Elaine's Portfolio

Unit 4 Dystopian Fiction Reflection 🙃

December 17, 2025 /

What did I learn about Dystopian Ficton?

I learned about different themes in Dystopian Fiction:

Totalitarianism, Social Control, Conformity, Constant Surveillance, Dehumanization, Control of Nature, and Illusion of Utopia. We used these themes to conclude important details in The Giver this book.

How does Dystopian Fiction invite me to think about real life?

From Dystopian Fiction, it can connect with me in places:

We could deep think a part of story, for example when the Committee control the weather, I might think that if our government also did that, what will happen? Which theme of Dystopian Fiction it is? Where is it similar to real world? Where is it different with real world?

We could see from the story, sometimes it is just Utopia and Fake

I enjoyed The Giver from different angles; The Giver taught me that a life without pain, choice, and individuality, seems perfect and orderly, but is actually meaning less and the book shows the satire that in a place where love is gone, you will need to find your own color inside.

How have I improved my ability to write Academic Paragraphs?

We learned how to write introduction by the ways the question have asked, a fully completed body paragraph with details, strong transition words, and a summary conclusion connected through the whole paragraph.

How an I better now interacting with others in Literature Discussions?

Now I know how to validate others and how to challenge others when you need. Also, you should prepare fully and collect enough evidence for you to say. From reasons, I am confident now to be skilled in Academic Paragraph.

Roller Coaster L4 Lab and Model 🎢

December 8, 2025 /

Roller Coaster L4 Movie.MOV

The research question was how does changing the height affect the marble finishing the track? It was expected that if have higher height, the ball will have more potential energy which will make the ball faster, lower height will have less potential which will make the ball less kinetic energy. The hypothesis was supported. Evidence supporting the claim; High is 20%; Middle is 0%; and Low is also 0%. Reasoning  according to result, having higher height and energy will cause the percentage of success higher. Having lower energy will affect or result of making the achieving amount, in total, having more potential energy will make the marble have more speed which will also affect the ending of the test.  

Unit 2 Ötzi Unit Portfolio Reflection 

December 1, 2025 /
  1. What did I work on? 
  1. During this unit, ‘Why should we care about the past?’ I worked on  
  1. Making observations, inferences and wonderings 
  1. Using photos and articles as evidence 
  1. Writing a CER paragraph 
  1. Asking and answering open and closed questions 
  1. Taking part in the Otzi Mock Trial, my role was being defense lawyer and cross-examine prosecution lawyer. 
  1. What did I learn? Why should we care about the past? 
  1. We should care about the past because we could learn how ancient people lived to become us. We can learn how Neolithic men and women lived. They were resourceful and hunting for food, created clothes, tools, and medicine from nature. They started to grow crops. Same as us; conflict; diseases. They are very innovative and resourceful. 
  1. What worked well? 
  1. I am proud of the following work analyzing images and articles, controlling the court with cross examine, and creating closed and open questions. 
  1. I am proud of the work above because I could use these skills properly and formally, I am confident with writing those skills. 
  1. What did not work well? 
  1. I found some of this work challenging, from skills like writing CER paragraphs, and writing several drafts. 
  1. I found the work above challenging because I might need to take time to revise and edit it.  
  1. Personal Relevance 
  1. Collaboration and communications skills are important in my future because I need to communicate with a lot of friends, teachers, or partners. Having this skill mature is a way that you could learn more effectively. 
  1. These are three photos of my work about the mock trial. 

Math Bake Sale 🥐

December 1, 2025 /

What did I do?

I collaborated with my partner, we did 30 serving in total. We worked together and tried several times to succeed, improving each time. We decided to make matcha ice-cream mochi.

Day 1: We thought of our product and we listed all the materials and ingredients we needed, we designed a signature item with a bakery name.

Day 2: We calculated the different cost of our ingredients, we got the unit rates cost for each ingredients.

Day 3: We provided proper explanation for calculating cost of 1 batch, with how many servings we had and strategies to show the use of scale factors. We determined the percentage make up, sell price, and profit we had.

Day 4: We made our mochi, and took pictures 😝📸

What did I learn?

I learned how to bake a mochi without using oven and a lot of process. We both think that it is delicious and freezing ❄️ I learned different ways to sell my product, using skills.

What worked?

We spend 372 RMB to buy ingredients, we sold 27 servings and each serving cost 18 RMB. Which means that our final profit is 126 RMB. To calculate the final profit we did this “Income money – Total cost = Final profit” When we only have a few of mochi, there is 1 people who wanted to use high price to buy our product.

What did not work?

Sometimes we sold one for 15RMB, this will make our income less. We should make the price to 20 RMB, that way we could have more profit and have the same amount of costumers.

How is this relevant for me?

This is relevant for me from helping me to understand how I could sell others products. I feel confident that I sold all mochis out, and even there is buying with higher price than usual. This help me to know if I did well or not, there is even people who bought for their friends. I can understand if my product is good or bad by this skill.

Egg Car 🚗

November 11, 2025 /

What did I do?

In Science project, we did is an egg car, what we want to do is to protect the egg. Pretending the egg is a real human, we are trying to think of a way to keep the person safe in real life, when they hit a wall.

What did I learn?

Newton’s first law — Inertia

In the car, we saw unbalanced force which is the seat belt, first law stated that A moving object will continue to move at the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by a force. Seat belt stoped the egg from moving forward, having a seat belt could make the force on the egg bumping on the car ease. The crumple zone also helped from making the force on the car mitigate a little.

Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, meaning that forces always occur in pairs.In the car, we saw that the crumple zone have a reaction which is to bounce back, when it hit on the wall. The action is when the car is put on the ramp.

What worked?

It worked because the egg is safe and there is no crack on it, the car have protected the egg. The car is completely intact, we designed the car very precision, we thought of the best idea of making the car full.

What did not work?

Our wheel should be really firm, but the wheel flew out and it it separated. This is the part where we can improve, be more rigorous, be careful to not make it so very loose.

Personal Relevance

Learning this could help us recognize that don’t bump to a concrete wall! You might get injured or die. Be careful when you drive, don’t go down the high ramp.

https://saschina-my.sharepoint.com/personal/melissa_kirwin_saschina_org/_layouts/15/download.aspx?UniqueId=475d1287%2D81c9%2D4e79%2Db274%2D0d973981d077

Balloon Car 🎈

November 3, 2025 /

What did I do?

The Balloon Car was built using to help us recognize how force act in the balloon car. We used it to learn the different forces in objects.

What did I learn?

Newton’s 1st law says that:

  • Objects at rest: A object resting will remain resting unless a force, such as someone pushing it, acts on it. 
  • Objects in motion: A moving object will continue to move at a same speed unless a force, like friction or air resistance, stops or changes it. 
  • Inertia: This is the property of an object to resist changes in its state of motion. The more mass an object has, the more inertia it has, and the harder it is to change its motion. 

Newton’s 2nd law says that:

F=MA.

  • F= the force applied to the object.
  • M= stands for the mass of the object.
  • A= denotes the acceleration of the object

Newton’s 3rd law says that:

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

What worked?

I worked well in collaborating with my partner when we are designing the balloon car and when I measured the distance and a lot of tests together.

Personal Relevance

The balloon car was like the real car now, you need to have force to make the car move forward, but if your car is heavy, you need more force to make it having the same speed for going.

Creative Writing Reflection ✏️

October 29, 2025 /

What are we doing?

Writing a fictional story based on a theme that matters to me.

What are we learning?

Theme (my purpose for writing this story, my message to readers)

Character Development (creating believable characters with positive and negative traits)

Plot (the sequence of events in my story; Western and Eastern approches to storytelling)

Setting( the world that I create for my story)

What’s working?

I like it when I planned for the introduction. How I wrote my introduction is very smooth and swift, I have a lot of connection parts with intro and the rest of my story.

“Mom, can I play some games?” I stared at my laptop. “No! You still remember what you learned in science?” “Uh, I think I don’t.” “If not, then go to work.” I was pretty disappointed with my life…

Like this part, this is when Alia wants to play games and her mom disagrees. The turning point is on Alia used her science knowledge in urgent events.

Areas for Growth

I feel like I can still write some more, I have ended the story too fast, I have a little rushed and my writing is squished. Next time, I will write more extended and more vivid. My conflict is ended too fast, like just when it is excited I let the main character (Alia) finished this conflict.

Personal Relevance

I wrote this similar with my favorite author and I used the skills they wrote and how they will say about the story and the conflict.

https://saschina.schoology.com/assignments/8091467804/mydocument

Personal Identity Reflection

October 10, 2025 /

What are we doing?  

Language Arts – personal narrative, identity wheel

Advisory – personality test, Venn diagram, Thursday morning collaborative challenges. 

What are we learning? 

We are starting to focus on the personality traits that make us who we are. We are trying to understand ourselves better. 

What is working? 

Language Arts – In narrative writing, I wrote about my summer holiday, I described what I felt at Maldives, looking at the sea.

Personal Relevance

I feel that understanding my identity is really important, so I should “dig in more”.

Critical thinking with Indi and Gravitrax

October 10, 2025 /

What did I do?

We experienced using robot cars (Indi) and Gravitrax to strengthen my critical thinking skills. We collaborated in groups.

What did I learn?

Critical thinking is logic, reasoning, creativity, problem solving, finding evidence, and use your back ground knowledge.

What worked?

Indi – I thought critically when I problem solved to find the right tracks for the hardest problem and explored more directions that Indi can go.

Gravitrax- I thought critically when I problem solved to different patterns on the track and how to let the ball go in the path.

What did not work

I struggled when I am trying to remember all of the directions that different card’s purpose and the direction that Indi car will go.

Personal Relevance

Today’s learning will help me to learn more about critical thinking. This skill can help me to solve more challenges in my life.

This is my picture

Unit 1 Olympic Portfolio Reflection 

September 24, 2025 /
  1. What did I work on? 

During this unit, Campaign for the Olympics, I worked on a presentation about why my country should be chosen to host the 2030 Olympic games in London, United Kingdom. We learnt about the history of the Olympic games. We worked on researching our country by using the SAS databases and locating evidence about our country. We worked on using persuasive reasoning to convince the IOC to select our country to host the next Olympic games. I created a script and a PPT using images from the SAS Databases. I worked on practicing my script out loud and I used notecards. 

  1. What did I learn? Why do global sporting events exist? 

Global sporting events exist …… 

-to unite different countries 

– to rank athletes’ performances 

– to update records 

– to entertain people 

– to positively collaborate 

– to showcase new sports 

– to continue traditions 

– to have recognition 

-to showcase countries 

– to increase economy 

  1. What worked well? 

I am proud of my skills. I have a great introduction – a strong start. I also am very prepared and well-practiced. I am well-spoken and very confident will presenting. 

  1. What did not work well? 

I found something challenging, I need to have more practice, and have more eye contact with the audience, I only have 70 – 80% eye contact. 

  1. Personal Relevance 

Collaboration and communication skills are important in my future because having more collaboration can help you to have more friends, and being good at communication can help you to success in your life with any people. I have a lot of friends because I like to communicate and collaborate. 

6. This is a photo of my work about the logo

file:///Users/elainechen/Desktop/Screenshot%202025-09-24%20at%2012.07.02.png

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