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Tiny Wings, Big Impact🦋

Tiny Wings, Big Impact🦋

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What if I told you that a butterfly is the reason our ecosystem is thriving? That’s right, butterflies my be tiny but they have a huge impact on our environment. 

I, with the help of my group (Sven, Daniel, Liann, Emilia, Madeline), just finished a project where we strived to answer the driving question, how can we support and protect local pollinators to ensure healthy ecosystems in our community? This was not any old project, it was very important because it was presented to the public at the 2025 spring exhibition.

The Project

We were assigned with creating a booth that educated the public about our assigned pollinators (mine was butterflies). Our booth had to include many aspects, including a pamphlet, an ecosystem food web, a call to action, an interactive element, and food!

My Answer to the Driving Question

Pollinators play a huge part in the world, without them our ecosystems would crumble. Before doing this project, I had no clue how important they were, and I had no clue they were in need of help. In order to support and protect local pollinators we need to spread the word. We need to communicate it to people and make the cause known. If more people are aware of how to help pollinators and start to do their part, such as using the app iNaturalist and planting native plants, the ecosystems in our community will start to thrive. 

How I Got There

Pamphlet

Within this project we created a pamphlet about pollination in order to educate the public about pollination and how it works. Before creating this pamphlet we had to educate ourselves all about pollination, we learned about the different ways of reproduction such as mitosis, asexual reproduction, meiosis, and sexual reproduction. We then learned the parts of a flower and how they work. We then created a pamphlet that we gave out during the exhibition to educate people on what we learned. Knowing what pollination is  and how it works helped me answer the driving question because it made me aware about how pollination is helping keep our ecosystem healthy.

Food Web

If butterflies die off then all of the plants they pollinate would have no way of reproduction and would disappear. Then, all of the animals that ate those animals would lose a primary food source and die off. And then, the animals that eat those animals would die off. And so on. And so on. Ultimately leading to a crumbled ecosystem. This is why butterflies are so important to keep our planet flourishing.

We created a food web where we connected butterflies to other plants and animals in our ecosystem. We then had to showcase what would happen to all of the plants and animals on our food web if butterflies were to disappear. This part of the project really helped me understand why butterflies and other pollinators are detrimental for keeping our ecosystem healthy and thriving.

Call to Action

After we learned about what pollination is and why butterflies are so important, we had to spread the word. Involving others in saving the butterflies is a major part of reaching and sustaining a healthy ecosystem. We did this by creating 2 calls to action.

First, we created a poster about the nonprofit organization Butterflyway, which focuses on planting butterfly way gardens, supplying butterflies with more habitat, giving them more flowers to pollinate, and helping them thrive. We then created a butterfly garden simulation where we got people to create pipe cleaner flowers (making sure they were native species), then plant them in the garden (green foam), and watch the butterflies flutter on them (we placed paper butterflies). This simulation demonstrated how important it is for butterflies to have a habitat and flowers, because if you took all of the flowers away, there would just be butterflies with no where to go, and then they would eventually die off.

For our second call to action we created an informational poster about the app seek and iNaturalist. Seek is an app that identifies plants and animals when you take a photo of it. You then have to option to send it to iNaturalist, doing this sends you photo to scientists giving them data and helping them to know what is going on in our environment and letting them know where and what they should help. We also created a butterfly Photo Booth giving the public a way to practice taking photos of butterflies, as they would do when using seek.

2025 Spring Exhibition

If you have read some of my past blog posts you would know that PLP does an exhibition twice a year, giving us an opportunity to showcase our learning to the public. I believe the exhibition went quite well this year. Everyone in our group knew what they were talking about which made our explanations to the public very effective and people were drawn to our booth because of our fun activities.

F.A.I.L (First attempts in learning)

If I were to do anything in this project differently I would have spent more time on designing our booth. Other groups had tents and very eye catching booths which drew people in. At the beginning of the project we had a plan to make big flowers to put on either side of our booth. If we had more time I would have absolutely followed through with this plan, creating a way more interesting engaging booth.

Trapped in Our Own Emissions

Trapped in Our Own Emissions

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If we keep living how we are now, the world may not have a future. Not because of aliens, artificial intelligence, or an evil super villain, but from something far more subtle. Something that is slowly creeping in, quietly but relentlessly. Something that we are responsible for… Carbon Dioxide.

We recently finished a project called ChemHistory where we spent many classes reserching, learning, and creating, all while trying to answer the driving question, what impacts do elements and compounds have on history and modern day society?

Carbon Dioxide – Element Art

I made an art piece to symbolize carbon dioxide and what it is doing to our environment. This is not any old art peice, it wasn’t made out of paint or markers, but a chemical called cyanotype. Cyanotype is a light sensitive chemical, when it is coated on a surface (I used a piece of fabric), it reacts and turns blue. I created a stencil of what i wanted to be projected on my fabric, I then coated the fabric with cyanotype in a itchy back room.Then, I put my stencil on it, left it in the sun, and in a matter of minutes it was changing color. 

My Answer to the Driving Question

Carbon dioxide has a huge impact on our society today. Carbon Dioxide is a green house gas, it traps heat in the earths atmosphere. When too much of it builds up, it creates a blanket around earth that doesn’t let heat out. The amount of carbon dioxide is rapidly increasing because of our insensitive use of gas, coal, oil, etc. Earth is getting too hot, which is causing major problems in our environment. Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, air quality is declining, and animals are losing their homes. If we don’t act soon, and start reducing our usage of fossil fuels, Earth will be no longer a safe place to live. It’s not too late, but we have to make a change.

How I Got There

Learning

Within this project I did a lot of learning. I learned about the periodic table where I was taught what it is, what elements are a why it is organized the at it is. I learned what a Bohr  and Lewis diagram is, why they are useful and how to draw them. I then learned about compounds and how elements combine to produce them. I then went through the struggling process of of trying to figure out/memorize ionic bonds and their formulas. Learning all of these things helped me answer the driving question because it taught me what an element and a compound is.

Ionic Compounds Quiz

Something that helped me answer the driving question and expand my knowlage on ionic compounds is the quiz I did on them. This is probably the first quiz i have ever done in PLP, and it was a surprisingly pleasant experience. I was educated very well and thoroughly before taking this quiz that It was a breeze. This quiz gave you many formulas of ionic compounds and we had to find the names of them, and then it gave you names in which you had to find formulas of.

F.A.I.L (First attempts in learning)

Art Gallery 

After we finished our artwork and paragraph we hosted an art gallery for the school. If I were to do anything different in this project, I would change how I acted during the art gallery. I would say public speaking is a strong suit of mine, but during this allergy I was jot enthusiastic at all. When people came by I only gave them a short boring description. Next time, I would be more prepared and use the gallery as a way to spread word about climate change and inspire people

Watt The Heck?!

Watt The Heck?!

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You are doing an intense surgery, one wrong move and it would be your patients last breaths. You are so close to finishing when your hand shakes a little and BUZZZZZZZZZZZ you are eliminated from the game. 

Everybody remembers the classic game of Operation, but only a few know how to actually  make it.

we recently finished a project called Watt the Heck?? where we spent many weeks learning about electricity and trying to answer the driving question How does electricity shape our society and how can we generate it more sustainably? All of the learning lead up to the final assignment when we created our own operation games.

My Answer to the Driving Question

Electricity builds up so much of our society, it is behind so many things that we rely on on a daily basis. It is behind how we live, work, communicate, and function. Without it, the world  would not be progressing like it is today. Although electricty is benefiting us, generating it can be extreamly harmful. There are several methods of electricity generation that are harming the environment, they cause pollution and climate change, which will kill the planet in the long run. In order to generate electricity sustainability we need to use cleaner energy sources such as hydro, wind, and solar power.

How I Got There

 Sustainability Infographic

We had to create an infographic about the sustainability of a type of electricity generation. Our infographic had to include the following criteria, where your type of electricity generation is used, the disadvantages and advantages of it, how it works, and how sustainable it is. I decided to make my infographic about Fossil Fuels. This helped me answer the driving question because through it I learned what sustainability is and why it is so important. If we have a way of generating electricity and it is fast and efficient but not sustainable, it may be benefiting the world now but it is setting us up for failure in the future.

Operation Board Game

To wrap this project up we learned how to create an operation board game. We used just tinfoil, tweezers, wires, and a light to create a circuit to generate electricity. We read this document to learn how to create our game:

After watching the video we got to creating. This was not an easy process for me, I drew my drawing, put it on my box and then followed the instructions to a tea yet my bulb didn’t light up, so i was forced to analyze what went wrong and then re execute it. I loved this project,  I really enjoyed creating a vision in my head and actually succeeding to make it a reality.

F.A.I.L (First attempt in learning)

If I were to do anything different in this project I would put more time into my sustainability infographic. I would add way more information and make th whole thing way more organized. While creating my infographic I did not manage my time very well at home which left me struggling to get it done in time. This led to work that was not up to my standards. 

What I Learned

Through this project I learned many things. I learned about how much of a huge role electricity plays in our society. I learned about both the positive and negative effects generating electricity can have on our planet.  I learned about open and closed circuts and what they do. While creating the game I learned several electrical concepts including a using closing circuit, when you touch the tinfoil with the tweezers you are closing the circuit causing Grinch’s heart to light up. I also learned the concept of electrical current, when the circuit is closed a flow of electrons move through the circuit lighting up the light. After applying these skills to my machine, I was successful in making it light up.

There is an Army Inside my Body?

There is an Army Inside my Body?

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What if I told you there is an entire army living inside your body. That’s right, there is so much more happening inside you then you may think. When you are sick, while you’re lying down, sleeping and watching movies all day, your immune system is in action fighting for your health.

Over the past month, we have been learning about cell biology and the immune system, we learned about the cell theory and types of cells, the basic functions of the immune system, and vaccinations, all while trying to answer the driving question, how does our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public health?

My Answer to the Driving Question

Our health as a society relies greatly on doing our own individual parts, wether that’s washing your hands, or staying home when your sick, or getting a vaccine, all of these actions are the reasons we are a relatively healthy group of people. Our understanding of cell biology is the reason we have discovered all of these tactics to keep ourself’s healthy. If we didn’t know anything about why we get sick we wouldn’t know anything about how to prevent getting sick. Knowing about bad bacteria and how our immune system works is allowing us to perfectly create things to eliminate viruses without causing excess damage, keeping our overall public health clean, safe and healthy.

How Did I Get There

Swabbing the School Field Journal

Something that helped me answer the driving question was swabbing the school and creating a field journal for it. In this assignment we were assigned with creating a question that could be answered by swabbing the school. I was curious about which water fountain in the school had the least bacteria. We then had to create a hypothesis and prediction. I thought that the downstairs water fountain had the least bacteria because it is tucked away in a place with little classrooms, therefore it is used less. However, when I swabbed all of the water fountains, and, over the span of 2 weeks, observed the bacteria I came to the conclusion that the middle floor #1 water fountain had the least bacteria and the downstairs had the most. Through this project I learned a lot about how to conduct an experiment, I learned about bacteria, and I improved my design skills while creating my keynote.

Read my field journal here

Character Cards

Creating immune system character cards was the thing that helped me answer the driving question the most. We had to create character cards for the different immune cells in the immune  system. We had to personify them as if they were characters in the story of our immune system and describe their roles and functions within the body in protecting us from unwanted invaders. I decided to turn the cells into the Simpson characters. I learned a lot through this activity because it forced me to research a lot about the immune cells and write a description that anybody can understand. This made me understand how all of the cells work together which makes it easy to understand how vaccines and other tactics that we do to keep us healthy work. 

Media Campaign

Another thing that helped me answer the driving question is the media campaign. I created 3 media posts about vaccines and the public perception of them. I decided to do my posts about  how some people think vaccines cause autism. I reaserched a lot about this idea and came to the conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. This assignment taught me about how the public’s perception of vaccines effect public health. I also learned about bias and how important it is to consider all perspectives. 

F.A.I.L (First Attempt In Learning)

If I were going to do this project again, I would take more time to do my media posts. While creating them, I was very rushed and did not take enough time to really create a clever and understandable post. I would come up with better headings and make each post more different from one another.

What Did I Learn

At the beginning of this project we were asked to write down everything we knew about cells, and I had absolutely no knowledge of cells at all.

Now that we are done, I am very knowledgeable and easily understand how cells work together to keep us healthy. Through this long process, I learned how our immune cells (T-cells, B-Cells, Macrophages, White blood cells, and Anti-bodies) work together to eliminate pathogens to keep our body and overall public health healthy. I learned about bad bacteria and what happens when it enters our body. I learned how to conduct an experiment and improved my keynote design skills. I learned what vaccines are and how they work. I also learned about the public’s perception of vaccines. I learned about bias, and how to do research in order to consider all perspectives.

Restore the Lost Atom

Restore the Lost Atom

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OH NO! You lost your pet atom! What if I told you there is a way to get him back? Go through obstacles and restore the lost atom.

Sounds fun right? Click here to play it.

How to Play

Oh no! Your pet atom escaped. Go through obstacles to find the lost atom. You will have to find each part of the atom, the electrons, neutrons, protons, and the nucleus.

As you go on the temperature increases making your atom move faster.

Controls=
➡️ move right
⬅️ move left
⬆️ jump
SPACE BAR collect the missing piece of atom (while on it)
⛳️ go back to beginning

What Drove me to Create Such a Masterpiece

Over the last few weeks I have been working very hard in learning all about atoms. I was assigned with creating a video game using the app scratch, and through my game I had to communicate my knowledge of the atom following the driving question, how can we model our knowledge of the atom in a fun and creative way?

How did I Create my Game

Learning to use scratch was a big bump in the road for me. I had such high ambitions and ideas for my game, but the moment I lay a finger on scratch, I soon came to the realization that making a 50 level obstacle course/story game was a bit out of the question. After I set my expectations straight, I started researching about coding on scratch and found an amazing video that was a lifesaver in the long run. After using the video and coding an obstacle course, all I had to do was use my new scratch skills and create the science part of the game. 

 

My Answer to the Driving Question

Showing my knowledge of the atom in a creative and fun way is very easy when you are making something that is entertaining for everyone. Who doesn’t love video games? They are addicting, interactive and exciting. Science is not a topic I enjoy very much, but by incorporating something I do enjoy doing, it made the learning process one hundred times more enjoyable.

What Helped me Answer the Driving Question

Before making the actual video game I had to learn the science. Some things that really helped me understand it, were the states of matter worksheet, and the atom of cheese video.

States of Matter Worksheet 

The States of Matter worksheet really helped me understand what atoms look like and act like when they are exposed to different temperatures. While filling out this page, we used an interesting app that replicates what different states of matter look like. This app allowed you to add heat and cold to the atoms showing how atoms change states in different temperatures.

Atom of Cheese

I have learned a lot of explanations of atoms in my life, but the atom of cheese was something that really helped me understand. Imagine cutting a peice of cheese in half, and then again, and again, and agin, and again, and again…eventually you will end up with a peice to small to cut, eve with the sharpest knife ever, it would be uncuttable. This is an atom, an uncuttable piece of matter. 

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