A couple months ago my teacher announced we were going to a capstone project. As you know from my last blog post I need to start writing an essay to answer my main inquiry question. Just in case you forgot, my main inquiry question is: What are the top 3 benefits of using social media during wartime?

After looking over my research I came to the conclusion that the top 3 benefits are: Fundraising, Winning Public Opinion, and Spreading Information. I was thinking of doing information instead of disinformation, but my Mom told me disinformation is stronger and has more evidence.

Writing my essay was tough because I was sick, and had to do it at home. Luckily my Mom was always there to help, just in case, I needed it. When I came back to school my teacher, helped me a lot, and I was happy with the final product.

Finding evidence wasn’t too hard. I had a lot of evidence in my research which was really helpful. My interviewee also taught me a lot about Fundraising on Facebook which was critical information that I needed.

Winning Public opinion was probably the easiest part of writing my essay. I had tons of supporting evidence which allowed me to form the paragraph.

Spreading Disinformation was probably the hardest part. I didn’t have too much research on it. But my mom saved me, she gave me a bunch of websites with a lot of evidence.

I spent all weekend finishing and revising my essay. After a lot of work, my teacher reviewed my essay and confirmed that I could start my script.

The script wasn’t too hard because I mainly based it on my essay. I did add some things from time to time just to make it more clear when talking to an audience.

Unfortunately when I timed it was a bit over, so I took out some things and talked a little bit faster.

Working on my slideshow was definitely harder than working on my script. I needed to find good-quality images in the correct size range. Not many photos on my topic were very big, but in the end, I found some.

Memorizing was not too hard, but once I memorized I sometimes forgot what I had to say, and kept looking up. Luckily I practiced a lot at home and I fixed my problem. 

Overall capstone was really fun, I hope I do another project like this in middle school.

After finishing my main inquiry question and my sub-questions, I started to think about who I am going to interview. 

I wasn’t sure who I would interview. I went to my Mom for advice, and she suggested I interview an editor on Facebook. At first, I was skeptical, but then I decided it would be a good idea. She emailed them. I recieved great news, I could interview him!

I was really happy but first I needed to get my interview questions finished. Writing my interview question wasn’t too hard, but sometimes I was unsure of how to phrase something. Luckily my teacher helped me out and everything was fine.

On the day of my interview, I was pretty nervous, but I knew I would be fine. My interview was in person. When I got to the man’s house my nerves died down a little, the interview took about an hour, and it was really cool to hear from an expert. 

The next time I ever interview someone I know that I shouldn’t be nervous. I am really excited to start writing my essay.

Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram are social media platforms we all know and love. These platforms are used for sharing, connecting, creating webs, and more. Social media is used in many ways by many different kinds of people, by governments, and by people every single day. But social media can be used for much more serious matters, one of them being social being used in war. Not many people have thought about social media being used in war, which was brought to my attention. I researched three benefits of using social media during wartime and came up with a conclusion. Three chief benefits of using social media during wartime are, Fundraising, opportunities to win public opinion, and the last is spreading disinformation.

My first chief benefit of using social media during wartime is fundraising. Wars are ruinously expensive. Wars typically require a lot of weapons and ammunition, as well as food supplies, living equipment, and transportation. Moreover, the invaded country would have many desperate civilians trapped in besieged cities, and displaced around the country. You would need lots of money to cover the added up cost. To help with this, you could set up a fundraiser. For example, Ukraine spends 10 billion dollars a month to keep its army going. On top of this, much more money is needed for food, medicine, and shelter for Ukrainian civilians. But what if the country doesn’t have that money? That is where fundraising comes into play. Large charities use their websites, email distribution, and various social media platforms to ask for donations. For example, the American Red Cross collected $44.3 million dollars for Ukrainian relief. UNICEF, another charity organization, which works in over 190 countries and territories saving children’s lives, collected $276 million for immediate needs within Ukraine. Such companies run extensive advertising campaigns to achieve successful fundraising. Individuals can also run personal fundraising campaigns. Brian Rosenthal, news editor and engineer working for Facebook, described a Facebook donation product. There are two mechanisms: charity organizations can collect donations through their nonprofit Facebook page, as well as Facebook users can create a page asking their supporters to donate to a particular charity organization. The best part about this is creating a Fundraiser is completely free, so you can raise money at no cost. Facebook fundraising campaigns are successful because over 2 billion people use this social platform globally. People get encouraged to donate when they see large participation, which makes them feel being part of something important. Another well-known social media platform that is available to private individuals for fundraising is called “GoFundMe”. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, hundreds if not thousands of fundraising accounts had been used to collect money for the war relief in Ukraine.

My second chief benefit of using social media during wartime is an opportunity to win Public opinion. Fundraising is really important, but to get people on your side, you need to win Public Opinion. In reality, the more people on your side the more money you collect. But how can one attract people to share your views with the help of social media? If you are a country that is defending itself, social media can be used to widely share pictures of destruction, wounded and dead people, as well as those seeking refuge. This information clearly documents the atrocities of an enemy, which sends a strong message that war needs to be stopped. An example of this happening is the war in Ukraine. According to an article in the Washington Post, the Russian Government claims that “no strikes are being made on civilian infrastructure.” In Russia where free press is not allowed, Russian people believe that the Russian army does not harm civilians. However, many photographs from war zones in Ukraine tell us a different story. CNN compiled an article called “The Photos That Have Defined the War in Ukraine” citing many photographs of destruction, and devastation amongst civilians. These pictures clearly show that Putin is lying, while countless pieces of evidence point to the fact that civilian homes are being shelled causing civilian casualties. These and many similar photographs are constantly being circulated on many social media platforms making billions of people aware of the true horror of the war, and helping to shape public opinion against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The clear result of American public opinion in support of Ukraine fighting for its freedom is demonstrated by the approval of a new 40 billion aid package by the Senate on May 19th. The article in The New Times stated that “The momentum behind the bill showed how the searing images of suffering in Ukraine, coupled with fears about Russian aggression spreading beyond Ukrainian borders’ ‘. As a result, public opinion is important in wars, and social media can help change the way people think.

My third chief benefit of using social media during wartime is spreading disinformation. Both Russia and Ukraine are using social media to rally support and share information, and arguably Russia’s state-paid TV and social media outlets spread disinformation particularly well. Even more so, Russian authorities blocked access to all foreign media outlets and closed all ‘free speaking’ publications and media platforms. The Russian parliament passed a law criminalizing the spread of information that criticizes war in Ukraine. Russians could face prison sentences of up to 15 years for spreading information that goes against the Russian government’s position on the war in Ukraine. Russian authorities insist that the Russian army does not target civilians. Any photographs or videos of dead or injured people are explained as being staged or explosions were set up by the Ukrainians themselves. For example, BBC had published an article describing how a school survivor became a target of Russian disinformation. Tania was caught up in an airstrike that hit a school in one of the towns in Ukraine, leaving nine people dead and many injured. She posted a video on Instagram, showing her face covered in blood. However soon Tania’s video was shared on Russian information channels claiming that the video is a fabrication. Russian media said the wound on her face was not real, and that the blood on her face did not look natural, adding that she was behaving too “normally” for a person who had just survived a bombing. Even the most horrendous atrocities by the Russian army the Russian state media claim to be fake news. BBC reported how In the northern part of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, a small town called Bucha, many dead bodies were discovered after the Russian army retreated. However, in detailed broadcasts to millions of viewers, correspondents, and hosts of Russian state TV channels and social media the photo and video evidence of the killings were fake while others showed that Ukrainians were responsible for the bloodshed. Russia gets support from spreading information, about their country, and others sided with Russia.

So, in conclusion, using social media is a huge benefit to using it during the war, you can fundraise, you can win public opinion, and finally, you can spread disinformation to your advantage. So remember during any conflict, when you take your side, you can use social media to help.

About 2 months ago, my teacher told the class that we were going to do a regional project. This is when the class is divided up into groups, and that group picks a region. I was pretty excited at first because I thought it would be interesting.

The people in my group were me, Christian, Trevor, and Zach.  The region we chose was the northwest region. It had 5 states so we decided that we all do the last one. I chose Washington as my state because I think Washington is a really cool state. Montana was the only state that no one chose.

The first step of this project was research. We had to do research on our state with categories. They were landmarks, politics, general, and history. 

Then you have to choose what to present. All the other groups did a slide presentation, but my group decided to do a Google Website.

The research wasn’t too hard. The most challenging part was probably organizing all the information. I started the research for Montanna but then the rest of my group took over.

After all our information was done we started working on the website. Making the website wasn’t too complicated, I put in the information for general and history of Montana.

Our group was going to make a Kahoot at the end of the presentation, working on the Kahoot was very stressful because it kept not saving.

Our group practiced a lot, and the end result was worth it, this region’s project was super fun! I really enjoyed it!

About 2 weeks ago my teacher announced that we were starting our capstone unit. A capstone is where you pick a topic and study it. Then you can either do an Ignite, a Ted Talk, or a Movie. An Ignite is when you have 12 slides, and each slide is 15 seconds. A Ted Talk is 3-5 minutes with no slide requirements. A movie is 3-6 minutes and can be done on WeVideo or Adobe Spark.

I had a little trouble choosing my topic. First I thought that I was going to do, “Ukraine Refugees,” but after researching, I quickly realized I didn’t have enough information.  At that point, I was thinking of something to do with the Ukraine war. But I came to the same conclusion of not having enough information. I asked my teacher for some advice and finally, I thought of the topic: Social media affecting wars. 

I started doing lots of research at finding many ways that social media affects wars, after I did research I was going to narrow down my topic.

I needed to narrow my topic down, because I could talk about it for hours about Social media affects wars. Working on my main inquiry question for me was not o difficult. My first one was: What impact does social media have on wars? I thought about this for a while and realized I don’t really want to do this. When a couple of other people shared their questions with the class I thought of an idea. My new question was: What are 3 benefits of using social media during wartime, and how have some of them been used?

Sub questions weren’t too hard, I just had to narrow down my main inquiry question. One challenge though was thinking of 5 . Two examples of my sub-questions are: What are some advantages of using social media during wartime? And, how have some people used social media during wartime? My sub-questions helped me a lot with research.

The first part of the capstone was really fun and interesting altogether, and I really hope that the 2nd part will be just as good.

In March when my teacher gave us a project in which we would interview someone who immigrated to America I was nervous. But now, I think this is a really fun project. Today I will be telling you about making my Wevideo.

The first step of making the video was doing the script, I had to put in what I would say and see. The script only took about 20 minutes so I whipped through it. When I started the video I was pretty confident. I thought all I needed to do was put some pictures down and do a voiceover. When I was finished with the pictures I needed to do the voice-over which didn’t take that long. My house was very quiet so I didn’t have any background noise.

Overall this was a really fun project, and it really helped me learn what being an immigrant is really like. I was super inspired by this to learn more about immigrants. Even though parts of the project were challenging, I learned that hard work pays off.

A couple weeks ago my teacher Ms.Edwards assigned the class an immigration project. She told us that we would interview an immigrant who came to America, then we would either choose to do their story on Wevideo, or Adobe. But before all that we need to pick who to interview, and who did I interview?

I interviewed my Mom. At first, I was a little skeptical because my mom traveled to England first, and then America, but I was fine. 

Now that I knew who to interview, I needed to start writing questions so I could know more about my mom’s immigration process. Writing the questions was a bit challenging, but my friends Christian, Cayden, and Teddy helped a lot so I finished in no time. I wasn’t that stressed about questions though because I was interviewing my mom so it was ok if I messed up.

When I did the interview it went really quickly, all I had to do was ask some questions and I was done.

The start of the Immigration Project was pretty chill, but the wevideo might be more stressful, but I think I’ll be fine.

Dang, it! A Rube Goldberg can be hard to build. I know this because I built one. My Rube Goldberg isn’t that complicated, unfortunately, it took so long to build. 

Starting it wasn’t hard, my only issue was that a domino wouldn’t hit a ball to go forward. I need to think of a solution…AHA! I would build my Rube Goldberg on a book so then I could make a small inclined plane with a book the ball would roll down.

 Eventually, I wanted the ball to roll down, hit a huge magnitile that would catapult hamster food into the hamster bowl.

 Building the Rube Goldberg on books was tricky because I was using dominos and it was hard to get them to stand up on the surface. I managed anyway.

 I started to record my Rube Goldberg in action, I had about 7 tries until I got it right. My most common issue was that the hamster food didn’t catapult into the bowl. I tried out some solutions, I put more wait to fall down, and got a smaller bowl, I tested out only that section, and…it worked! I was so happy!

 I ran through the whole Rube Goldberg, I finally did it! I was ready to start my wevideo. My first step for the wevideo was two seconds of black, I put a transition, and added it to my media. The final product was amazing, it was just over 3 minutes long.

 The Rube Goldberg project was hard and stressful but luckily I managed. I think that I did a really good job and I am very proud of myself.

A little less than a month ago, my teacher, Mrs.Edwards announced that we were going to be doing a debate project with our book club. I was really excited because I love doing debates. Each book club got a folder with articles about their topic, I was a bit disappointed to find out that my group was doing Cell Phones. But later on, when I was doing my research I found out that the Cell Phone debate had pretty solid reasons. The question we were debating was “Should kids be allowed to use cellphones in school.”

My book club group worked really hard on making reasons and evidence for both sides. After we finished all the work Mrs.Edwards gave us sides and teams for the debate. My partner was Christian, we were up against Devon and Trevor. Our side was yes, cell phones should be allowed in school. 

Christian and I picked 2 good reasons why cell phones should be in school. The first one was Cell phones can be used as a learning tool, and the second reason was that Cell phones make it easier for kids to keep in touch with their parents. We immediately started working on evidence after we picked our reasons. 

I struggled a little when it came to unpacking the evidence but my teacher and Christian helped a lot. My main source of information was an article called pros and cons of having cellphones in school. 

After Christian and I finished our evidence we started working on some good counterarguments. Cyberbullying, which was Devon’s reason for why cellphones should not be in school, was hard to counter. This is because there really is no excuse to cyberbully, but Christian and I tried our hardest. 

At our first practice debate, we had quite a lot of critiques. We were reading our script on a Chromebook so some people said that we needed to lift our heads up a bit, some said we needed to strengthen our evidence, but mostly we did great. On the last and final recording of our debate, I was anxious, I didn’t know if we were ready. But I shouldn’t have worried because we did a fantastic job. 

The debate unit was definitely a hardworking team project. My favorite part of the project was probably researching. I liked finding different ideas for the evidence. I really hope that we do another debate unit in fifth grade.

A couple weeks ago my teacher announced we were going to do our Rube Goldberg project. A Rube Goldberg is a machine that creates a chain reaction to do a simple task. When my teacher announced the project I already knew what a Rube Goldberg was, my sister had done the same project when she was in fifth grade. At first, I was a bit worried about the project, it takes a lot of time and effort to create a Rube Goldberg. I started doing my research with my friends, Cayden, and Luca. We wrote down some supplies, songs, and video format Ideas. After all the research I started working on my sketch. I made a lot of revisions along the way. The final result was this: Car goes down an inclined plane which hits mini skateboard, mini skateboard goes through lego house which hits dominos, dominos hit lego car wheel, lego car wheel goes through magnitle tube and hits lego car wheel which hits big magnitile, big magnitile hits catapult, hamster food gets launched into a bowl. The simple machines I used were an inclined plane, wheel and axle, and a lever. Dominos were really helpful because they could fall down well. But the big car was not helpful because I did not hit the mini skateboard. I think it will be hard to build this but I am up for the challenge.