filled out a survey saying what group we would and wouldn’t want to be in. The groups we could be in were….

-engineering: where the problem we had to solve used engineering 

-technological: where the problem we had to solve used technological thinking 

-scientific: where the problem we had to solve used scientific thinking 

  • fine arts: where the problem we had to solve used fine arts 

The group I said I wanted to be in was engineering and I got what I wanted. I was put into one of the two PLP 8 engineering teams. There was two engineering teams one with each of the humanities teachers. You might want to check out some of my teammates blog posts for DI:

Ines

 

Alfie

Samuel

Gwen: http://www.blog44.ca/gwenl

max: http://www.blog44.ca/maxl

Mateo: http://www.blog44.ca/Mateok

 

For our solution we had to build a model of a building showing how opposites can be complementary. We had to include one visual art style and one architectural style. We chose to do Renaissance and post modernism for those. We also had to include 2 style features and two visual art styles. 

 

Our visual art styles were the roof and the shape of the building as it represented post modernism and our style features were the Renaissance themed furniture and paint. Along with all of that we had to come up with a story around the model of the building to again show  how opposites can be complementary. Then we were to hand in the video showing our solution. For the skit we chose to act as people of all ages from an old grumpy person to a youngster and we even had a millennial. We did this to as another way to show how opposites can be complementary. Here is our video!

Even thou I know that this video isn’t as good a it should have been I know that I definitely learned a lot during this project. I learned that it is very hard to work together as a group on projects like this. I learned that DI takes a lot more patience then I first thought, and that time management is more important than you might think.  Lastly I also learned that DI takes up a lot of time and a lot of thought. Overall this project was very interesting! 

Final blogging challenge!

faiths Humanities ,

For my final blogging challenge post for this year I had complete two tasks. 

The first task was to write a reflection on my participation in the challenge and to think about the past 10 days that I have written post. To do this I answered multiple questions here the one of the questions. 

Which post did you enjoy writing the most and why?

I enjoyed writing the 😃emoji story post 👍the most because it was a very creative way to practice writing stories and I got to see new and exciting emojis that I had never seen before. 

By answering these questions I was able to reflect on all the interesting work that I have done these last few weeks. 

The second task was to write about my blogging plans for the future. My plans are very simple I will continue to write in my blog as the school year goes on. I will reflect on each project that I do next quarter in scimatics. If I were to add to the blog in a personal way I would add videos of me reviewing my favourite books. I would also write about my family adventures. Lastly I would include more photos in my future posts. 

This concludes my very last 2021 blogging challenge post. I really enjoyed learning all these new ways to blog, I hope you enjoyed it too. 

Celebrations and festivities

faiths Humanities , ,

Hello today I am doing another blogging challenge. This weeks blogging challenge is about festivities and celebrations. For this I had to write about one celebration/festivity and explain a photo that I thought best showed one of my festivities/celebration.

Family celebration 

Christmas Eve: Christmas Eve is the day before Christmas and my family has special traditions that we do every year. For the first tradition we go to the church service at 4 o’clock as a family. We also have a Fondue supper every Christmas Eve. We have chocolate fondue caramel fondue we have bread with great cheese sauce and we all enjoy it as a family. Next we all open up our secret Santa gifts. Every year Everyone pulls a family members name out of a hat then you have to buy a gift for that person secret Santa. The last tradition that we have on Christmas Eve is we all take her mattress down and sleep in the living room all together we usually have a terrible sleep but it’s still fun. The last tradition that I just mentioned only happens once every two years because on the other year we are visiting our family in Alberta so we don’t get to sleep in our living room but instead we get to see our aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents so I think it’s a fair trade. Those are the fun traditions that my family has and I enjoy every single one of them.

 

A fireplace 

I chose this object because I think it is one of the best objects that represents my Christmas. For me a fire place doesn’t only remind me of  warmth, but it also reminds me of Christmas. Every year on Christmas (here or in Alberta) we open our secret Santa gifts on Christmas Eve and our family gifts on Christmas Day. We open our gifts in our living room and in our living room there is a fireplace that we always turn on.  A fire place also reminds me of Christmas because every year when all of my family comes into the living room to decorate our tree we turn on Christmas music and we turn on the fireplace. A lot of my best memories from Christmas is when we are by my fireplace as a family having fun and that is the reason that I chose a fireplace. 

That ends my festivities/celebration blog post I hope you enjoyed reading it!