In this visual presentation, we had to create a visual model based on the topic we chose. We had to make the model demonstrate its positive and negative impacts, as well as who and how they fixed the negative impacts. The way I chose to represent my topic was by making it into a stop motion film because I was interested in stop motion and thought it would be fun to make.
What I did well and what I could improve on:
Something I did well in my presentation was that I was able to manage my time well and finish everything I wanted to do before the deadline. Something I could’ve improved on was to practice and watch a few videos on stop motion, because when I started, I was a bit confused on how I should’ve filmed it and what materials to use.
In this unit, the thing I understood was the formula Percentage = (Part/Whole) x 100% because I used it a lot throughout the unit, which gave me lots of practice using the formula.
N: What new information did you learn in this unit?
Something new I learned this unit was how to use the formula Percentage = (Part/Whole) x 100% and the difference between compound interest and simple interest.
I: What was interesting in this unit?
Something that was interesting in this unit was the project, because it helped us use real-world scenarios and numbers to help us understand how to calculate percentages.
T: What was tricky for you in this unit?
Something tricky this unit was interesting because there are lots of different types of interest, and sometimes, the interest would change over time based on the amount of money and the type of account.
When we started working on our essay, we needed to read articles related to our topics. I chose bicycles. After finding the articles, we annotated them and organized the information into a graphic organizer. After that, we spent three lessons working on the body paragraphs. Finally, we worked on writing the introduction and conclusion.
What I did well and what I could improve on:
One thing I did well on my essay was that I was able to connect my 2 positive impacts and 2 negative impacts together, which made it easier for the people reading the essay to understand the information. Something that I could’ve done was spending less time on my introduction and conclusion because I spent over 1 hour trying to write them since I didn’t ideas were good enough.
How do our body systems work together when we play our favorite sport?
Standard Reflection:
I learned about how different body systems work together, like how the muscular system and skeletal system work together to move and stabilize the body when playing sports. It also helped me learn about how we have energy to play these sports because of the mitochondria, which produce energy in our cells. This shows that the body is a system made of subsystems made of cells, because energy comes from cells that power the subsystems that combine to become a system, which then makes the organism.
Learning Experience
1 of the learning experience that was most helpful to me was the dissection, although it was kind of disgusting, it helped me visualize the heart and lungs and made it so that I was able to understand it more. It also helped me collaborate with my peers more because I had to discuss with them about the organs and also help each other when we were dissecting the organ. Another activity that helped me were the independent research projects because I was able to choose what I was curious about and learn more about it.
Improvements
In the future, something I want to improve on is my ability to name and recognize the parts of the cell because I will still sometimes forget the name of the cells. A way I could improve my ability to recognize cell parts is by using the extensions activities in the science schoology page.
What is the DECIDE model, and how does it help when making hard decisions?
The DECIDE model is a simple, practical way to handle tough choices, including peer pressure, by guiding you through defining the problem, exploring your options, considering the consequences, identifying your values, deciding what to do, and evaluating your decision. It helps you pin down what matters, compare options against clear factors, plan concrete steps, and reflect afterward to improve future decisions. When a peer asks you to do something dangerous, you can use the DECIDE model to make decisions that hopefully won’t damage or break your friendship.
Different addictive substances and their effects:
What did you learn about the effects of different substances?
Most of the substances are very addictive, which is why people keep coming back to the, and the substances that aren’t very addictive provide a positive outcome but are still harmful to your health, an example is steroids because they aren’t very addictive but increase muscle mass, which is why people keep using them, but they are still very harmful to your health. All of these substances are harmful to your health and are the reason why they are best to be avoided.
In this unit, I understood the formula for finding area: scaled area = original area x (scale factor)². I also understand the conversion of scales on maps to the real area.
N: What new information did you learn in this unit?
Something new that I learned was how you had to square a shape’s area to find the new area of the scaled shape.
I: What was interesting in this unit?
One interesting aspect of this unit was the orange activity, where we had to go against red and solve as many problems as possible. It helped us solve problems faster.
T: What was tricky for you in this unit?
Something tricky in this unit was determining the proportionality of two shapes because it sometimes required lots of calculation involving decimals and fractions.
I used to assume most online health influencers were actually experts in what they talked about. I just figured the platforms had rules and only let trustworthy people share health info. Before this unit, I usually checked their descriptions and looked at their follower count and comments to see if people pointed out any mistakes. If there weren’t many comments, but their description seemed legit, I usually believed what they posted.
Now, after learning more about credible sources and how to check for them, I know to dig even deeper into their information and to find out if they were credible because I knew that some of the videos they posted could potentially contain harmful or even deadly information. Now I know not to check the amount of followers they have and to read their description and also their credentials (e.g. degrees in the topic, websites they own, products they advertise, ETC.)
The activity that we worked on, where we had 2 influencers who both had health information-related channels, and we had to identify which influencer was more credible, the activity helped me identify what I need to check to make sure that the influencer was reliable.
3. What are some pieces of feedback that you received and then incorporated into your work?
A piece of feedback that I received from my peer was that I didn’t have enough connotations in my words and phrases, so I came up with more phrases to include in the pieces of media and thought more about the connotations each word had. Another piece of feedback that I received was from my teacher that my brand name didn’t have enough connotation and meaning behind it, so I changed it to EbonLux, since Ebon means ebony, like dark wood, and Lux means luxury.
4. Explain 1 thing that you are proud of from this unit.
Something that I am proud of in this project was my ability to take feedback from my teachers and peers and improve my project based on what they thought I needed to improve
5. Explain 1 thing that you want to keep working on.
Something that I want to keep working on in my media is the design aspect of it. I think that some parts of my media are a bit empty and contain a lot of white-space, so next time, I might spend some more time on designing the media rather than focusing so much on the connotations of the words.
6. In your own words, explain what Bias is.
Bias is when someone tends to like one thing or view more than others, often unfairly or without realizing it. It can act like mental shortcuts the brain uses, shaping what we notice, think, and decide. We can learn to spot bias, seek different perspectives, and make fairer judgments.
7. Explain 1 positive outcome of people having the same perspective might be.
One positive outcome of people having the same perspective is faster teamwork. When everybody shares the same idea, they can agree on goals and actions quickly, which may save time and lead to less confusion.
8. Explain 1 negative outcome of people having the same perspective might be.
One negative outcome of people having the same perspective is that everybody has the same ideas. When everyone thinks the same, nobody can spot mistakes, which may lead to bad ideas or even better ideas being missed. This can hurt creativity and lead to poor decisions.
In this unit, I understood that the constant of proportionality is the fixed ratio of two quantities with an unchanged relationship.
N: What new information did you learn in this unit?
Something new that I learned was that the constant of proportionality is also relevant in graphs that have numbers with an unchanging relationship.
I: What was interesting in this unit?
One interesting aspect of this unit was that the lemonade activity effectively demonstrated the constant of proportionality in a common real-world situation.
T: What was tricky for you in this unit?
Something tricky in this unit was the formula for finding the constants of proportionality, since I often wasn’t able to determine the independent and dependent variables.
