Instead of being at school for Intercession, two weeks of an all day project, I did an independent study in Costa Rica with my family. During my independent study, I studied and practiced photography. I tried out basic photography techniques a couple days before the trip to get a better understanding of what I should concentrate when in Costa Rica. Throughout the project, I documented each day through a blog post and various photos from the day.
In the INNERnet connection project, students learned about history during the industrial era, learning space design, and mainly focusing on humans' relations with technology. We used a survey to gather data about students' stress and anxiety at High Tech High. Then the students in our class were able to break off into groups based on how they wanted to address helping other students and staff cope with stress. All groups created a week long prototype of their final idea to help give students and staff an outlet to de-stress and reconnect. From the feedback we were able to collect from putting on an experience week, we built scale models using the geometry we learned in math, a concept board, and concept statement for a dream installation we would want to build. Our end goal is to help bring about awareness with our school and students so we can possibly create smaller versions of our final installation ideas.
Throughout the year in humanities we've focused on writing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. During the past semester we've especially focused on working with larger pieces. We wrote three main pieces, each of which we've edited multiple times and received critique on. Our teacher encouraged us to try different styles of writing each time. For my first piece I wrote the first chapter for a novel I would like to fully write eventually. During the second piece I worked on a piece of poetry because poetry is not my strong suit and I wanted to push myself. Lastly, I worked on an informational piece based on the career I would like to pursue. I'm really glad that I pushed myself during this past semester of writers' workshop. It caused me to create some really cool pieces that I'm extremely proud of. It showed me that if I push myself to try to write outside of my comfort level, that it can turn out more successful than I might think it will. Overall, I think this year of writers' workshop has been great and I'm really happy with all the pieces I've finished.
Over the past semester, my humanities teacher had us work a lot more on reading. We each started a Goodreads account so we could log the books we're currently reading and have read in the past. Also, we've had different requirements for certain books that we've had to read. For example, about halfway through the year we were looking at short science fiction stories, so the book we had to read for that month had to be science fiction. During that month I read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, which I enjoyed very much. I fell in love with her writing and wanted to read more after I finished. Another one of the requirements was during our studies of World War II. Each person had to choose a one of the various books our teacher listed as an option so we could join a Literature Circle in the class. We then would use Goodreads to have group discussions about our thoughts about the book as we read it. I personally chose to read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas because I had never read it and had been wanting to for a long time. Throughout this entire year I've read many books. I've also read a large variety too, anything from a non-fiction book about how jewelry and desire have changed how the world is today to a fictional book about a young wizard battling evil. Over the past semester, I've been able to discover many new great books that I'm glad I've read.
Throughout chemistry class, we mainly focused on our rocket project. In pairs, we developed a prototype rocket out of balsa wood to get a general idea of what the process for our final rocket would be like. Afterwards we created and tested our own miniature motors for the prototypes. When we successfully launched the prototypes, we stared the development of the final one. My partner and I Sophie tested out different mixtures for the fuel of our rocket and created a unique rocket design. In between this semester project, we also worked on a miniature project of creating cardboard virtual reality goggles. Also, on the days my partner was not here, I worked on my own independent project about alchemy and it's history.
In the second semester of my humanities class, we studied a lot about both World War I and World War II. We watched videos and took notes on the different causes and effects of both wars. After everyone in the class had built up a better understanding, we split up into pairs to study more particular areas in of each war. For the first project we did, I worked with Sophie on a slide show presentation of poison gas used during World War I. We looked at four different types, such as Mustard Gas and Phosgene, along with what they were used for and their effects. For the second project, we all researched more about a topic for World war II. I studied the Bataan Death March because I've never really heard about it before we watched a video in class this year. It made me curious about what it actually was, so I decided to research more about the survivors' stories. When I took enough notes I created another slideshow and presented it to the rest of the class. While studying more on World War I and World War II I was able to learn a lot and do more in depth research than I had ever done on either war.
The rEvolutionaries project is based around studying privilege and non-privileges. Each person formed a group based on a topic they were interested in studying the privilege for. I chose to look study beauty standards because I was interested in seeing how the beauty standards in our society affect both genders. From passing out a survey we made to making a public service announcement, my group has studied what the standards are doing to people. We wanted to help people see their own beauty and help them learn how to realize their own beauty without having to compare themselves to the harmful beauty standards people set. During this project we were given the chance to conduct and interview to learn more about what we can do to help change the standards in society. Overall, we worked on trying to help change people's ideas about privileges and use our privileges to help others with a lack of privilege.
During this project we have been looking at what generosity means and how it affects others. We've formed our own philosophies which we then used to help base a partnered project on. My partner and I focused on being altruistic towards animals in need at two different rescues. The first was Ferdinand's Familia, a ranch dedicated to taking in rescue horses and farm animals. The second we volunteered with was the Greyhound Adoption Center, which is a greyhound only rescue that specializes in adopting out rescued greyhounds. We documented the entire process of the project through a photojournalistic essay.
The first project we worked on this year was our Politics, Poetry, and Punchlines project. In the beginning our class studied the various types of poetry and comedy. In small groups, we created short comedic skits to perform in front of the class. After the comedy portion, we started studying more about politics. Each student chose from one of three topics: drones, immigration, and LGBT marriage rights. Once we developed our opinion on the topic, we created an argumentative paper about our stance and designed a political satire cartoon. The cartoon included a Rube Goldberg machine to help illustrate our point.