Summative Science Stuff

CATS LIKE CLICKEYS

I could improve in every category, but I think I can improve most in making the graphs to process the data.  I think my title wasn't very good, and I couldv'e made the graph look more visually appealing.  I also could have improved at the qualitative data.  I think it could have been more specific.

I improved from the first test by one point - from 5 to 6.  I think my problem was different on both.  On the first one, my minimal studying caused me to forget some terms, and that threw off my grade.  On the second one, I thought more on the questions where I shouldn't have, and I didn't write down what I thought first.  I should work on both of these things for the third test.

CATS LIKE CLICKEYS

I have a lot to work on for my third essay, studying, citing, and writing.  I didn't do any citing for this one, and I should have searched for more information.

My most recent essay grades were writing-4, content-4, citing-not complete.  The recent test was 6, and the investigation was also 6.  There were more fours so my grade would be 5.

I hate this!!  I could have done better!!!!  This stinks!!!!

*slams door*

Reading Goal Reflection.

I just finished reading the Maze Runner series and it was awesome!  Right now I'm actually reading a few books at once.  I'm reading the Beyonders, the Fourth Nephite, and the Uglies. In the Beyonders, the main character is sucked into an alternate world and is forced to find a mysterious Word in order to defeat Maldor, the emperor.  In the Fourth Nephite, the main character is caught under the school bleachers with a beer by his seminary teacher, and he tries to make up for it.  When he does, he is sent back in time to when Joseph Smith lived.  The Uglies is a dystopian with a female main character (like almost every book these days).  In this version of future reality, people get a surgery when they're 16 that makes them "pretty".  The main character runs away to a secret society outside the city.

Last quarter my reading goal was to read three books recommended by people outside of my family, one distopian, one science fiction, and one historical fiction.  At the time, I thought this would be hard because I thought my books were mostly from my family, but now I realize that I also get books from friends and teachers (also friends) just as much.  I now realize that my goal wasn't improving my reading at all.

Ancient Stories

All civilizations had stories, and there's a reason for that.  Some people told stories about themselves so people would know what they've been through, while others tell stories to explain why things are the way they are.  But I think that, most of the time, people told stories to explain real problems or concepts in ways that seem extraordinary.  In reality, people are a walking story.  Every time you meet someone, you find out part of their story, and if you put all the stories of all the people of the world, you get the story of humankind.

Stories tell us a lot about the culture that told it.  They explain their morals, how they communicated, and what they believed in.  Stories tell us about how they lived from the setting, whether they had high walls or fences, mud houses or stone castles.  These stories survive over time because, sometimes, they're just really popular.  They get told over and over, and people just remember it without even knowing how they first heard it.  Others are engraved in stone, and others find it after many years.  Unfortunately, many stories are lost in time, and people don't remember them, which is a shame.  People today might enjoy stories that weren't popular in ancient times, and now we might never know about those stories that were not remembered.

Stories can also tell us about progress, by comparing the characters at the beginning to the characters at the end.  The improvement might compare to the civilization that told it.  It could also be more subtle.  In Gilgamesh the Hero, a rewritten version of the Epic of Gilgamesh (written on stone tablets), the builders of Uruk were always building because of the king's orders.  This could also be interpreted as the people who told this story were building constantly.  Also, these buildings they might have been frequently constructing could have served a useful purpose, making progress for the civilization.  So far, ancient civilizations are a story of progress.

The Viola Challenge!

The viola.  An instrument, a tool, and a story.  Each viola is a story of struggles, of people learning, skills being developed, music playing, frustration, and pride.  With each song you master you feel better about yourself and your instrument.  You see the instrument different than those who don't play it, but in ways you can't explain.  At first, you want easy songs, but you want difficult ones quickly, and you learn them faster.

This is more or less what it's like to learn the viola, (or any instrument really, if played long enough.).  I might have it more dramatic, but that's okay!😄  Playing the viola was first, fr me, just some variation.  I played band in the US, so why not do Orchestra here?  The viola was my weapon of choice, because everyone else had chosen either violin or cello, except for me and a double bass player (in my grade).  But over time, I started enjoying playing the viola more than I had enjoyed playing the trombone, for reasons I don't know.

I used to be really bad at playing the viola.  But recently, I've noticed that I've improved at the hard parts in the songs.  For instance, once I was the only viola player in the front two rows, and I usually messed up on the viola solo in the song, but i played it perfectly because there were no others of my clan to cover up my mistakes.  I realized that I could play well if I just tried hard enough and really, actually cared.

Ecological Issues

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ez1k_f9pIIQXKu6z1FvxLaKPVkfZeiz4rR9n1I7SZbw/edit?usp=sharing

For my ecological issue paper, I focused on a small toad living in the Kihansi falls.  This toad is specially adapted to living there with flaps on it's eyes for protection from the spray, and it's extremely small, a grown one about the size of a US penny.  The problem was that it was going extinct thanks to a dam being built nearby the fall, which diverted the water to the hydroelectric dam, so the spray no longer protected them.

I think I could've written more in this paper, and I could've put some images in the text.  Actually, I couldn't put images, because none are CC licensed, but I could've made it a lot more interesting.  I could've put maybe a paragraph describing what life for this toad must have been like, or I could've used better word choice.  I looked back at a research project from last year, and I thought that it was better that this one I made.  I'm not sure if I should be worried, or if that is a good thing.

Book trailers explained

Book trailers are just like movie trailers, and they serve the same purpose: to get you to read the book.  In a movie trailer they show you clips from the movie that give you some information about the movie without spoiling it.  In a book trailer, the people might reenact a part of the book, or give quotes from the book.  In both book trailers and movie trailers, you have to make them seem interesting, so that the person watching wants to read the book or watch the movie.

In my class, we watched a few different kinds of book trailers, and I didn't know which one to do.  I had a few ideas.  I could've made a stop-motion Lego trailer for Ranger's Apprentice, a creepy trailer for Life as We Knew It, or the one I ended up making.  The trailer that inspired me to make this was the book trailer that used whiteboard drawings to make the characters seem funny.

If I could make another trailer for the same book, I think I would make the drawings neater, and use a whiteboard that didn't have the lines on it, because the lines mess up the drawings.  If I drew neater, the drawings would look better, and they would be easier to understand.

The Word Tree

In Humanities this year we did three rounds of Latin root presentations, and each person recieved a root to do each time.  I enjoyed this activity because it was cool how many different roots there were, enough to have 20 people present 3 and have so many more to spare!  It was also very easy for me, because I usually remember the words, and finding them isn't so hard either, since I can just search the root in the dictionary on my kindle and all the words with the root pop up.

In my first presentation, I was assigned the root poly-, which means many.  I had five words and definitions for those words, which was about average for the assignment.  I could've improved by picking easier words that are less challenging to explain.  I could've also picked a wider variety of words, because two of my words were shapes (polygon and polyhedron), and those were the only easy ones to explain.  I think that I presented it pretty well.  Well, better than most other times I've presented at least.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tpO-H7mif2oNLeoXlOhT8ALbOTfIY8QysDrxm4269HM/edit?usp=sharing