Kaelyn's Portfolio

My Digital Art Exhibition ★

Unit 1: Ceramics

Title: Cill Bipher

Materials: Clay

This artwork is based on a specific character that I enjoyed watching in a show, it is meant to represent my interests and my appreciation for weird looking objects/creatures.

Unit 2: Cultural Communication

Title: Canned Pineapple

Materials: Linoneum plate, paint, fabric.

Hard work comes in many different forms, as it goes beyond “working to your limits.” Procrastination, self-discipline, and knowing how to accept failures play a bigger part in achieving your goals than most realize.

Unit 5: Painting

Title: Tiny Light

Materials: IPad, paint.

An artwork to represent the light an meaning that artists bring to the world by presenting their pieces. This is a humble piece of gratitude to designers who have taken their time to make our world just that much better, in spite of AI artists.

Unit 6: Exhibitions and Installation Art.

Title: Dissimulate.

Materials: Clay, Paper, Wood, Fabric, Paint, Cardboard.

This is an installation meant to be the size of a large room where the mannequin in the middle would have been the same size as a human. This piece was meant to inspire people to break the mask in society has forced them to put on. Viewers can put on and break masks in this room upon arrival.

Unit 7: Digital Self-Portraits.

Title: With A Wish

Materials: Cardboard, IPad, Wood, Clay, Mrs. Sanchez’s Plants.

This artwork is made to represent my love for my dog and the journey/struggles that it took to have him in my life. This art relies heavily on symbolism through the nature of objects and flowers.

Unit 8: Cultural Communication Part 2

Title: N/A

Materials: AI (reference photo), IPad

This is an artwork made to copy the style of Ghibli upon the recent controversies of Chat GPT copying and taking the style for people to generate the “Ghibli Style”. The reference for this artwork was generated by AI, before I drew over it in my own style.

AI generated piece:

In this unit, I learned to enhance my collaboration and critical thinking skills by learning about how social stigma and mental health conditions can impact a person negatively, and how to combat against it.

For example, I used to think that there was only one kind of depression, and that everyone who had depression all fit into the stereotype of being ‘sad and gloomy all the time’. Later I learned that there are many various types of depression, and that not all people are part of that said stereotype, and that depression is much deeper and more complex than just ‘being upset’.

VARIOUS TYPES OF DEPRESSION:

In my group, we all assigned each other sections in the presentation to individually work on, and I got assigned to work on the types of depression. During my research and writing, I discovered bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and persistent depressive disorder. They all had their own set of symptoms and conditions.

Bipolar -> Having manic episodes switching between having energy and a ‘down’ feeling.

MDD -> Persistently low or depressed mood.

PDD -> Long term depression that is milder than most.

This broadened my perspective on individuals who have depression, and the variety of symptoms that they suffer from.

Ultimately, this project helped me mitigate the stereotype that I had built upon depression. I understand now that being sad is completely different from being depressed.

NEGATIVE IMPACTS FROM STEREOTYPES:

I learned how negative stereotypes can harm and worsen a patients mental condition by fundementally rejecting the idea of providing help and understanding. The constant “you’ll get over it” phrase blocks any serious conversations or ability to confide with a loved one. After I researched all the negative stereotypes and assumptions, I found many assumptions that I personally had myself, which helped me mitigate and undermine them after discovering them, helping me become a more open-minded and helpful person to society.

I also learned about the impact of social stigma on people with depression. An obvious example that we answered in our final project presentation was the assumption that “Only women get depression.”

This is only true due to the social stigma placed on men to “not be weak”, and in general, women find it easy to confide and talk about their vulnerabilities much more than men, as the chances and probability of judgement and embarrassment is much lower.

Conclusion.

In conclusion, by going through this unit and creating a final project describing our research process and our main takeaways, I was able to understand the impact of negative stereotypes and stigma in society on mental health patients, and how I take part and add onto them. I helped myself become a better person to support others. This unit was extremely beneficial to raising awareness to not just me, but to all the other students in the grade.

Introduction:

The purpose of my conference is to introduce and show off my learning and gr owing experience during/throughout my first, and second semester of 8th grade at SAS. Mostly, in this conference, I will be showing my strengths and weaknesses so you know what I will be dealing with, or what you might have to help me with, as I move into high school.

What main things I will share:

• What I have done well
• What I could improve on
• How I plan to improve

My Vision Board:

Why did I choose this? (Explaining 3 Items.):

1. Sleep – I chose this as a topic on my vision board due to how much I lack it, I usually don’t have good time management, meaning I complete assignments late and, in turn, sleep late as well.
2. Grades – I chose this topic to be on my vision board due to how this is the last year where the statement, “Grades dont matter” remains true, as this is our last year
3. Reading – I chose this topic because it has been a long time since I invested myself in any type of series or book, overall, it harms my ability to, in general, be better at English over time.

Goals:

Academic:

1. Read at least 5 books from the start of semester 2 to the end of the school year.
   – Status: Incomplete.
   – 3/5 Books read: One of Us is Lying, One of Us is Next, One of Us is Back.
   – Importance? -> Improving English writing and vocabulary skills.
2. Have better organization/fixed schedule when getting home from school.
   – Status: Semi-complete
   – Not as disorganised as before, I manage to finish my work at earlier times, but this isnt consistent.
   – Importance? -> Getting a better schedule means you get more sleep, you have less over-dues, and overall have less stress throughout the school year.

Non-Academic:

1. Get better at art over the school year.
   -Status: Complete.
   – I’m on a constant trend of improving how I draw, drawing at least one drawing per month, I keep track of it through a calendar-ish organisation system.
   – No real importance, just for fun and to have something mindful to do.

Transdisciplinary Goals:

The two TTG’s I focused on throughout this semseter was the “Critical Thinker”, and the “Creative Learner” categories.

Brief Descriptor of Critical Thinkers:

CRITICAL THINKERS – develop ideas and construct arguments by questioning, evaluating, synthesizing, and considering other perspectives. (Basically you constantly find ways to reflect upon the world.)

Artifact that proved/demonstrated my achievment:

In Unit 2 of Social Studies, we had a Crossfire Debate activity. This involved the process of choosing a motion to argue against or for as a team and try to be as convincing as possible to defend your side. As a critical thinker, to push more reflecting and understandings of global issues, I pushed my team to choose a harder motion than most.

Example of other teams motions -> THW let parents decide the diet of children.

Our motion: THBT all voting should be mandatory in the United States of America.

Not only this, but I demonstrated may brainstormed ideas/arguments. While preparing for this debate, I not only explored the perspectives of residents in America that didnt want to vote, were vote swingers, or were fixed on trying to make a difference with their votes, but I also prepared and pre-empted for my opponents arguments, identifying and rebutting them beforehand. Understanding all three stakeholders and what my opponent said would make it easier to discuss and argue the topic.

Overall, I had to research and understand many perspectives for this project, I pushed my teammates to be critical thinkers for the sake of myself, and I found ways to reflect on the world. Therefore, I believe I fullfill the role as a critical thinker.

Overall Score: 4/4

Brief Descriptor of Creative Learners:

CREATIVE LEARNERS – Creative learners who engage their imaginations to generate novel ideas, demonstrate flexible thinking, evaluate approaches, and take action.

Artifact that proved/demonstrated my achievment:

In Unit 1 of Language Arts, we had to demonstrate our overall learning through a “Reading Writing Passport”. This project required you to make 3 article reflections, 3 critical thinking question answers and 3 visuals <- What I will focus on.

During the first few classes of the time to work on this assignment, I was spending it brainstorming ideas for my visual. I eventually landed on the theme of “The strength of family love.” and wanted to make it dark.

I came up with the idea of having a kid named Sage kill his religious parents after they tried to do vise versa, aiming to die as well to join him in the afterlife. This is due to how Sage was terminally ill, restricting him from living any normal life, in short, he was miserable.

This shows the first step of being a Creative Learner – To use my imagination to make novel ideas.

Next, I wrote a 1200 word-ish visual in my passport, writing and completing my short story, using different fonts and language to enhance the mood of it. Overall, I executed the idea effectively and demonstrated my intended message in the time frame I had.

This shows the second step of being a Creative Learner – To execute ideas with exceptional clarity and effectiveness.

Overall, I have the ability to generate unique and quirky ideas, while also being to execute them into stories with somewhat good quality. Therefore, I believe I fullfill the role as a creative learner.

Overall Score: 4/4

Language Arts – D1

For this artifact, I want to show my growth overtime of how I improved my ability to express emotions and characteristics of characters in stories through dialogue and actions. I’ll start by showing a story I had written at the start of the year:

In this picture, I cant help but find the actions and dialogue of the characters to be awkward, there are some movements that werent necessary, I had developed the habit to add an action after every sentence said. A strength I had back then was the implementation of characteristics in the movements and dialogue, which is what I want to improve on this year. (Although the awkwardness could be excused to having to summarize and shorten the story to fit into 500 words.)

Jenny is meant to be harsh and holds up walls around herself, being distrustful and uneasy after being trapped in a new world. Though she has a soft spot for Micheal. (It was a love story).

• This is demonstrated through her harsh mannerisms, “glare” “huffed in annoyance” “pushed him away”, as well as her dialogue and thoughts, “Seriously, its as if he doesnt see the depth of the situation.” as well as “Your awfully stupid, you know what right?”.

Micheal is meant to be a cheerful, go-lucky guy, typical golden retriever guy. He’s also meant to be awkward at times, with him hiding the fact that he was an NPC in the world.

• This is demonstrated through his messy but supportive mannerisms. “Crashed through the bushes”, “beamed”, “stammered”. His voice also almost always has an exclamation mark next to it, emphasizing his cheerful tone. Whenever he felt awkward, his words are always toned down and develops a stammer. This was intentional and recurring between all the stories from my group.

Now, I will show a story I wrote just recently:

In this picture, the movements were certainly smoother and there were less pieces of dialogue that stood out (in a bad way), theres no longer that recurring need to add an action after everything. There is more use of fonts, more use of different scenes, and overall there is just more of a creative structure inside of this piece. The implementation of characteristics through my words have also improved since October. Overall the writing is much more fluent and easy to follow, has more distinction in styles, showing how I grew as a writer through Language Arts.

Integrated Math 8 – E1

For this artifact, I want to express my ability to explain my work and make accurate conclusions in math. For some context, in our class, not only do we have to solve questions correctly, but we also have to explain how we got to our conclusions, an what said conclusions mean.

Artifact 1: L4 Sticker Design

For this project, we had to demonstrate our understanding of transformations and congruence by translating, rotating, and reflecting a shape around a graphed paper. Through this process, we had to write down our process, what were our equations? How did we get to these answers? All of which needed to be answered and put down in detail in order to recieve credit.

Overall, my answers were all correct, and I explained every step I took, this is a recurring skill that is evident in most of my math assignments.

Grade: 3.5/4 -> No certain specifications as to why it wasnt a 4, but it was likely due to not enough mathematic dialogue, this is something I can improve on, and aimed to improve on in the next artifact.

Artifact 2: L4 Story Board Problem Graphic Organizer

Next up, an assignment that was more recently completed, a story board problem assignment. In this project, you had to come up with your own word problem that allowed you to draw and graph out a linear function. I used my creative learner skills to make up a situation regarding a water parks water fee’s.

After coming up with my problem, I solved it using many steps and mapped out and explained them to the teacher inside the document. Apparently, my explanations were clear and detailed enough for the teacher to give me an exceeding.

Quoting Ms. Baldwin, “Kaelyn, your understanding of piecewise functions and variable rate increases is exceptional. You successfully modeled how the water bill changes across different usage thresholds and clearly identified the constant, increasing, and steeper increasing intervals. Your explanation of why the initial fee remains constant and why rates shift beyond 1,000 gallons and 5,000 gallons is strong.”

Score: 4/4

In conclusion, the two artifacts I showed in this section properly demonstrate my growth from a 3.5 to a 4 during a few months time in Integrated Math 8. Being in the class helped me improve my mathematical dialogue and explaining skills, while also helping me maintain precise and accurate when answering math problems.

Science – D2

Evidence of Organization:

Evidence of organization in my notebook:

Evidence of improvement in my organization:

Whats wrong with this?:

• Messy handwriting
• Lack of information
• Messy organization
• Wasted paper

Whats better about this/how did I improve?:

• Clean handwriting
• Fills entire page
• Lists
• Clear titles

What could I still improve on?:

• Color coded notes
• Bolded words?
• Visuals
• Condense down words

Through these observations and comparisons, its evident that my science notebook is an essential tool for deepening my understanding of science concepts, as it organizes my thoughts and reflections in a clear way.

Evidence of Active Learner Habits:

Above is my self assessment rubric from the start of the year, as seen, the two approachings I assigned myself were for asking the teacher questions and contributing to class discussions, thus, this led to me setting my goal for Science to be to “contribute towards the conversation during class.”

Did I fullfill this goal?:

Short answer, yes.

• I ask the teacher questions almost every class on anything I dont understand.
• I answer questions I understand
• I’m always prepared for class.

Science Grades:

Key:

Yellow -> Late Assignment.

Based on the evidence from my grades, I have shown significant growth in my engagement with scientific concepts, as demonstrated by my ability to consistently complete assignments on time.

Evidence of Understanding of Key Concepts

(Image is having issues loading, show on desktop.)

I got full scores for almost all of them, and those that I didn’t were just small careless mistakes. Therefore, because of this, I understood and could answer all the questions without much issue, proving my deep understanding of key concepts.

Evidence of Growth in Science Skills

6 Standards of Science:

• Standard 1: Developing and Using Models
• Standard 2: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
• Standard 3: Engaging in Argument from Evidence
• Standard 4: Asking Questions and Defining Problems
• Standard 5: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
• Standard 6: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

I’ll be focusing on Standard 1 – Developing and Using Models:

ARTIFACT 1: Unit Project Phase 2 – Black Footed Ferret Species Fossil Recor.pdf

This artifact was developed in September 29th of 2024, this assignment required us to model a evolving species of our choice. My group, which chose the Black Footed Ferret, each assigned each other a stage of its evolution to draw and map out. I took the initiative and did two models, as there was an extra one that was required, which was what the ferret looked like in the status quo.

Aspects of this model include:

• A detailed drawing of the fossil of the Black Footed Ferrets evolution variations
• A paragraph underneath describing aspects of the model
• Color coded similarities
• A few labels.

Clearly there could have been some improvements, the drawing didnt have to be too clear, it just had to convey the key characteristics of the animal. Not only this, but there should have been more labels instead of paragraphs, as it makes the model too much like an essay.

ARTIFACT 2: IMG_7274.pdf

This artifact, which name is “Modeling Energy in Ecosystems – Food Web”, created February 7th 2025, required us to draw a model and learn about the food web and its importance in the ecosystem. During this, I also had to draw a model of the energy pyramid, due to it appearing in my notes.

Aspects of both models:

• Clean bullet points for notes above the model
• Boxed off model
• Color coded aspects
• Key
• Title
• Descriptions on the side
• Simple recognizable drawings.

Based on the evidence provided, I have demonstrated significant growth in my science skills, particularly in Standard 1. As evidence from the models I created, I enhanced my understanding of scientific concepts and developed effective communication through clear and concise visual representation.

Social Studies – E2

For this artifact, I want to express my ability to make constructive arguments and send out a message through making a product. In reality, there are a lot of artifacts I can show to prove this, but I chose my favorite and most enjoyable projects to show you today.

Artifact 1: L4 Crossfire Debates!

This artifact was mentioned at the start of this presentation, where I talked about how this assignment was one of the best examples of me being a “Critical Thinker”.

This project involved the process of choosing a motion, assigning a side to each team, and researching our side as well as pre-emptives of the other side.

Motion: THW make voting mandatory in the United States.

Side: Proposition.

Speaker Position: Second.

During this project, I was the one who brainstormed my entire teams arguments and handed it to my partner. 1st, Voters will be disinterested to vote. 2nd, the Violation of freedom of speech. My partner actually tested my patience a lot in this project, where, on the day of the debate, she accidentally prepared for MY argument instead of the one I gave and told her to run. She ended up saying everything I was gonna say, but just without the adequate analysis. I ended up improvising and coming up and prepping her argument impromptu and ran it on the spot along with my original case. This shows me as a flexible learner, and how I can adapt to my changing environment and create relevant arguments despite a short time crunch.

I ran the “Freedom of Choice + Speech” argument, talking about how it was the fundemental right of a person to choose to or not to vote during an election.

How does this relate to my ability to make constructive arguments and send out a message through making a product?

• I created and brainstormed countless arguments for my team to use, without much help from the AI the teacher provided us. I sent out and provided one sides opinions of a controversial matter with a product, in this case, a speech. I used Pathos, Ethos, and Logo’s effectively, and overall impressed my teacher with my performance. (This set his expectations on me, not to be too assumptive but it was pretty obvious.)

Grade: 4/4 (or 20/20 on the Schoology page.)

Not only did the teacher give me full marks, but each round one team gets to judge, and the team that was judging our round were required to mark each of us individually on a scale of 1-30, based on how much of the criteria we fit into. All 4 people in the judging panel gave me 30/30. I know this because they told me afterwards 🙂

Artifact 2: L4 Final Oral History Project

This project actually happened not so long ago, it is so new that even the grade hasnt came out for it yet, but this project was definitely one that pushed my limits and gave me a little bit of trauma and will give me ptsd if I ever try it again.

This project involved interviewing a migrant, writing down their 40 minute-ish interview and take notes, organize the notes, add other takeaways, create a transcript, and create a product describing their migration and how it shaped their perspectives through its human and physical characteristics of both places.

My deathly mistake was to choose to make an animation as my final product.

Context:

I am known to be a very impatient person, and last time I tried to create an animation based on my own creative liberty, I quit 5 minutes in. So forcing myself and betting my grades on my poor attention span to finish this product wasnt smart.

I ended up spending 2 classes writing the script blindly, recording it once, before deleting it after disliking it. I had most of my animation finished (and that i mean half), and on the night before the showcase day, I decided to finish it all in that night, which is partially why the final recording for the project sounded to raspy, because I recorded it at 2AM in the morning.

This project really opened my eyes to the lack of time management I have, which has improved, as mentioned in my visual board section earlier.

I had 8 minutes worth of content, and I actually sped up my recording, so there was probably more. This shows how I had constructed many conclusions and claims from the interview, fitting into how I wanted to prove that I improved and practiced my skills of constructing arguments in Social Studies at the start of this section. I sent out and expressed my arguments with a product, an animation. I put a lot of effort and lost a lot of sleep over this project, and I hope I get a high score.

In conclusion, the two artifacts I showed in this section effectively show my growth and increased practice in constructing effective arguments to express an opinion throughout my time in Social Studies. Being in the class has helped me improve my critical thinking skills, realize my lack of time management abilities, and helped me gain experience in creating products that express my opinions effectively, showing how Social Studies has been and will continue to be important to me in the future.

World Language: Chinese – C2

The two artifacts that I am going to provide in this section is meant to give insights on how I improved with my writings skills from Semester 1 to Semester 2.

Artifact 1:

This is a writing I had to do with a partner including a few key words. (I dont have them anymore they were randomised.) I wrote most of the work, though my partner gave me the main idea to write about.

This assignment was fairly simple but didnt test me that hard, notice how there are no Pinyin because I could search it up during that time. During the making of this assignment, I searched up many words, which means I was very dependent on technology and outside help to write properly.

Grade: 4/4

Teacher comment: 不错！继续加油！

Take note on how she didnt have much of anything special to say about this assignment.

Artifact 2:

This was made February 19th 2025.

This assignment was significantly more challenging than the last artifact. To provide some context, a project before this was to create a presentation on a famous Chinese artifact, me and my partner chose 算盤. We created the presentation and presented it in front of the class, it consisted of 25 slides. This assignment was unplanned and assigned on the spot without practice. We had to write a 200ish word paragraph summarising everything we talked about in the previous presentation.

This assignment not only tested my memorization skills, but also my summarising skills. Yet, despite the struggles, I ended up doing a great job on the assignment.

Grade: 4/4

Teacher comment: 写得很清楚！不错！能在很短的时间里，把最重要的知识点都提炼出来。非常不错！

Take note on how she had so much more compliments to provide me, showing how well I did.

In conclusion, I improved my ability to write better and more complex, understandable works with limited time in Chinese class.

Performing Arts: Drama – B1

These artifacts are meant to express my ability to analyse works of theatre.

Artifact 1:

Artifact 2:

Visual Arts: Art – C1

Art was probably my best subject in Semester 1, where I achieved all but one exceeding on my report card.

This section, with the two artifacts I will provide here, will be showcasing how I improved my ability to perservere through challenges.

Artifact 1:

This is one that I am most proud of this year, where we had to create linocut stamps and make a symmetrical pattern on fabric through ink presses.

What made this piece so challenging to create was that I didnt understand the idea of a “recurring pattern”.

I ended up getting really behind in class due to having to redo my draft and idea over and over again. I was really upset because I thought I was gonna fail the unit. I ended up staying after school and coming in for lunch to finish the piece, and eventually caught up to everyone else after just a few days. In the end, I had one of the best reflections written in the class, while also having on of the best looking pieces in the exhibition. (Not to brag but hehe).

Grade: 4/4

Teacher comment: You have a solid understanding of how your artistic intentions and choices were influenced by your culture through a careful selection of symbolism. You clearly explained your intended message about the importance of working hard. You demonstrated readiness to take risks to pursue your ideas and meanings while planning and creating your artwork. Your textile had an engaging composition with a very interesting layering of printed images, lines, and color. It was well-crafted and quite challenging to create. You truly persevered while learning the printmaking techniques and created an impressive piece.

Artifact 2:

To provide some context to this reflection, we went on a half day field trip to an student art exhibition somewhere outside school. We had to walk around answering questions about each on on a paper. (Its harder than it sounds.)

In the end, we had to come back and make a reflection on our answers, analysing what the message to the piece was, and how it related to us and the artist.

What made this challenging for me, was because I wasn’t there during the exhibition. There was no way for me to get info or answer the questions on the paper, meaning I was on my own to answer these reflection questions randomly. I ended up asking my friend for pictures that she took so I could make my own conclusions and write the reflections.

Grade: 4/4

Teacher comment: Both your analyses of the two exhibitions displayed an understanding of why and how an exhibition may influence ideas, beliefs, and experiences. Your reflection was thoughtful and displayed this learning even further. During the field trip, you examined the pieces exhibited finding thematic and personal connections. You thoughtfully viewed and read about the student exhibition and explained how the show impacted you.

I know that most comments by teachers are copy and pasted because of the comment about me even being at the field trip…

Physical Education – B2

In PE, I want to show my improvement and abilities to be open minded to try out different sports and perservere through challenges.

Artifact 1: Pickleball Unit.

Im sure my dad can relate to me with this when I say that I hate pickleball. A typical old people sport that were tailored to individuals who couldnt care less to learn Tennis. And dont get me started on how they are replacing Tennis courts for Pickleball courts.

Though, despite my unwillingness, I was forced into a pickleball unit, and still played to the best of my ability.

Grade: 3/4

I am still very about this grade, as I tried my hardest and earned the top score in the tournament. No elaboration was provided and he avoided my questions about my grade. <- just a salty comment.

Artifact 2: Swimming Unit.

I am not a strong swimmer, and it is not in my strengths, I’ll be sure to make that clear. We had a water polo unit, where we had to try to float for as long as possible to swim and punch a ball around and try to get it in the goal.

During this time, I was practically drowning because I couldnt float, but I wasnt allowed to get a floaty because I was someone in the no mans land of being bad and good at swimming to the point where the notion that “you dont need it like others do” apply to me. This meant I barely kept my head up throughout the entire game, being submerged for 90% of the time.

Despite these challenges, I still fought on and went through the entire hour in the water, showing my undying perserverence.

Grade: 3/4

Teacher comment: N/A.

Semester 2: Health – B1

There arent much artifacts I can provide for Health Class, as we didnt have much “big” projects throughout Semester 2. Therefore, one artifact in this section will be the one said “big” project, and the other is a simple assignment where I showed my commitment to the class.

Artifact 1: Stress Management Toolkit

(Video on Desktop, file too large.)

In this project, we had to choose a specific strategy for stress management, and attempt to create an exercise and brief introduction on stress and how it impacts you to our fellow classmates with a partner.

Me and my partner decided to create a video, with a mindfulness exercise on art. This exercise included a paper, a pen, and music along with it. The idea was that you draw shapes and patterns based on what you think the music would “look” like. We played music such as Howl’s Moving Castle, Sabrina Carpenter, Fur Elise, etc.

What was challenging in this project, was that during the time that we had to create this project (the weekend), I was in a debate competition, and my partner wasnt very helpful… I ended up staying up late every night to finish the project, perservering through the time crunch that I had, showing my commitment to getting a good grade in Health class.

Grade: 4/4

Teacher comment: Art therapy – Connects how art therapy can help to regulate emotions and calm the amygdala. Relates to class topics including how the brain works and the impact of FFF. Explains how social media/ gaming can have a negative impact on stress. Well-organized video. Interesting activity to connect color and music. Could have organized more materials for the activity like sections on the paper for different music, sharing of designs, etc. Within time limit.

Artifact 2: Body image and social media.

(Find artifact on desktop.)

This artifact is nothing special, but what makes it stick out from the others was how I did it from outside of school from when I was busy, similar to the previous artifact. Just two weeks ago, I had to go to a debate competition outside of the country. I ended up completing this assignment on the car ride over to the airport on the trip going back to Shanghai. I focused on shorter assignments, which was this one.

Something about myself is that I tend to write way more than I am supposed to, no matter my circumstances.

Examples:

• Language arts passport – 1000 words over the 500 word limit.
• This portfolio – I’m writing way too much.
• This assignment – Meant to write just a few sentences per column, but I wrote an entire paragraph for each of them.

I tried a bit too hard, but I got the work done, so despite my late submission, my teacher still gave me the full score for the L2 assignment.

Grade: 2/2

Teacher comment: Great points! Yes, we do need to critically evaluate what we see on social media.

Passion Project 4.0:

Passion project is an opportunity to pursue your passions and do what you want to do instead of being assigned a task from teachers. I worked with my partner, Ying, to create a project based upon emotions in art. The premise would be to draw an artwork for each of the following emotions; Fear, Disgust, Joy, Anger, and Sadness. (From Inside Out hehe). There is one offline painting and 4 digital paintings. We have one research paper for each emotion describing how we came to draw each painting in each style. We perform our research process by researching other famous artists that drew paintings while feeling each emotion, before drawing out own interpretation of it. This project is meant to raise awareness of how emotions impact others and how it can be effectively communicated through art.

Conclusion:

Passion project is an opportunity to pursue your passions and do what you want to do instead of being assigned a task from teachers. I worked with my partner, Ying, to create a project based upon emotions in art. The premise would be to draw an artwork for each of the following emotions; Fear, Disgust, Joy, Anger, and Sadness. (From Inside Out hehe). There is one offline painting and 4 digital paintings. We have one research paper for each emotion describing how we came to draw each painting in each style. We perform our research process by researching other famous artists that drew paintings while feeling each emotion, before drawing out own interpretation of it. This project is meant to raise awareness of how emotions impact others and how it can be effectively communicated through art.

Health Project: Meditation Methods – Art Therapy 🎨 

During this current unit of health class, we studied stress resilience, meditation, and the functions of the human brain throughout this health unit. We were told to research and present a type of meditation for this project. Collaborating with my partner Michelle, we produced a Youtube-Video-esque presentation on art. Using our time efficiently to complete it. Throughout this unit, I learned more information on how the human brain reacts and perceives different situations, including how harmful it can be towards ones health when triggered. This includes negativity bias, thinking traps, etc. We learned how to cope with the negative effects of the amygdala through this specific project, in which we learned more about art therapy, and its abilities to calm down and mediate the brain through mindfulness. I learned how to improve my mood meter when feeling down, and overall enjoyed my time in this unit.

A challenge that I had during the first semester of art was that I had very high expectations of how my art should look. If it didn’t look “good enough”, which it often didn’t to me, then I would not like my art, and overall not like to work in that unit. I usually do my best when I feel that I’m doing a good job, when I see something I haven’t done good in, I see no point to keep going. In the “How Textiles Communicate” mini exercise, I created a very simple design, which I disliked. I found it to be uncreative, and if it weren’t for the eyeball, I think I would have ripped it to pieces. The way I plan to overcome my over-idealistic thinking is to adjust my expectations to be lower, know that not everything can be perfect and that this is only a one time thing. Not only this, but if I start to hate an artwork, instead of feeling down, I would like to laugh at myself instead, making jokes upon a bad art makes me feel much better about it, and see it in a better, more lighthearted view. I did actually do this in a way, spinning the paper would make it looked like the eyeball was rolling its eyes, which made me laugh and feel better.

What math did you use for this project?

We used Ratio’s to calculate/estimate how much time it would take for our team to run the race.

If you could re-do this project, what changes would you make during your timed trials to help your prediction for the final race?

I would have made our estimates more precise by thinking about all of out teammates speeds.

What units of measure did you use during your timed trials? How important were units in your process? What happened to groups that didn’t include units on their paper?

I was absent for this moment but I would assume that we used the time amount that we used to walk 10 meters to figure out how much time it would take for us to do the race. This is very important to our calculations because without it, we cant get an average. I think people are kind of dead if they dont use their units.