Exhibition- Water Pollution
By: Anudev
Reflection 1
Going into Exhibition I feel both scared and excited. These paragraphs will explain my thoughts in more detail.
First of all, I feel partially nervous about Exhibition because it’s a big part of our mark and I want to do very well on it. On the other hand, I also feel very confident because I know I will be able to carry my own weight in my group. I also know that my group can trust me to finish my assignments on time.
Finally, I also feel a bit nervous since what if one of our group members accidentally forgets a vital part of our presentation at home. Then, me and my group will have to pay the price by trying to find a way to replace what our group member forgot. Also, if one of our group members is sick then me and my group will have to work extra hard so we don’t fall behind. Despite this, I know and hope that all goes well but after reading the letters on the Exhibition I’m starting to feel anxious since in most of the letters people said that Exhibition was really tough. Yet, they also said that Exhibition is a very good and fun project so I’m looking forward to starting it.
These are my thoughts going into our next big project, the Exhibition, but I know me and my group will be able to cope.
Reflection 2
I was a risk-taker because just today Mara told our group she was going to interview the Grade 8's if I interviewed the Grade 1's and I agreed and interviewed the Grade 1's for our survey. Later today, Mara said she was going to interview the Grade 8's but then came back quickly saying the she was too reluctant to go into there class as they were very intimidating and asked if anybody else would go in her place. I then volunteered and took a risk confronting the the Grade 8's for our survey. In the end, I realized the Grade 8's were a bit intimidating so I took on a new challenge interviewing them.
I was also an inquirer during Exhibition because whenever I didn't understand a topic I dove into it further and didn't stop until I finally understood the topic clearly. An example is when Ms. Capan said I should write about the NOAA Coastal Zone Management Program (NOAA) in my presentation. At that time I had absolutely no idea what the NOAA was or did but soon I found out that the NOAA protects Canada's natural resources and they clean Canada's coasts. So clearly I indulged myself in this new and mysterious topic until I learned what it was.
I contributed to the Exhibition because I always pulled my own weight and typed my own presentation piece. Also, I suggested the date of when we should do our action for exhibition. Finally, I helped Evan make the poster for our project by helping him search up a cool water pollution statistic to write on the poster.
Some of my ideas going forward are that me and my group need to ask each other what we're writing about in our project since we haven't been doing that. Consequently, my group might talk about different topics and our ideas might not tie in to each other which is a problem.
For the most part our group has collaborated well but there have been some conflicts that have been raised like when I wanted to talk about the Great Lakes but Mara wanted to talk about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In the end, I solved this conflict by compromising and now me and my group are doing our project on saltwater pollution.
So this is how I think me and my group have worked so far and I, also, mentioned which Learner Profile attributes I have shown so far.
Reflection 3/4
I collected all the data for our group project because I went around and surveyed some of the younger grades to test their knowledge and to see how much they already knew about water pollution. I, also, helped in the formulating of the questions for our survey because when Mara was stuck I suggested that maybe we should ask the grades if they knew what Redbird Reef was. I had come across Redbird Reef while typing up my solutions for water pollution since it was an eco-friendly solution to stopping water pollution. I then interpreted the data from the survey because Youssef and I made a pie graph of all the data that our group had collected from the survey.
I found many resources to assist me in my research. Most of the tools I used were online as I searched up what I didn't understand but I also used lots of books and encyclopedias to write up my report on solutions to water pollution.
The most challenging aspect of the research process for me was reading through all the information. Since once you've found a really good website it takes a lot of time reading through it all and separating the information you need from the information that you don't need.
I hope this reflection clarifies the research skills I have utilized so far in the Exhibition process.
Reflection 5
I co-operated very well with my fellow group members which helped in the putting together of our art component since without good co-operation skills one person might have been doing one thing but the other person might also be working on the same thing and that wouldn't be too productive.
I was creative during the art process because I thought of new and creative ideas for our art component like when I said that we could make cupcakes and have garbage sticking out of them and then say, "Would you want to eat this?" All in all, our group had many creative ideas throughout the art component stage and we have been very productive in making these new ideas into wonderful pieces of art.
My group members have been been committed in finishing the art component and this has greatly affected the speed at which we work because we are now working faster so we can finish this assignment and see how it looks at the end. My group is also enthralled by the idea of presenting our wonderful piece of art to the parents who come to our booth.
My group has shown continuous enthusiasm throughout this assignment which is very good because if you aren't interested in a subject then you aren't likely to do it fast or with interest. I have also been fascinated by the art component because I think it is a challenge to see how creative you can get on this assignment.
Clearly, as can be seen above, my group and I have shown many of the Learner Profile attitudes during our art component!
Reflection- Mentor
Our mentors contributed to our project greatly because just yesterday they went out and accompanied us while we picked up garbage at Lake Ontario even though they didn't have to and they probably could have done alternative activities. Also, our mentors, Ms. Timpano and Ms. Woodward, have contributed to our project by suggesting new ideas which we can then add to our project.
Our mentor meetings are usually calm but exciting since my group and I are thrilled to see what ideas our mentors will suggest and we are also very excited to try and find ways to incorporate these ideas in our project.
Some of the things my group discusses with our mentors is what we can put on our board and just recently we asked them how we could improve our art component. They then suggested that we should make sure that the clay bird really gets the message across and we then took their advice and made sure we utilized it.
The role of our mentors is to guide us down the right path and to make sure we don't start doing things which aren't relevant to our project. However, our mentors also tell us that it's our project and so at the end of the day it's up to us to do what we want to do. I think this is a great idea because their not taking over our project and their still letting us incorporate our own ideas.
So I hope that you now realize that our mentor meetings go very smoothly and I really like the fact that our mentors suggest various ideas so as to help us with our project.
Reflection- Primary Research
Reflection 6
I contributed to the media component in many different ways. This reflection is going to be all about our media component and how I contributed to it.
My contributions to the media component were as follows:
- I programmed the I-movie and I put the clips and scenes in order with a bit of help from Youssef.
- I also typed up what was going to be on our slides in the I-movie.
- Youssef and I together also put the music Mara found into the I-movie.
Clearly, our group is very productive because we divided our roles separately and we all helped each other.
I think I contributed to the media component fairly since it’s not like I had to do everything and I also did something so we split the I-movie very fairly. I also think it was fair that my group didn’t force me to do everything and that they split the work evenly and divided and conquered. I am also very satisfied with my group since they have co-operated very well and they have been kind to everybody in our group.
However, I believe our media component could run more smoothly if the transitions between pictures was better and if the I-movie lagged lass. Overall, I still think that our group worked very well and we are all very proud of our efforts since our entire group contributed to the I-movie in many different ways.
In the end, our whole group thinks the media component looks wonderful and I definitely agree with them!
Reflection 9
I had many questions about the Land Pollution presentation. In this reflection I will list some key words and points as well as some questions I had about this particular presentation.
The three points in the Land Pollution presentation which I consider most important are the causes of land pollution, the effects of land pollution on humans and animals, and the solutions to land pollution. I think these points are the most important because they cover the three main topics which are the causes, effects, and solutions.
Three questions I have about this presentation are:
1. Which organizations are trying to stop water pollution?
2. What is bioaccumulation and how does it occur?
3. Which country is the most polluted?
These are the main points and questions I had about this presentation.
Reflection 8
I enjoyed a lot of things about our group's presentation. Some of these things include talking about the solutions to water pollution since I enjoyed making more people aware about how they can stop a global problem like this. I also enjoyed introducing our action and showing the audience our trash pickup video which me and my group had made.
During our presentation I was actually very impressed with our group and myself. For instance, throughout the presentation I maintained eye contact, I spoke clearly and at a good pace, I spoke loudly, and answered questions without stumbling. I think these are all skills that I will need for future presentations and I am happy that I am developing them now.
Creating a presentation requires many skills but the one our group had the most trouble with was co-operating since sometimes someone wanted to talk about something while the other person didn't think that was relevant. In the end, we decided that we should make sure our ideas tie into each other and from thereon we co-operated much better.
The three points I think people learned from our presentation were:
1. What Redbird Reef is and where it is located.
2. What Land Runoff is and how it affects the environment.
3. Why the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located where it is.
So clearly, as you can see me and my group clearly enjoyed presenting the information that we had researched!