In this unit, we’ve learnt about drugs, vapes, nicotine, and cigarettes’ positive and negative impacts. Throughout the unit, we mostly focused on learning the negative impact. We also learned how consuming drugs damages our brain and body, how it can cause addiction, and the consequences. Me and my tablemates Eileen and Eason did different research about different drugs, and compared it together.

After all the research and discussions, we started to work on a project “Decide Model”. Our scenario is a family gathers in Shanghai, and your cousin offers you a nicotine pouch. What will you do?

The decide model is helpful for making difficult decisions, because it helps you to analyze your decision of your response. After all the steps of the decide model, you make your final decision. These steps from the decide model help you identify what to do, or not to do.

Our type of drug was the nicotine pouch, the consequences of them are-

• Addiction: Nicotine is highly addictive, leading to dependence and cravings.
• Increased Heart Rate: Nicotine can stimulate the heart, causing an elevated heart rate.
• Withdrawal Symptoms: When trying to quit, users may experience withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, and cravings.
• Oral Health Issues: Long-term use may lead to gum irritation, periodontal disease, and other dental problems.
• Digestive Issues: Some users may experience nausea, upset stomach, or other gastrointestinal issues.
• Potential for Overuse: It’s easy to consume high doses, leading to nicotine poisoning or overdose symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and headaches.
• Impact on Mental Health: Regular use can contribute to anxiety, depression, and mood swings.

Peer Assessment:

What I’ve Learned

During this soccer unit, I learned the basic rules of the game, how to dribble, pass, and shoot effectively. I also discovered the importance of teamwork and communication on the field.

What Helped Me

Practicing regularly with my teammates helped me improve my skills. My coach’s feedback during drills was very helpful, too.

Something I am Proud Of

I am proud of my progress in dribbling. At the start, I struggled, but now I can confidently control the ball and make better plays during games. Also, I scored a goal in one of our matches, which was a great feeling!

What I Would Work On

I need to work on my defensive skills. Sometimes I find it hard to keep up with faster players. I would like to practice more on how to mark and tackle effectively

In this unit, we learnt about artistic swimming. Our swimming coaches guided us through lifts, floating, and treading water, which enhanced my understanding of artistic swimming as both a sport and an art form.

For our end of unit assessment, we went into different group and started to create a small artistic swimming routine together. My group mates were Reika, and Jessica. In our routine, we included 3 formations , backflips, we also tried to do one lift.

For my personal growth, I got more advanced at treading water, and floating. This unit allowed me to develop not only my swimming skills but also my teamwork and communication abilities. Working closely with my classmates to perfect our lifts and routines taught me the value of collaboration.

Overall, this artistic swimming unit has been a great experience. I learned important skills, gained confidence, and understood how teamwork and hard work matters!

In this unit, we learned about bumping, underhand serves, and setting. Since I’m on the volleyball team, I found these skills easy to pick up. Bumping helped me improve my receiving technique, and I felt confident getting the ball to my teammates.

The underhand serve was also fun because I could control the ball well. It was satisfying to see my serves land in the court. Setting was also enjoyable, as I learned to position the ball for my teammates to hit. I even taught some of my friends how to bump, serve, set accurately, and with control.

In this unit, we learned about wellness influencers and online health information. We also learned how to identify if a wellness influencer is giving useful+safe+accurate information.

Before learning this unit, I believed that most health influencers provided useful and safe tips. However, Ms. Miller showed us a video of a health influencer telling her audience that using “garlic” can heal clogged sinuses. She put two slices of small garlic in her nose and waited for 10-15 minutes, claiming that it worked. On the other hand, a professional doctor explained that blocking your nose with garlic irritates the nasal lining and causes your nose to produce even more mucus while also trapping the mucus you already have. Putting garlic in your nose only makes the problem worse.

I’ve learned that it’s really important to think carefully about the health information shared by wellness influencers. Some of them might have good advice, but not all of them are experts or trained to give safe and accurate recommendations, and tips.Instead of just believing what they say, I learned that I should check their claims against reliable sources and talk to healthcare professionals when I need help. Just because someone is popular or has interesting posts doesn’t mean their health advice is also trustworthy.

in our presentation, this is the feedback we recieved from chaerin and devika:

Me and my partner Annie Gu, have been working on this project over the last week. Sadly, we did not win the contest. Nevertheless, we had a enjoyable time together making yummy and healthy treats for the contest. For our project, me and Annie made frozen yogurt bark with fresh berries (raspberries, blueberries). We also made a small snack too, avocado sushi roll.

Here is a photo of the ingredients that we bought:

Over here is the steps to make our healthy snack:

Of course there were many success and mistakes. When we tasted the yogurt bark after when it was frozened, we noticed it tasted it little soury, because we didnt put a lot of honey in the yogurt, since it was plain greek yogurt.

One of the successes we had was the decoration of our stand. I bought a shiny red tablecloth that would make our stand more noticeable, too!

Here are some photos of our stand:

Overall, even though we did not win the contest we still had a great time of the experience. Thank you!

-social studies-

What are we doing?

In this unit, we learnt about the silk road trading, how to analyze things if it is worth the price/trading, and learning about the danger you will face during trading.

What are we learning?

We played a game called splendor, talking about trading with cards and gems, gold, stones. In that game experience, I learnt how to think if something is worth to buy/trade. I used my analyzing skills to think of it is worth to trade or not. In real days, People use more worthy items to trade for more worthy items. We also learnt to beware of people scamming you, or robbing you.

What’s working?

During the silk road simulation, ( I represent Central Asia ) I used my drama skills to scam other people to get the disease. I did not get scammed, and I made sure if the item I am trading is worth the item that he/she is trading for my item. When we were making the map of the silk road, me and my partner Cherie Wang, had use the blue paper and glue, rub them into strips, and got Ms. Ryan and Mr. Irwin praise. That made me feel proud of the work me and my partner did.

What was not working?

When we first got into our groups, we didnt talk very much and was pretty much very awkward. But soon, our group got together and had good collaboration throughout the unit. We had good communication skills, and planned out everything we needed during the simulation.

The three norms of collaboration are, pausing, paying attention to self and others, and putting ideas on the table

I am the strongest at paying attention to self and others, because I kept my hands to myself and kept quiet when the teacher is talking, stopped talking to my tablemates when the teacher is speaking, and having eye contact when the teacher is talking.

I need to improve on putting ideas on the table, because I didnt really put ideas during table discussions, and did not really talk, Next time, I should talk out my ideas, and have better collaboration and communication with my tablemates.

During the Ancient Silk Road Economy unit, the learning activity I liked the most was the trading simulation, because it is fun to become a trader, and earn more worthy items for my team, which can help us become richer!

Social Studies Block C2

What are we doing?

We are researching and reflecting on how changemakers like Rachel Carson have positively impacted the world. The assignment involves creating a mini-presentation about her contributions to environmental conservation and writing a detailed reflection.

What are we learning?

• Daily Learning Targets
• How does your Change Maker do to support the earth

What’s working?

• I successfully researched Rachel Carson’s achievements, such as her book Silent Spring, which exposed the dangers of DDT and inspired the environmental movement.

What is not working?

• I struggled to find primary sources from Rachel Carson’s time. Improving my use of academic databases could help.
• In our MMR, we had time limit and me and my partner took too many time focusing on the details. Next time, I would first start with the important details, then start focusing on the details.

Personal Relevance

Rachel Carson’s magical story inspire me. Carson cared deeply about nature and wasn’t afraid to speak up to protect it. Like her, I want to make a difference, even in small ways, like recycling more or teaching others about pollution. Learning about her shows me that one person’s actions can really change the world.

How could you improve this challenge?

• Collaborate with partner to share research resources more.
• Share ideas

Step 5 – Active Learning Reflection

An area of Active Learning I was best at was researching because I found reliable sources about Rachel Carson and organized key details clearly.

An area I need to improve was time management because I spent too much time on one part of the project.

In this semester, we were assigned to a group to create a presentation of why ___ should host the Olympics next year. I ended up being a group with Qiqi. Before creating a presentation, we researched about Canada’s (our topic of why Canada should host the Olympics.) environment, safety, facilities/geography, and economy.

After getting all of the resources, me and Qiqi went to seperate rooms. I went to Mr. Irwin’s room, who works on visual aid. And Qiqi stayed in Ms. Ryan’s room, and created our logo.

This is our logo:

This what we are going to present:

I am very proud of our process, because many things turned out more successful than I had thought. I had good communication, kept a loud and clear voice, and had detailed imformation. This is my grade from the final presentation:

One thing I would like to work on, is memorize more of my parts from my notecards so that I could have more eye contact to the people watching me, unlike just reading everything out loud from my notecards.