On September 9th the grade 9s of PLP departed for Calgary. This is going to be the long and great blog post about it. Im going to talk about a lot because I want to be able to give the link to anyone who asks about Calgary so I don’t have to repeat a breakdown of the trip to everyone who asks. “How was Calgary?” “Great.” (trying to not get into what we did because that would take hours) “What did you do?” Oh no. I’m going to talk about some of my favourite/most important parts of this trip, because if I talked about everything…. Well….. lets just say you would be here for a while.

REVELSTOKE – SEPTEMBER 9th. GHOST TOWN VIDEO.

On the first day of the trip, we arrived in third valley gap. We were assigned to make a less than 10 minute fictional video on anything we wanted. The day before we left we were put in groups, and had to figure out what we were going to do. I was in a group with Jamie, Robin and Melika. We all started throwing ideas around, and well… Ended up with something  interesting.

I cant really breakdown the story too much because in reality it’s just a goofy video that was fun to film and edit (filming done by all of us and editing by me.) But, it definitely included time management because we had 1 hour to film, when told we would have 2, and creativity because well, a pineapple is the murder. I think this video ended up as we expected, funny, interesting and different.

 

MIDDLE OF NO WHERE – SEPTEMBER 10th. NORTHERN WILDLIFE WOLF CENTRE.

We didn’t have to do a project or anything on this, but I just wanted to share pictures of these wolfs because why not.

Some of these wolf were taken from fur factory’s when puppy’s, and there now here at the northern wildlife wolf centre to raise awareness about how important wolves are. I never new they were such important predators for the ecosystems in North America until after the very educated wolf lady told us about it all. I would get into it but that would take a while, here’s a link that can inform you on it more. Link.

 

CALGARY – SEPTEMBER 11th. GLENBOW MUSEUM.

Like the one before, I didn’t have to do project or video on this, but I definitely think its worth mentioning. Eric Lafferty Harvie Was the founder of the Glenbow museum. Oil was discovered on land he owned, causing him much fortune and also causing him to retire from lawyering and pursue his passion collecting. He traveled around the world collecting until his house was stuffed with artifacts. One day he decided to make a museum, and that’s why I’m writing this right now. That’s only crumb of Mr. Harvie’s adventure so press this to learn more.

 

I’m not usually a fan of museums, I always find them boring but this one really made me excited and intrigued because it literally had something about everything

 

DRUMHELLER – SEPTEMBER 12th. DINO PROJECT.

We were given one hour to edit and film a video on any dinosaur, in the Royal Tyrrell Museum. I chose the Prosaurolophus, one of Alberta’s largest hadrosaurs. This was a very stressful process and yes, walking to the bus and editing did happen.

 

 

 

CALGARY – SEPTEMBER 13th. BEAKERHEAD.

“Beakerhead is an annual program that brings together the arts, sciences, and engineering sectors to build, engage, compete, and exhibit interactive works of art, engineered creativity and entertainment.”

Bascially all day on the 13th (10am to 10pm) we walked around downtown Calgary to beakerhead installations. From fire breathing dragons to thousands of balloons taped to a building, it was all very cool. My favourite installation was the Serpent Mother, because it was basically on fire and I was very cold and it kept me warm. Oh and it was just absolutely insanely wonderful too.

 

 

BANFF – SEPTEMBER 14th.

I’m not necessarily going to share any knowledge on Banff, just I want to show some pictures.

 

BANFF – SEPTEMBER 14th. LAKE MINNEWANKA

Lake Minnewanka is a glacial lake located in the eastern area of Banff National Park in Canada. Its also, the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I didn’t know it existed until I was there, and lets just say I couldn’t take my eyes off the area around me. I took so many photos (235 to be exact) but none of them fully capture what I felt there. We went on a boat tour, which I spent on the outside part of the boat freezing my butt off.. (worth the view) I have a urge to take everyone I know there just to share the feeling I had and sight I saw.

 

BANFF – SEPTEMBER 15th. COLUMBIA ICEFIELD TOUR

On this day I stood on 1000 foot deep glacier. We took a fancy bus up to another group of fancy big wheeled bus to the glacier. We only had 15 on the actual glacier but i drank some glacier water, took some pictures and was cold. I just said glacier a lot.

 

 

BANFF – SEPTEMBER 16th. LAKE LOUSIE

Ok so everyone had to make a 3 minute video on somewhere we went on this trip. Mine was Lake Louise. Our task was to tell a non fiction story at our location. I was having trouble with it so I went to Lake Louise with 0 idea I was going to do so I filmed a bunch of random clips and then decided I wanted to interview people on why they were at Lake Louise. I am super shy (yeah I know hard to believe) when it comes to talking to people I dont know, so I ended up only asking 2 people with the help of Ms Maxwell and Adlih (thanks guys.)

Once I got home I started editing it, with no plan and clips of me asking why people went there, pictures of my mom canoeing there at the same age I am now, and a whole lot of over exposed clips of the lake. After a few solid hours I ended up with something I wasn’t happy with. It was all over the place, and even though I made it It didn’t make much sense to me. “What was the story I’m telling?” I asked myself.

The next day I asked for critique from Adlih, Isy, and Daniel. Everyone had commented on different things I should fix, and all the critique together meant basically “Fix the whole thing.” Some people liked certain things and others didn’t. So then, I went to someone I rarely go to, my brother. He watched my video and then really helped me out. He helped me by giving advice which I will use for all the videos I will ever make. And then…. fully restarted my video.  Ill first show you my first draft and then the final draft, which im extremely proud of.

What I learned from this Lake Louise experience:

-Plan before hand what I should film.
-Focus on what story i’m trying to tell
-Don’t be scared to interview strangers, the worst that will happen is if they say no
-Plan out the video before you edit, don’t plan along the way or you will end up with something confusing                                                             -I’m very stubborn when it comes to my work. I could of handed in my 1st or 2nd draft but I didn’t because I knew I could be better

OVERAL THOUGHTS

I definitely think this trip was a success. (Besides the lack of vegetables I ate.) I had a lot of fun, especially with Adlih and Isy now in PLP! (And the addition of Miss Maxwell) This trip was full of education, fun and hard work. Definitely not a vacation because we were so busy, but I really enjoyed it. I will never forget the memories I made and things I learnt.

This unit of Humanties we learnt about multiple things in the time frame of before WWI. This includes Louis Riel, The gold rush, building the CPR, Treaties, The Metis, Hudson Bay Compmany, North West Company, and so many more places, individuals, and groups of people. Alot of the topics were things my class and I learnt on our trip to CALGARY . I’m going to break down the unit into sections as there was so much going on.

THE DRIVING QUESTION 

Just like every humanties project, we had a driving question. This units was…. How do disparities in power alter relationships? This had to be answered in our project which I will talk about late.

LOUIS RIEL COMIC BOOK

To get to know the Metis man Louis Riel, we read Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Autobiography By Chester Brown. Its about the Canadian Government mistreating the Metis who lived on the Red River Valley in Manitoba, and how Louis Riel tried to protect them.

Throughout the 4 parts of the book, we had to write summaries for each part. This was good because it really made you understand every part of the book. Here is one of my summaries from this book.

Our driving question while reading this book is: Is Louis Riel a Villan or Hero? My answer to that after reading the whole book is I think he’s a hero. He stood up for the Metis when no one else was. The Metis were being treated less than human by the Canadian Government. Someone had to do something, and the person who did was Louis Riel.

I loved this book a lot. The fact it was a comic the whole way through made the story interesting, and never boring. I would recommend this to anyone learning about the Metis!

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY 

In September my class and I went to Calgary. On that trip we focused on the topic of the CPR. Now that its the end of the year, we revisited the topic. A lot of the things we talked about were through reading, and discussing in the class. Most of it were things we had learnt in Calgary. Questions like how it was built, who built it, why it was built, and when it was built.

A topic we touched on a lot this unit was the Chinese Immigrants that helped build the CPR. This topic is a very brutal and hard to learn about as these men came to Canada promised money and a new life and were given nothing for all there hard work. Some men couldn’t make there way back to there families in China and some didn’t even survive. So many Chinese Immigrants worked hard everyday to build the CPR and then were lied to and forgotten by the Canadian government.

 

 

THE CARIBOU GOLD RUSH 

We touched on the topic of the gold rush in BC a bit at the end of this unit. We didnt do many activities on this but we did discuss a lot in the class. These discussions were about how the gold rush brought a booming economy to BC because everyone was following there dream of finding gold and becoming rich. Anyways, during the gold rush things like the Caribou Road were built.  This road was built from Fort Yale to Barkerville in BC  through extremely hazardous canyon territory in the Interior of B.C. After the gold rush, many of the thousands of people left BC there was no gold left, and the economy went downhill. One of the reasons BC joined Canada was because there economy was lacking, and they were in dept because of things like building the Caribou Road.

 

THE BIG PROJECT! 

Our assigned project this unit was to make an Animation about Anyone, any group, or any place before WWI. It also had to answer the driving question “How do disparities in power alter relationships?” I decided on the a man named Lord Selkirk. He was involved with Hudson Bay C0mpany, North West Company, and the Metis, and wanted to settle Scottish farmers on the Metis land.

 

RESEARCH + TURNING IT IN TO A STORY

To get to know the person I’m doing my project on, I need to research! I used multiple websites to get as much info on him as I could. The next step attached to this was turning it into a story. While researching, I wrote down the information in a the way I would tell a story. So, I did both of these steps in one time! Woohoo! Time saving!!

 

STORYBOARDING!

I learnt from the frankinstuffy video to not make a very detailed storyboard, as that is a waste of time. So for this one I made a simple to the point board im very happy with.

 

ANIMATING

Next step is to actually make the video! I decided to use the app FlipaClip to make a hand drawn animation. I knew I was getting myself into a long and patience testing project the second I started and learnt it takes about 10 minutes to get 5 seconds done!!

After a long 3 weeks, I ended up with this final product.

I’m extremely proud of myself for being so driven through out this whole project, as animations take a lot of persistence and patience. I feel I definitely answered the driving question in my video, and told the story of Lord Selkirk and his power.

 

CONCLUSION

This unit was definitely a very interesting one. I learnt lots of new things about Canada before WWI, and learnt how to animate. I loved toucining on topics we learnt about on the Calgary trip like the CPR! Overall, this unit was very fun and I am proud of my journey to the final product, and the final product.

 

 

In a week, grade 9 will be over. This week however is a week of reflection and revision. In this post im going to be talking about growth I made in grade 9, the work im most proud of, my work habits, and lastly a goal for grade 10.

OF MY WORK I COMPLETED THIS YEAR, WHAT AM I MOST PROUD OF?

This answer is kind of hard to answer as I have a few favorite projects of mine. I’m going to show my 3 projects, and give little descriptions of why they are my favorite.

DESTINATION IMAGINATION 

Ah, DI. I chose this as one of my favorites not because I liked it, but because I worked so hard and we ended up with a great outcome. I’m proud of myself for every hour I put into DI, to make it the best I possibly could. I also am proud of the fact, I didnt do everything in the group unlike last year. I made sure to split all the tasks up and stay organized.

 

LAKE LOUISE VIDEO 

This is definitely my overall favorite project from grade 9. I talked about this in my January MPOL a little bit, so im not going to go much in depth, but I will tell you this: I think I like the project because I related it to real life, and told a story. I was very stubborn when it came to this project (as Ms Maxwell would know.) Because, I knew it had protental and I didn’t want to hand in something mediocre. This project took persistence, patience and hard work.

BLUE SKY

I take blue sky very seriously, and try to make the best possible thing I can. Why? I absolutely hate standing in front of and talking about something I’m not proud of. I spend a lot of time to make these projects to something im happy with.

Some honorable mentions are, BLUE SKY, METAPHOR MACHINES, FRANKINSTUFFY & LIKE TERMS MATH PROJECT.

 

WHAT IS SHOWN THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORK I PRODUCE?

I had to think about the answer to this for a while, and Ive came to the conclusion its CONSISTENCY. I dont hand in good work for one project then horrible work for the next. All the projects ive produced are in areas of good.

I make sure I am consistent throughout my work so when I do something good people like, they aren’t surprised I made it. You can see this throughout any of the work I have made. From one class assignment sketch notes, to huge projects like heritage minutes.

 

 

WHAT HAVE I FOUND FRUSTRATING ABOUT PLP WORK? 

Whenever I come across as problem I have, before blaming it on PLP I see the root of what the problem is and see what its caused by and if I can fix it. I do this so I am making sure im not blaming PLP for my procrastination. Ive gone over the roots of what I’m going to talk about so I’m not complaining about something that’s my fault.

LIFE/SCHOOL BALANCING 

Balancing producing high quality work and having fun aftershool or the weekends hasn’t really worked this year. I found myself having to say no to go do something or go somewhere with friends, my dad, and grandparents because I had work to do. I cant blame this on procrastination because it usually happens when we get assigned too many things at one time and I have to stretch it over a few days, with no room to mess around. If I compare regular stream schools homework to PLP, PLP definitely has more. Ive noticed some months we have little to no homework and some months we have assignments due daily. I think this could be solved with more class time to work on projects due/less assigned work at once so we can produce our best work.

As much as I love PLP I do find this frustrating, and unavoidable.

 

WHATS ONE GOAL  YOU WOULD LIKE TO SET FOR GRADE 10?

For grade 10 I would like to challenge myself in Math and science. The past 2 years Ive been doing well in math and science but now I want to leave my comfort zone and try and learn new things.

I will do this by asking Mr. Gross lots of questions and investigating in ways I can expand my knowledge in Math & Science.

CONCLUSION.

Grade 9 was definitely the most hardworking year I’ve ever had. I travelled to Calgary and Ottawa with PLP, Toronto, Montreal, Palm Springs, and Sad Diego. In between all those I dedicated my time to school and producing work I’m proud of.

 

 

Hello! This is a post about the work I’ve done from September – January, and what its taught me. I have 3 questions that relate to my work, my growth as a learner and how I want to improve. Then I have a question that I created that I’m going to ask my teachers and mom (and possibly Nash.) So, lets begin!

 

Persistence. This word describes me as I never give up, and never will no matter the circumstance, and if I’m not satisfied with my work I will restart.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s my Lake Louise video. I scripted it, got the clips, and edited it (for hours and hours.)

Why is this special you ask? Well, this is only draft one… After a few days of editing, revising, taking critique I ended up with that video, planning it to be my final draft…. And well let’s say I just wasn’t personally satisfied. I didn’t feel I was telling a story, and it just felt like mediocre work. This was confusing as I spent hours and hours on it. A quote by Ms Willemse popped into my mind as I realized…

“Putting a lot of effort something doesn’t always mean its good.”

I knew I could do better. So I fully restarted. I found a new story to tell, rewrote it, re-edited it, and handed it in after a day or two. This is my favorite video I have ever made. This really showed me I am just as stubborn school work wise and I am in real life, and that prescience pays off.

To continue the proof that I have Persistence, I’m going to talk about The Frankinstuffy and Metaphor Machine Video…

Picture this: It’s 10 o’clock. You have been editing since 3:00. You go to save your groups project. You save it, and go to hand it in and you decided to watch your very good video your very proud of and excited to show to your teacher and classmates. Oh wait, iMovie has messed up the whole video. You silently freak out and pray that in iMovie your video is how you left it. Nope. All the clips are all moved around, audio is missing, videos cropped shorter or longer and some clips are even deleted. You spam the redo button. Nothing happens.

Basically, I had re edit My Metaphor Machine and Frankinstuffy videos. I could have

A) Given up the project and disappoint myself and teachers 👎🏽 

B) Worked even harder than before to get it done 👍🏽

Choice A didn’t even pop into my mind. The persistence inside of me made me sit there and redo them. I’m proud of those videos especially because I didn’t give up. This taught me It’s important to make good final products, because that’s what’s going to show all the hard work, and things me and my group have done and learned. Those three videos are proof of persistance. 

 

I pay attention to details, always have and always will. This means that when see that someone’s work is good, I try to learn from it to improve my own.

Ive noticed in my friends Daniels work, one of the things that make it stand out from others is the really good writing. This made me realize excellent writing really enhances the work we have done. In most of my videos and paragraphs the actual wording of what I’m trying to get across is just a task. Nothing special. I want to change that using my growth mindset. 

I want to focus on the quality of information in my projects just as much how it looks. So, I have set the goal to focus on story and script writing just as much on how aesthetically pleasing to the eyes it Is. I’m going to do this by expanding my vocabulary, and try to grow a style of writing that is intriguing, easy to follow, lots of fancy words that enhance what I’m trying to say, and to make sure what I’m trying to say is clear.

 

 

Stress less and Don’t carry other peoples weight in group projects!

“Stress less” means I want to think on the bright side of all the work I do, and not let it ruin my day. I just want to not be as always stressed out. I will do this by always staying organized and not to procrastinate as much. Ive gotten way better at this since last year but there is still room for improvement.

 

 

What I mean by “Don’t carry other peoples weight in group projects” is when I’m in a group project, I’m usually the one who does the most work because someone doesn’t do there part. I have been told I’m bossy, and that kinda scared me and made me think oh whatever I can do the work but I’ve learnt that if I’m polite, being “bossy” isnt always a bad thing. Someone has to be there to motivate and tell people what to do… To conclude this question Ive learnt that doing other peoples work is bad because:

1) They will think there is always some there to save them when they don’t take there responsibility, which in almost every case in life is wrong.

2) I should on focus on my work and doing the best I can, personally.

What are some ways I can step out of my comfort zone? I’m happy with my work so I now want to challenge myself to try new ways of overall creating, and leave my comfort zone.