Lukas's Portfolio

This year, during science class, we learned many essential skills, such as the important coordination of body systems. I chose the essential question: What happens to our bodies when we get sick? One piece of learning that was most impactful on me was when we learned about cell theory and how cells aren’t the smallest building block of life, organelles are, and if you zoom in further, you find that everything is made of proteins.

Caption: Image of my sickle cell presentation in science class.

I look forward to Unit 2 and growing academically and as a learner.

This unit, I learned many essential skills, I learned how to solve probabilities and percentages. In addition, I am excited for this unit as we are learning how to solve multi and single step equations as well as inequalities. A few key words I learned include probabilities, percentages as well as positive and negative signs.

For Semester 2 my goal is to improve as an active learner as well as in academics. This semester I am proud how I grew academically and how significantly I improved in math.

During the clock project in Design Technologies, I learned multiple essential skills.

During our first lesson on the clock project, we first drafted our design on paper. Once we drafted our design, we went on to Inkscape and started “inkscaping”.

After we got a first draft of our design, we then reflected on it in our process journal. Once we passed this stage, we were ready to finalize, then laser-cut our materials. Then comes assembling the clock, where many of my classmates, including me, failed. After multiple attempts, I finally managed to build it.

For the RC Car Unity, I managed to build it; however, on the last day of the unit, I broke pieces, thus leading it to be incomplete.

• U: What do you understand in this unit? I understand how to identify proportional relationships and how to find the constant of proportionality in any case.

• N: What new information did you learn in this unit? I learned how to identify k in the equation y=k*x, and can find it in any situation.

• I: What was interesting in this unit? Identifying k was quite easy once you apply the equation k=y*x to your equation and strictly follow that principle.

• T: What was tricky for you in this unit? It wasn’t very clear when you mix x and y, as it is extremely easy to lose yourself in those calculations.

In this unit, we learned about a multitude of topics in science class. We learned about the ethical uses of labs and how to treat and contain a variety of materials as well. In addition to this, we held the Mystery Powder and Rainbow labs as well. These labs were very entertaining, and we learned many complex scientific vocabularies.

This is my reflection for our multimedia response. 

What are we doing in class?

We recently finished our MMR creation phase and our exhibition preparation questions. The idea behind the MMR (mixed-media response) and the subsequent exhibition questionnaire is to showcase our project to grades 4 and 5 by approaching it from different angles and genres.

What are we learning?

We are learning about our chosen changemakers, in our case – Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US President who is most famous for abolishing slavery and preserving the Union. 

What’s working?

We are proud of our MMR and how we deconstructed the American flag by painting the cardboard according to its colors: red, white, and blue. Also, we made sure the most easily recognizable item of Lincoln’s was there: his top hat. Finally, the quote “To be excellent to each other and yourself” is not only coined by Lincoln, but it successfullly summarizes his ideology.

What’s not working?

While our MMR does meet our expectations, looking back we would probably include a bit more text to make it more “content-heavy.” However, we believe we captured the essence behind our changemaker.

How might this learning help you in life?

This gives us essential knowledge not only of the American history, but the progress of ideals for all mankind. It also enables us to analyze change throughout history with a critical eye.

An area of effective collaboration that I was best at was engaging in parallel work, because me and my partner finished our tasks at twice the speed. This also enabled us to check over our work when we were done, and also allowed us to ouse the remaining alloted time to add the required changes.

An area of effective collaboration that I need to improve is clearly stating what we need to do so we do not incorrectly interpret each other’s instructions and complete the work from a different incorrect point of view. This is also important because with these skills we can then provide clear feedback to each other’s work and complete the required /supposed changes.

What are we doing in class right now?

In PE class, we are playing basketball.

What feedback would you give to yourself about your performance?

I feel like I am doing pretty well, as I got consistent threes and 4s in my PE grades. This shows that I am capable of consistent good performance. One of the challenges I faced in PE class is collaborating with my fellow peers. I feel like I overcame this through consistent improvement and experience.

How could you improve?

I could improve by practicing these skills at home. I have a basketball court in SRC, so I could use it to practice. I could also practice my dribbling skills as that was my weak point.

How will this learning apply in life?

This could help me in HS PE because I will already have experience in dribbling and shooting from 6th-grade PE. In 6th Grade PE, I learned the basic skills to succeed in HS PE.

Assignment/Project Description

In this activity, we had to make a post on what we did in Social Studies class.

What am I proud of?

I am proud of my active learning focus, as when I was looking back, I saw the grades I gave myself, and I believe I did quite well. I mainly gave myself 3s and maybe two 2s out of 20 lessons.

How could you improve this challenge?

I could pay more attention and be more reflective. By this, I mean think more deeply about my reflections and be more honest with myself.

How will this learning help me in life?
This learning will help me when I take a break and reflect on improving. This important because everyone can learn from their mistakes.

In Design Tech, we have done many things. We have had a laser cutting and 3D printing unit, which ended with robotics.

Assignment, rubric, learning target/project description:

In DT, we had no learning targets, but our daily motto was to try our best in every class. In DT, I created a 3D model of a chess piece, unfortunately, I cannot show the rubric as it has been archived.

What are you proud of?

I am proud of the designing phase as I spent a lot of time designing and creating the chess piece in a high quality manner.

How could you have improved?

I could have improved by spending more time on the design to make it more advanced.

How can this learning help you in life?

I could benefit from this should I want to become a designer or creator.

Assignment, rubric, learning target/project description:

Our learning target for this activity was to try our best to answer the questions on the assessment. This activity was an assessment of everything that we learned in this unit.

What parts of this work are you proud of?

I am proud of my exceeding questions because I mainly got them right, but on the last one, I made a minor mistake in my reasoning, giving me a 3.5/4.

How could I improve this activity?

I could have checked my reasoning once over. This could have helped me notice my mistake and correct it before submission.

How might this learning help me in the future?

In the future, if I am to work on something scientific, I can refer back to the concepts I learned in this activity.