I learned about dystopian fiction by writing academic paragraphs related to the text
What did I learn?
I learned about writing academic paragraphs, using transition words and collaborating in discussions!
What worked?
I’m proud of the academic paragraphs that I have written the past few days summarizing the 3 parts of the book “The Giver”. I wrote an academic paragraph on the beginning, middle and end of the story and summarized key information. I am also proud of my vocabulary tests because I personally think I have improved on my grammar and spelling significantly while learning new vocab every week.
What did not work?
I think I could work on my notes for my discussions because I think I still did pretty well but I could have stated more evidence with my claim. I also want to say the same thing for my commonlit paragraphs. I think that next time I could work on finding evidence for my academic paragraphs.
Personal relevance
I think my communication skills and teamwork skills improved a lot. Because of the discussions I have learned how to state my opinion while listening to others and agreeing or disagreeing with their ideas.
We started by completing an investigation to determine the relationship between potential energy and height. We also wrote a lab report and made a REAL LIFE model of an rollercoaster that we tested and collected actual data!
Our 2nd Unit was all about the past and why it is so historically important to us humans. We disguised ourselves as archeologists and explored the death of Ötzi, also known as the 5300-year-old ice man that was found in the Italian Alps. We investigated his death scene and observed the smallest details that was found at the time of his death hoping to answer our question, was Ötzi murdered or not? After we researched Ötzi thoroughly, we were confident enough to choose a side on whether he was murdered or not. We soon became lawyers learning about open and closed questions and wrote CER paragraphs to try and prove our point. At the end there was a mock trial that was hosted, and the lawyers would question the expert witnesses hoping the jury would vote for their side. It was fun and interesting to learn about Otzi’s death and the past
What did I learn?
I learned about why we should care about the past and Ötzi the iceman. I learned that the past is important because it teaches us valuable lessons and helps us connect to our cultures and identities more. By looking at the past, we can also learn from our mistakes and build a more peaceful better world from either our violent or wonderful past. I also learned about Ötzi the iceman and his death. Though we are still not certain if Ötzi was murdered or died from natural causes, I learned a lot about Ötzi like how he was 40-50 years at the time of his death, how his body was preserved in the ice and freeze dried. I also learned about his health issues and the belongings he had at that time. I learned so much more about the past through Ötzi.
What went well?
This unit was super fun, and I thought the Ötzi mock trial was especially interesting because I was prosecution lawyer number 3 which means that I had to prove to the jury that Ötzi WAS murdered by another prehistoric man. The funny thing was that I was on the defense side, and my personal opinion was that Ötzi WASN’T murdered by another prehistoric man, and I had to know go against that side. It was hard for me to come up with questions, but I think in the end they were good and quite convincing. I’m also proud of myself for speaking confidently and I didn’t stutter or murmur. I also liked me and my partner’s closing statement.
What did not work?
I think I was struggling to come up with open questions for the prosecution team because my opinion was on the opposing team. It took me a while to come up with actual convincing questions, and I had to edit them to make them. I also think I should have spoken more slowly because the expert witnesses didn’t understand what I was saying that easily.
Personal relevance
For this unit I had to team up with people I usually don’t, which was hard but REALLY fun at the same time. I got to met lots of different people with different opinions and I think our teamwork skills were great. I also had to work on critical thinking for I needed to come up with solutions to prove Ötzi was murdered.
The main idea of this experiment was to try and build a successful egg car out of 3 sheets of A4 paper, a straw, and 1 meter of tape. The criteria of this assignment was to prevent the egg from breaking, cracking or flying out of the car. We had a total of 2 hours to build this egg car from scratch. The constraints of this experiment was the limited time we had and the very small amount of materials provided. Overall, this was a super fun experiment to work on!
What did I learn?
I learned so much from this assignment, for example I learned that measuring was super important. Just 10 minuets before our egg cart had to go out me and my partner realized that our egg cart was way too long and was over the requirement. So we had to franticly change it. Our final results were not the very best. I also learned a lot about Newton’s laws of motion. I learned that Newton’s 3rd law was connected to our experiment. I learned that Newton’s 3rd law which in this case was the wall that our egg cart was going to hit with full force. So in order to keep the egg safe we built a crumple zone that would absorb the force that was extracted from the wall to us. And it also connects to Newton’s 1st law because we know that an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless it is acted on by another force. So we knew that the wall would cause the egg to react. Our solution was to build a seatbelt that would keep the egg from flying away when it hits the wall. Sadly, our seatbelt came loose at the last second and the egg ended up cracking!
What worked?
Our car worked pretty smoothly overall, I thought it would stop mid-track because It was too big for the ramp. It turns out that the car fit perfectly in the ramp and ran smoothly. I also liked the crumble zones we made that fit nicely into the car! Our car also met all the guide lines, and we were able to finish it in the short amount of time we were given.
What didn’t work?
Our egg car failed to protect our egg! And the egg ended up cracking. I think that is because we forgot to tape the crumble zone into our car and our seatbelt ended up coming loose when our car was going down the ramp. Although we were able to make the CAR itself we weren’t able to test it out and be for sure if it actually worked. I think we could have done better as I wasn’t as satisfied with the result.
Personal relevance
I think this project lead me to learn about teamwork as I got to work with people I normally don’t collaborate or talk to. It also taught me about the engineering process. I learned about all the different steps needed to build something plus the criteria’s and constraints. I made lot’s of different friends during this assignment and even if our car wasn’t succesful it was the effort and care we took that counts. This was super fun!!! I look forward to doing something similar to this in the future.
Me and my partner Ashley built a ballon car using only styrofoam, a plastic straw, tape and ballon. We used it to learn about Newtons 1st, 2nd and 3rd laws of motion. Together we built a handmade ballon car and played it in a tournament to see which car goes faster and further.
What did I learn?
I learned about Newton’s law’s of motion and how they work on a ballon car. For example Newton’s 1st law is the law of inertia. In other words, a object at rest tends to stay at rest and a object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by another force. This connects to the ballon car because the ballon car was at rest before it was acted on by another force which in this case is the ballon itself and the air (force) inside it that forces the car to act.
Newton’s 2nd law of acceleration also connects to the ballon car because Newton’s 2nd law states that the bigger the mass the more force it takes to act on that object/thing. We demonstrated this by adding washers or weights onto our ballon car to see how it would affect the speed and distance of the ballon car. It turns out the distance the ballon car went decreased the more washers we added.
Lastly, Newtons 3rd law of motion explains that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This explains that the car would never stop which is alike to the 1st law but eventually stopped because friction was acting on it.
What worked?
Well, our balloon car was successful and it went a pretty long distance! I think our interior design and the idea with the straw helped us make this amazing balloon car that works really well.
What didn’t work?
Even though our car was pretty successful I feel like the car could have gotten faster! The air was blowing out really fast because our straw was too big and thick. I feel like next time when we choose our materials we should choose more resourcefully!
As the trimester for art slowly begins to end I looked back to all of my wonderful past projects that I have worked on over the last 2-3 months. In this trimester we learned about clay, cardboard, plaster and printmaking. After learning how to properly use these materials we got to choose what we wanted to make out of these materials that connects to culture and ourselves. I am very proud of my whale shark project that I made using cardboard. I am proud of it because I feel like I expressed myself as a person very well into this artwork. Although I wasn’t able to finish the project I am still very proud of it. At last I think art class was very fun and I felt like I got to connect to myself a lot more.
I used my critical thinking skills to complete challenges with Indi robot cars and build rollercoasters with Gravitrax
What did I learn?
I learned about how I would be graded for critical thinking . Critical thinking is my ability to solve problems and make the right decisions.
What worked?
The things that worked for me was that me and my partners were able to complete lot’s of different tracks by making the tracks in the right order and being an effective collaborator .
What did not work?
The thing that did not work was when me and my team were making the rollercoasters and the marble didn’t have enough speed to complete the track. But we fixed it later on and improved it.
Personal Relevance
Being a critical thinker is important because it helps you collaborate with more people and help’s you learn lots of new thing’s you didn’t know before. Having a critical mindset also helps you make better decisions instead of being reckless and not thinking before you do something.
In this unit I worked on campaigning for a specific country and came up with an interesting presentation on why that country should host the Olympics. I worked with a partner, and together we created a convincing and persuasive presentation about why our country should host the Olympics. We chose a country and decided whether they should host the Summer or Winter Olympics, then we came up with a few criteria’s that we think are important for the Olympics. These criteria also represented our country and what they stand out for. For example, our country was the United States of America. But not just any part of the United States, we chose NYC USA. Me and my partner Eva came up with a script that presents enough information and evidence that connects to our criteria and presented it to an IOC member. Overall, this project was really fun!
What did I learn?
I learned lots of new interesting information about the Olympics. We learned a lot about the history of the Olympics itself. For example, did you know that the Olympics we’re first a festival made to honor the Greek god Zeus? We also learned a lot about the purpose of the Olympics. Other than the Olympics I also learned a lot more about my country that I was making the presentation about, which is New York City. I learned about New York City’s culture, climate, economy etc. I also learned about the purpose of the Olympics. Like how the Olympics can also be a place where athletes protest about something that Is not right in this world. It can be a place where people can express their personal thoughts about something too. Lastly, I also learned about Olympic flag designs and what they symbolize and mean. For example, our flag was the 2032 Summer Olympics NYC flag. As shown below, our flag featured lots of different colors like navy blue and yellow that is New York City’s state colors. It also had lots of skyscrapers and buildings symbolizing that this is the city that never sleeps.
What worked?
In this unit I am most proud of my presentation that I made with my friend to champaign and advertise about a specific country and place. I think I have Improved on my presentation skills and managed to present my ideas without using filler words or fiddling with my hands. I felt confident while I was talking and that made a big difference to my presentation. I am also proud of using my teamwork skills to communicate with my partner/ teammate. For example, we didn’t just do our own parts of our presentation. We helped each other out from time to time and even got together to practice it. If we didn’t do that, I think our presentation would have gone way slower and wouldn’t have an automatic flow to it like we had.
What did not work?
I think what I could Improve and work on is my script writing. While giving the presentation I noticed that one of my reasons for my evidence was exactly the same as my other reason for my other piece of evidence. So, I just improvised in the middle of the presentation. I think next time I could find better and more detailed examples for my evidence’s instead of being lazy about it and repeating the same thing. I think I could also work on using even less filler words than before because I paused in the middle of the presentation and went “uhm so” I totally regret that, and I want to try and use NO filler words at all next time. These are the 2 things I could Improve on.
Personal relevance
This really opened a different perspective for me. At first, I thought the Olympics just chose random countries but now I know that there are a lot of more important and different things that a certain country should achieve in order to host the Olympics. It also helped me learn a lot more about the country I was campaigning for and helped me gain lots of important friendship skills that will be valuable for when I am older and for future projects. This was a great and fun project that I would probably do again If I had the chance.
This unit was all about ping pong we learned lots of different skills like serving and using my backhand and forehand! This unit was super fun and I had a great time collaborating with my friends! I also think that Improved a lot at serving because at first my serves were lousy and didn’t have a lot of power but after a few days my serves got better and better until they didn’t hit the net anymore. Even if I did Improve I still wish to improve on my hitting skills. When a ball comes to me I always miss my shot because I was unfocused. I think this is something I could Improve more on. Still, i’m really excited to do the ping pong unit again next year, it was really great and cool!
