Category: Plp

Watching The Great Debaters made me think about what debate can actually do for a person. In the movie, debate is not just another school activity. For the students, it becomes a way to push back against a world that tries to silence them. It gives them a voice, and that voice brings confidence, courage, and a stronger sense of who they are. They learn how to argue for justice, but they also learn a lot about themselves along the way.

The value of debate, for me, is that it helps me find my voice. It teaches me how to stand in front of people and say something that actually feels honest and real. It helps me understand the world more clearly because I have to look beyond the surface and dig into ideas that have meaning.

Becoming an effective debater will take work. I need to practice, put in effort, and learn how to research in a solid way. I need to listen just as carefully as I speak, and be willing to adjust my thinking when I learn something new. Debate is not about being the loudest in the room. It is about being prepared, thoughtful, and willing to grow.

That is my learning intention. I want to use debate to think sharper, speak clearer, and understand more. I want to become someone who can use their voice with real purpose in any situation.

During the project I broke up my notes to understand the different time line of the Cold War and the big important ideas that were important the to Cold War. This allowed me to grow as a learner as I learned that I needed to look back on my goal to better manage my time so I can hand stuff in on time. This would allow my project to meet the criteria. 

What was your original learning intention for this project? (include a link to your Learning Intention post)

My main learning intention was to understand the importance of the Cold War and the ramifications that it has today. Another learning intention I made was to tie it back to the previous project to understand the importance of the atomic bomb and how it changed the world and led to the Cold War. 

How did you challenge yourself to grow in relation to your VMV (Vision, Mission, Values)?

I challenged myself by trying to use my time more effectively and efficiently. Sadly, I wasn’t able to complete that goal but I did get better at using my time to understand the project more fully. 

Where did you see evidence of this growth — in your research, writing, collaboration, or thinking?

I saw evidence of my growth with my notes because I could understand them and use them efficiently. When I used my research time, I used it more effectively than past projects. 

What new strengths or habits do you want to carry forward?

Because of this project, now I know that if a project ends early, I can make a good reflection even when the project was going badly. I know that I can push through any next projects that fall short. 

How did fear shape the politics, culture, and beliefs of the Cold War world — and how does its influence still shape us today?

This shapes this us because America and Russia still have major issues with each other. Eastern Europe still has many ramifications because of the fall of the USSR. 

What key ideas or historical events helped you understand the power of fear in this era and what helped you learn that?

How propaganda was used in the US to portray JFK as a good looking president with a beautiful and the USSR was portrayed as ugly and greedy men who were taking for the people. The propaganda was used in the USSR was to show they were fighting for the people and how the people were standing up and joining the government. In America they were greedy capatilists who destroyed what democracy was. 

How did the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Blockade, NATO, the Arms Race, or other events connect to your thinking and how did you learn it?

The Truman Doctrine showed how the US was really good at polarizing the people in East European countries when they first aided them right after the Second World War. I learned this from the lectures and videos that the teachers did. 

How do you see the legacy of fear in today’s world: politically, socially, or culturally and what work helped you make that connection?

The legacy of fear is still used in countries today by using propaganda to scare the people how bad the other side is. Even in Canada it is happening more and more to divide the country between political parties. 

Reflect on how the novel and the work you did with it deepened your emotional and intellectual understanding of the Cold War.

In the bunker many people were fighting against each other and even if someone disagreed with what was happening they would go along with it so they didn’t get voted out of the bunker. Those characters represent the people in America and the USSR showing how people would go along with things so they wouldn’t be killed or exiled. 

What moments in Fallout helped you feel or understand the Cold War differently than through history alone?

Understanding how people were very fearful like how Scott’s dad built a bunker even though he did not put in enough food because he didn’t expect the bomb to get dropped. 

If you could ask one of the characters a question about living through that time, what would it be — and why?

I would ask how was it living in a bunker. It is fascinating that they lived underground with no outside experiences. 

Show how your thinking and skills developed through dialogue and discussion.

What was a key idea or perspective you shared that you’re proud of?

One of the questions was the us vs them and I really do agree with that because in Cold War the other side is evil no matter what. 

What idea from someone else made you rethink or expand your own view?

Sidney showed how the people being shoved out of the bunker are like the small countries in the East who were forced by the USSR to join. 

How did these discussions influence your thinking about fear, responsibility, or humanity during the Cold War?

With the Socratic seminars it made me understand why people were so fearful of the other side. 

How did you build skills during the three seminars?

My active listening was good for all three seminars I tried to make notes the best I could if someone said something thought provoking. 

Reflect on how your pitch captured your understanding of the Cold War and your creative process.

What was the central idea or message behind your project pitch?

I showed how propaganda could be used by different countries to support their ideologies even when their ideologies were not excellent. 

How did your creative concept aim to express or challenge the theme of fear?

It highlighted how propaganda is used by different countries even if their ideas are very different. 

What part of the process (research, planning, or feedback) helped you most to develop your idea and how?

The research helped me the most to understand the polarization between the US and USSR and why they had such disdain for each other

If you had time to bring your idea to life, what would your next step be?

If I could bring it to life I would compare the propaganda between the US and USSR to show how it was similar despite being two different countries. 

End with a sense of synthesis and forward thinking.

What surprised you most about your learning through this project?

I learned  that the Cold War is very fascinating and I find history interesting to know how the world works today. 

How has your understanding of fear changed?

Fear can be used to manipulate so you look like a better person and it looks like you are more morally upright compared to the other country. 

How did this project help you grow as a learner, thinker, and creator?

I grew my critical thinking to better understand how people viewed others in such a bad light even if they could be in such similar situations. 

What would you do differently next time to extend your learning?

Next time I would read more of the book and look deeper to understand the Cold War for this project. 

WWII ended USSR and the USA are enemies because they both had nuclear weapons. USA and USSR politicians would use fear to control the citizens in their country. USA made the word communism a sracy thing “red scare”. 

Nuclear weapons and the USA vs USSR as a thing. There was a lot of propaganda in different countries. And one of our previous projects we learned about the Manhattan Project this directly ties into the Cold War because the Cold War is mostly about America in the USSR, not trying to directly fight each other so they can not end up in a nuclear war. What about the importance of the Cold War and how it was developed is a really important thing understanding why the US and USSR could not fight each other directly, but had to fight each other indirectly. I want to improve my understanding of the Cold War and what was really happening and I want to understand why the Cold War was so important and why it’s still important to today. 

One of the things I’ll be looking forward into this project is understanding the propaganda that was showed on both sides and why the propaganda was used to scare people to think that one side was better than the other.

Another thing I wanna understand is why people trusted their government so much during this time even when a lot of what they were saying, doesn’t really make sense. I think it’s important to understand why people trusted their government so much and why they thought that their governments were doing something good for them.

my main intention with this project is to get an understanding on the importance of the Cold War and do better myself as a learner so I can understand how propaganda is used in countries so that their citizens will trust them.

My understanding of anthropology is not much on what it is to my understanding anthropology is the study of cultural, historical events that occurred during different cultures meeting and learning about what the other culture is about. Anthropology studies on the differences between cultures to understand each other and to not lose their cultural differences.

cultural identity
Anthropology helps us to reclaim cultural identity and heritage that has been lost so that they can get their language back and the traditions. For example in Canada many cultures were erased by colonization so today First Nations are still trying to reclaim their heritage.

cultural understanding
We had to describe what type of culture was the photo and it reflects the values and beliefs of that particular society. By looking at the visual elements, shows us what type of culture they are. Understanding what the environment and culture differences are and why they are important. This process show us to understand the different cultural patterns and the way their culture is influenced.

My learning intention

My learning intention is to understand why anthropology is so important to us. To understand how anthropology can be used for other projects. Understanding why anthropology is so necessary to understand cultural diversity and practices. As anthropology shows, the implications of these delays are profound. They show the responsibility to acknowledge and rectify historical wrongs, as well as to honor the memories of those who have been forgotten.  

This project links to one of mine previous projects

Truth Before Reconciliation Learning Post

Looking back: What was the most powerful thing you learned while creating this project?

The most powerful thing I’ve learned was understanding the impact the government in the church really had upon the indigenous groups and understanding how it originally was meant for something good, but it was turned into something bad very fast.

The process: What was the hardest challenge you faced as a team or as an individual, and how did you overcome it? What aspect of the work supported your learning.

The hardest thing I had to understand was having sympathy for the people who were involved on both sides, understanding that the government thought they were doing something good and understanding why the indigenous were so hurt by what happened.

Your growth: What new skills (technical, research, creative, or teamwork) did you develop through this project?

I understand how to make a mind map better than how to make one connect to all the different categories we made my categories were government, churches values, community, and culture. Having all these different categories, important to understand and look back in the research we did to what the indigenous experienced before and after residential schools. Through this, we could understand the atrocities that happened and make sure that you do not happen again to any group of people in Canada.

Beyond the project: How has this changed the way you think about history, community, or our role in reconciliation?

I think the biggest thing that changed in how I think was understanding how recent the residential schools were for the most part I thought residential schools were a thing in the past that happened a long time ago that we were learning about the most part it’s not really true. There is a lot of residential schools that were everywhere. I think our role in reconciliation is understanding what truly happened and trying our best to make sure it does not happen again. Doing our best to make sure that the indigenous communities know that this was wrong and that we are trying to fix what happened even if it can never be fully fixed. 

This project was about the Manhattan Project. If you don’t know what the Manhattan Project was it was a project to make an atomic bomb so they could use it against Japan. In this project, we had to make an animated explainer video that explains what the Manhattan project is in the importance of it. We had to come up with a question my question was specifically “How did the Japanese view Americans in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima?” we had to have an expert to confirm that our information was correct on what we were writing about. 

To answer my question I’d understand how Japanese viewed Americans after the bombing of Hiroshima, but to do that I had to explain the lead up to the bombing of Hiroshima in my video.  we had to make a project pitch to explain what we were gonna do for the project and what our main question was. We also talk about a research during this project, so we had to make something called a zettelkasten just to organize all your notes for the project our notes were on lectures that the teacher gave Oppenheimer movie and the book Hiroshima. We had to make notes for all of these and compile it into a Zettlkasten.

For the next thing we had to make  it was a storyboard, explaining how our video will be laid out and how our video will look and what we’re going to describe and make. Then we had to make our first draft of our animated explainer showing what we had so far and what our video will look like at the end. Then we handed in our final animated explainer to show what we’ve completed and to show to the teachers that our video is done.

Here is my video

I don’t really know that much about what happened at Hiroshima, all I know is that a bomb was dropped. I was surprised about the impact of the bomb had on the entire world not just Japan. I think I’ll be challenged in this project to understand the importance of the bomb and what it means today not just what it means in the past. I think the thing that is inspired me the most in this project is understanding the importance of the bomb and why it should be taught to all of us.

What Happened when the Bomb Dropped

So learning about this project is fascinating so far learning the impact that had we’ve been reading a book about Hiroshima and hearing it from the points of survivors. Hearing it from the point of survivors humanize the people who died and showing that they weren’t just numbers or statistics shows that there are people doing normal things before the bomb hit. Showing the importance of the impact that the bomb had on so many people and showing how much damage it really did.

What did Oppenheimer Think of the Bomb 

We’ve also learned about the what Oppenheimer thought of the bomb after it was dropped Oppenheimer quoted from the Bhagavad Gita is, “now I have become death destroyer of the worlds” which shows how he is taken on the guilt that led to what happened.

Driving Question
How did the development of the atomic bomb alter the world we live in today? This is the driving question I have to answer during this project to understand why the atomic bomb was so important and why it changed so much of our history.

Zettelkasten

The note in this project, we have to make it a zettelkasten One of the notes they made us take it on was on the book Hiroshima we had to make a note about the first chapter and what it is about.

 

 

 

 

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.

Looking back on this year, I can say that this year has been very long, but very fun and I’ve been very proud of all that I’ve accomplished in PLP.

one very important project was the Disney project. The Disney project showed how important immersion is to guests and how does Disney create the magic that they have?  the Disney Project was a very hard project for me because we had to find people to interview and finding people that interview was very difficult because they get out of your comfort zone to ask people to interview.

Another very important project was exhibition exhibition this year was very fun because we got to explore topics about Canadian identity so it was very interesting. My group had to learn about the progressive conservative party with John Diefenbaker learning why he was so important and learning Bill of Rights said he passed so more people could have equal rights in Canada.

Definitely not the 51st state project was one of the hardest for me because we had to do public speaking, which was very difficult to go up in front of all my classmates and stop speaking in front of them.  The topic I picked was why Quebec was important to Canada. I talked about how Quebec preserved the French language and how Quebec paved the road for other cultures to integrate in the Canada.

This is my mind mission value. This is what we wrote at the start of the year which feels like a long time ago I will talk about

 

This blog post is about the trip I took with my class to Disney we learned  we learned how Disney immerses guests into the experience. We learned the immersive part about Disney so we could use it in later skills in our life. The main thing for this project was making a video we had to make a video about four minutes long explaining what we did for Disney and  and my main topic was what do cast members do and how do they immerse you? I had three interviews which all helped me explain my questions and understanding what cast members do. 

Where to understand how Disney use cast members to immerse people and why it’s so important to the guests. Before we actually went on the trip, we had a couple classes explaining who Walt Disney is and why he’s so important. He changed a lot of film and a lot of modern culture today and that’s why this project was called Change Makers talking about the people who changed the world.

one part that was very difficult for me was not being around my family for so long. The trip was nine days long which is very long for most kids is very fun trip. A lot of friend groups were formed and everyone who went on the trip became closer.

an important but difficult part was finding the interviews. It was hard to find people who wanted to talk to you, and it was hard to find cast members who weren’t busy doing something else. So for me I only got one good interview with a cast member because finding a cast member doing nothing was a very difficult thing to do. When we were in Epcot and we went to the Canadian country where there was pretty much no one so I want to ask cast member and they said no because they had to on their break, but they asked their coworker who said yes, which is the reason I got such a good interview. One part that kind of sucked about the interview was that even after the interview, we kept asking questions and talking to them so I kind of wish I kept the recording going on longer.  all in all this project was very fun and a very difficult, but Disney is very fun to do and meeting all the people I did in Florida and be becoming better friends with people in my class was also a very nice.

My mentor for a day was my grandfather on my mom’s side. He talked to me about how he got into early web development for a career. On top of that he worked with Apple selling Apple IIs to schools. He also worked at HP in their earlier days helping them come into the Vancouver market. He started there when they were a small group in Canada. 

I chose him as my mentor as he had a lot of experience with business and a lot of experience with the early start into technology. I was interested in knowing how businesses worked and he has a lot of experience doing many different things. His wealth of experience, for example, years ago he travelled to the Caribbean with a business partner to invest in water pumps and filtration systems. He did a lot of things!

Anything to make money that he found worthwhile. 

This leads to the driving question: how did learning from other career journeys help to shape your own?

After an hour and a half conversation with my grandfather, I learned that it is important to take risks in business when you believe you can succeed. If you do fail, not to be too worried about it because you could have been too early into the business. Everything is a chance to learn and learn how to do it better next time. At this point, I don’t know what I want to get into, but I know it would be helpful to know how to understand how business works. He talked about how to trust people in business. One thing that helped him was a psychology course he took where he could distinguish if people were genuine or ingenuine. He said it was important to understand who you were going into business with and to ask around for that person’s reputation. 

Overall, I found this conversation with my grandfather to be very informative on what I want to learn in the future, even though I do not have a specific career in mind this conversation help me understand what it means to be in business and now I have a more understanding of what it is so for my jobs I want to do in the future. I can take this experience of my grandfather with me.