Category Archives: Learning Advance

Humanities, Learning Advance, Reflections

Fear Factor Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog! It’s been a bit since I’ve posted but I’m sure you’ll enjoy today’s read. 

Today’s post is about a project we did as part of our humanities class. This project was called “Fear Factor” and was centred around the Cold War.

In order to further learn our topic and develop an in-depth answer to the driving question, we travelled to Arizona and Nevada in late April. During this field study, we got first hand accounts about the story of the Cold War, and how it affected the world as a whole. Our whole class didn’t take part in this trip, as half of them went to New Mexico earlier in the year. I went with… (link to peers who went on trip). The PLP teachers who joined us on the trip were Mr. Hughes, and Ms. McWilliam. The driving question in this project was: “How has fear been used as a political, defensive, and cultural tool to shape our society?” I offered my answer to the driving question in my final product, which is linked at the bottom. But, I’ll reitarate it for you all here on the blog. During the Cold War, fear was used as a motive for both sides to expand their rule and ideals around the world. They were both scared of the other taking control, as a result they both built up their nuclear arsenal and fought over territory in different parts of the world. This apsect of fear led to these weapons being used for deterrence, as well as alliances being made, NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog! It’s been a bit since I’ve posted but I’m sure you’ll enjoy today’s read. 

The start: 

The excitement was real for us going on the trip. Going away on trips is always something I look forwards to, (especially when you get to skip school at the same time.) 

 

View of the sunset on our way down south to Arizona!

On our first day, we headed to the Titan Missile Silo in Tucson, AZ. This museum held lots of important info for our project, and was just an all around cool place. We got a full tour of the silo, we learned how the missies could be launched, and how quickly they could hit the enemy in a nuclear war scenario. They told us it would only take 30 minutes for a missile to reach the targets. While at the silo, I had a chance to talk to the tour guide, which would be very helpful for my eventual final product! (I won’t spoil it yet)

Along our adventures through the deserts of Arizona, we did lots of fun activities. We did lots of hiking, which at first we all dreaded but I found a liking to it near the end of the trip. Here’s some photos of our hiking adventures:

We also checked out the Grand Canyon!

Arizona was a great experience, and that was my first time ever being there.

Resources for our learning:

To help build an understanding of the Cold War as a whole, we were tasked with two books to read during this project: “Hiroshima by John Hersey, and “Fallout by Todd Strasser. These books helped me learn more about the Cold War, and make my answer to the driving question more in-depth. These were assigned at different times during the project, and we were tasked with making notes based on our readings. This helped me develop this “zettlekasten”, and made organizing my ideas much easier. 

 Near the end:

Once we left Arizona and arrived in Las Vegas, the excitement was at an all time high. But, it was time to dial in on the project. There had been some long days so far throughout the trip so we had limited time to do project work. At our hotel, we had some time to wrap our thoughts together and craft a master plan. This wasn’t a very hard thing to accomplish, as I had my “zettlekasten tool” where I had noted down my learnings during the trip so far. A zettlekasten is a bank of notes that are either from a source or are your own ideas. They’re organized by Fleeting notes, Litertaure notes, and Permanent notes. Think of it as your own personal filing cabinet of knowledge. (Sorry Mr. Hughes for talking about my permanent notes so much.) I took these learnings and started this final plan for my eventual final product. 

While we were in Vegas we got up to lots of fun stuff, and we checked out some cool places along the way. 

It was a good learning experience as well, something you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a Vegas vacation… We went to the “underground mansion”, which was a 14,000 square foot house that was a full blown fallout shelter. 

This shelter was a symbol of how people were scared of a possible nuclear war between the US and Russia. Many wealthy people invested in these type of shelters from the 1960’s to 1990’s. Shelters such as this one still exist, as the lingering threat of an attack is still there. 

Later while we were in Vegas, we also checked out the national nuclear testing museum. 

This museum was one of the most valuable resources we had for our project. The museum had lots of important artifacts and carefully explained the timeline of the Cold War, which I found helpful. It showed how the cold war affected contemporary lifestyle and the average American. My friends and I wanted to grab an interview here but unfortunately no staff was available for an interview. 

The final product:

 Now for the grand reveal to you guys, my final product was a documentary. For this final product we were tasked with creating an inquiry question, then creating a product which supported it. My inquiry question was: “How did the development of the nuclear arsenal lead to proxy wars around the world?” I chose to make my video about proxy wars and how they were a direct consequence of Cold War tensions. I could explain more in this post, but if you want to dive into the full story, watch the documentary I made:

The process wasn’t easy, but I eventually completed the video. And it felt really good, cause I put a lot of hours into this!

In summary, this project was very interesting and held ties to past projects that we have done. (Link to manhattan project post). The trip was a blast, and it felt like it went by in a flash, (that’s when you know you had a good time). I liked how we had free choices in picking our final product, and how we could pick which topic to focus on. I’m proud of how I did in this project, and I think I put my best work in!

Thanks for reading..

Group Project, Humanities, Learning Advance, Pages, Reflections

Power of Imagination Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog! Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve been doing called “Power of imagination”. This project was all about Disney of course, since we went to Disneyworld! This was our first ever out of loon lake learning advance, and it lasted from February 28th to March 9th. The driving question to this project was: “How do Disney theme parks shape and influence the cultural, economic, psychological, and social experiences of visitors?”. They do this through immersive storytelling and visual aspects that make people feel “like they’re there”. I felt this especially at Toy Story land at Hollywood studios, where you felt like a toy, since all the toys around you were life sized. The final product for this project was a video that answered the driving question through interviews, examples, and references to the past. My group partners were: Alicia, Erik, Carter, Ben T, and Theryn.

For keystone 1, we were tasked with creating a “PKM” collection. A PKM stands for “know, wonder, learn, and is a way of organizing your thoughts through notes, links and reflections. We created our “PKM’s” on craft, an app that’s somewhat new for us. For our pkm’s we had to research topics that resounded with our project topic. Since our group was Psychological, I researched on that basis. Here’s one of the PKM’s I made:

I found this keystone to be really resourceful, as I learned more about disneyworld and places I could visit. 

For keystone 2, we created a group pitch board for our final video. My group partners were: Alicia, Ben T, Theryn, Carter, and Erik. For this assignment, we made an effort to organize all of our ideas:

Our main talking point was nostalgia of multiple generations, and how Disney had influenced them. We planned to interview people from different generations, and get their opinion on how Disney has influenced them. 

For keystone 3, we were tasked with creating a storyboard for our video. This was a chance to visualize our ideas, and get an idea of what our video would look like. This is also where we assigned roles and responsibilities for each task. I was tasked with narrating and filming an interview at Hollywood studios. 

Here’s what our storyboard looked like:

Next, we had to complete our final video script. We all evenly contributed to this task, and provided our own ideas into it. Since I was narrator, I had most of the lines for the video.

On February 28th, after a false start, (our initial flight was cancelled), we got to florida on late Tuesday night. What a relief it was to finally get there…

On the first day, which was at Magic Kingdom, we all immediately felt the magic of Disney:

IMG_2893

During my day at magic kingdom, I filmed one of my trend videos which was my “just wanna rock dance”. 

The work for my trend video didn’t start until we got to Hollywood studios. Erik and myself conducted interviews while in a Walt Disney museum. We asked people about how Disney has affected them, and what makes them feel nostalgic. 

Here’s what Hollywood studios looked like:

IMG_2899

Once we got back from the trip, it was time to put it all together. We had our clips and interviews all filmed, and the hard work began…

When we started to edit we realized that there was some missing components, that would need to be troubleshooted. For example, our audio in our interviews was pretty quiet and we had to add subtitles over it. 

In summation, going to Disney world was an experience of a lifetime and is something I’ll never forget. It was an opportunity to know my peers better, as well as the teachers. As for the project, it was hard work to coordinate different shots and interviews, and we faced some adversity. In this project I got to work on my group work and communication, which was key for us to complete the video. 

Thanks for reading!

Individual Project, Learning Advance, Maker, Reflections

Five Trend Videos Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog. Today’s post is about s project we completed during our field school to Disneyworld. This project was called “five trend videos”, and was all about making trend Tik tok’s during our time at disney. The driving question was: “How do I make effective personal design choices?” I can do this by finding trends that coincide with my interests and passions. Also, by researching and planning out what my videos will look like.

The first “investigation” was our Personal productivity system. This was all about setting up the tools on our iPads, and using them effectively. This included organizing “things”, clearing our inbox, and setting up our calendars. This was getting us ready for Disney world, as we would have to carefully plan out our videos.

Here’s what my maker section in things looks like:

The 2nd investigation was all about researching and planning our videos. We used the web, and examples from our teachers to conduct thorough research. The requirements for our videos is that 3 had to be independent and 2 had to be “squad videos”. Here’s a link to my document of video ideas:

I tried to make my video ideas trends that were well known, and that people could relate to. I also wanted to have a mix of comedic, dramatic, and serious videos. 

The 3rd investigation for this project was to make our video prototypes. At first I was confused as to how we would do this, since our scene looked nothing like it would at Disneyworld. However, the whole purpose of this was to visualize and see what we could fix in our videos. Here’s an example of one of my prototypes: IMG_2852

We made do with the PLP classroom as our scene, and performed our great dance!

Then for the last investigation, which was making our final drafts! We arrived in Disney and we began to craft our videos. We had to make sure we were diligent with our time, and didn’t get carried away in the magic of Disney. On the first day, I filmed my first video in front of the magic kingdom castle: Just Wanna Rock dance

Here’s the rest of my completed trend videos:

Biergaten review

Blizzard Beach vlog

Disney Hotel Room Tour

Me vs. What’s playing in my AirPods

To summarize, this project was lots of fun, and I learned about video editing, and video creation. Doing this project made me realize how much effort has to be put in for these “influencers” on Tik Tok. I found that it took lots of planning, organization, and putting our plans to action while we were at Disney. Looking back, I could’ve planned things a bit better, as I sometimes found myself doing things on the fly.

Thanks for reading!

 

Learning Advance, Reflections

Loon lake post (the second time around)

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Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog!

Today’s post is about our first field study of the year at loon lake. We spent 5 days at “looner”, which for some reason, felt like 5 months…

This field study was centred around leadership, and effectively working with others. Most of this trip was run by “Pinnacle Pursuits”, a company that values people, passion, and performance. The guy who was running it was a man named Jonathan willcocks:

 “Johnno”, as we called him, was our leader during this experience, and had us learning at all times. 

We began our loon lake journey with a freezing cold bus ride into the wilderness. I want dressed the best at that moment…..

Here’s what I looked like: 

Once we got there, we were introduced to Amber and Johnno from pinnacle pursuits. We did a few “icebreaker” games, and we needed it, (it was pretty cold). The rest of the day was spent inside, doing some start-up activities. Coming into this, I didn’t have the best of attitudes, for several reasons.

The next day, we woke up at the crack of dawn to start our day. The second day was all about defining who we were. We did this activity, where a partner would constantly yell: “What do you love?”. And we would spit out things we loved, which we later wrote down in our workbooks.

Here’s what I love:

One thing that I realized from this activity, was that I remembered other peoples “loves” better than my own. 

We also did an activity regarding our strengths and skills. It was slightly different from the “love” activity, as we just wrote down our strengths and skills. I really had to dig deep to uncover my skills, as I didn’t really know at first.

Later during the second day, we did a creative activity. We drew a collage, of the things that we love, and are interested in. Here’s what my drawing looked like:

I’m a really sporty guy, so I had a few sport related sketches in there. Also, I showed my “hidden” music side of myself, with the music notes. 

Once we had finished our drawings, we put them up on the wall around the room. 

At the end of each day, we would go around the room and write compliments to people, on how they did in certain activities. As you can see, my page was pretty full.

Another important piece of this was our “credo”. A credo is a short description of what you value, and who you aspire to be at all times. While working on my credo, I found better language to describe myself, more positive language. I also got peer critique from Johnno, and members of the PLP 10 team, which was really helpful.

Here’s a photo of my Credo:

After finishing our credos, we put them into a wallpaper:

We also created a “personal logo”, that defined us a whole. We went into keynote, and used shapes to show our interests and values. Here’s my logo:

 

I chose the balance shape, cause I’m always balancing things in my life, from sports to music. I chose the Fire shape because I’m always heating up, by improving in different skills. And the boat, because I live waterfront, and that defines who I am.

 

The last few days were the most defining for me. From doing new activities, to going out of my comfort zone. We went from having lots of fun, to the polar opposite. 

On the Thursday of that week, we went straight to the lake that morning, After a short discussion, Johnno encouraged us to “wash our faces in snow”, as a way to feel energized. Which for me, worked really well. 

We then went up to the high ropes course, and we all shared our goal for that day.

Then, the real fun began…. My group started with the “trustfalling” activity, something that I had never done before. We gradually worked ourselves up from smaller falls, to bigger ones. I felt really confident during this entire activity, and I had trust in my peers to catch me. Once we got near the end, Johnno really stepped up the activity. He placed a chair on top of a table out on the deck. At first we were confused what it was for, and when he said we had to fall off that, we all said “no shot”! I went 2nd, and I did it pretty easily with no hesitation. 

The 2nd wild activity of the day was the High ropes course. Accomplishing this course was part of my goal for the day, so I was set on fulfilling that. I also did a milk carton stacking challenge, where we would have to stack as many cartons as possible, without them tipping over.

Later that night, the heavy stuff came…..

After dinner we did this activity called “crossing the line”. In this game, if the question asked resounded to you, you would cross the line. At first, the questions were pretty straightforward, and almost everyone crossed the line. Gradually, the questions got deeper and more personal. Things such as, “do you have a relative that’s died of cancer?”. And as things progressed, the emotions ran higher and higher. And for me, emotions were high as well, to see other struggle with different things really got me……

In conclusion, Loon Lake was a rollercoaster of a ride! We went from being excited, to being in straight tears. One thing I noticed from this experience was how my mentality developped over time. At first, I wasn’t all that excited about Loon Lake, and had a pretty negative attitude. But, at the end, I felt changed in a good way. Through Johnno’s teachings, and the activities, I was able to take control of my own life, and uplift others in the process. As I mentioned earlier, this trip felt like months, which is a good thing. 

Thanks for reading!

 

Environment, Learning Advance, Reflections

Loon Lake Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. 

Today’s post is about our learning advance to loon lake.

This “learning advance” lasted from February 14th to 17th. We did many things during this trip. Such as DI sweat box, Shelter building, laser tag, battle archery, and many more. Also, the food was really good at Loon Lake.

To reflect on our experiences, we wrote in a book after each day. In this book we would reflect on activities, competencies, and what we ate that day. A lot happened at Loon Lake, so my book’s pretty full.

The competencies that I best demonstrated at Loon Lake were Communication and Collaborating. I showed these skills in Laser tag by developing strategies with my teammates, and just by communicating well. Another activity we did, Battle Archery required these skills as well. For instance, to develop a strategy on where to shoot our arrows, and to collaborate with each other to win the game. 

I also really enjoyed Evening Fun at Loon Lake. We played basketball, watched the olympics, and played board games. My favorite activity was basketball, as it was fun to play with my friends. 

Here’s my Book:

 Another great part of this advance was my cabin. We stayed in a really fancy building, and most of my friends were in my cabin. In this image you can see Colton and Dylan building a couch fort. 

 Here you can see a picture of Luca with the caption “Tired as F”.

After he posted this on his story it turned into the camp joke. We’d always say: “are you tired as F?”. 

Colton ended up drawing a picture of Luca’s infamous “tired as F”.

(The image is attached below):

To summarize, I really enjoyed my first PLP retreat. I enjoyed the area we stayed, it was really pretty, and it reminded me of my house. I liked the laser tag, the basketball, and the shelter building. In this advance, I built on my communication skills. I did this in laser tag, shelter building, and battle archery. In future field studies, I’m going to take more pictures. Also, I want to work on the “Personal Awareness and Responsibility” skill. I think at times during Loon Lake I wasn’t the most responsible or aware of my surroundings. Nevertheless, I’m really excited for advances in the future. (Especially California).

Thanks for reading!