Capstone Topic and Questions

Capstone is a research project where you study something that you have chosen over a course of 2 months and then you share your research through a TED Talk or

 

The first topic for Capstone that I wanted to study was Chemistry. My mom didn’t want to do this because she was afraid that I might “blow up the house”. Why would I do that!! We argued so I decided to do my second choice, Human anatomy. Today I generated my main research question.  My first Idea for my question was “How does the human body work and what are the threats to it?” I showed it to my teacher this question and she said it was too broad, and that how were you supposed to explain every single part of the human body just in a slideshow? I decided to take her advice to expand upon what is dangerous to the human body. So, I changed it to “What are the threats to the human body and how does it protect itself?” Both my question partners said it was a 4. We have this grading system for Inquiry Questions. A 1 is a question that is answered in one word. A 2 is a slightly broader question that is answered in a sentence. A 3 is a question that is not too small but not too broad either. A 4 is an absolutely perfect question that takes a long time  There is a grade for Research Questions, and 4 is the best with an answer that spans your whole capstone project.

It took a while to brainstorm some of my subquestions. They are, What are the different systems in the human body?What role does mucus play? What is the difference between Voluntary and Involuntary actions? Why do we breathe? What is the process from the brain to the limb or body part when we move? What happens to the body when we sleep? How are medicines produced? How do doctors research cures for diseases? How long is a typical surgery? What is inside a cell?

For my final product, I am thinking of making diagram of the different systems in the human body and how it defends itself.

Social Issues Blog Erik

In our book club, we are reading Wonder by R.J. Palacio. We are thinking about the challenges the characters face and how their challenges affect them.

August faces many challenges. He has a facial birth defect and it’s a challenge for him every day to try and tell people that he is a normal person. He often bullied or left out in school, and he is judged on how he looks. These challenges prevent him from making that many friends. Soon, with all the people bullying him, he starts regretting that he had gone to school in the first place. He thinks that he doesn’t have any real friends because Principal Tushman assigned people to be his friends but he actually has real friends. The kids who bully him at school affected him to change his costume at the last second so he wouldn’t be picked on. The way that people treat him has made him when he was younger,  to wear an astronaut helmet to prevent any looks or sideways glances. He stopped wearing it only because he lost it. I think that if he didn’t lose it, he would have kept wearing it. August acts differently both when he is with people and when he is alone. When he is with people, it depends who he is with. If he is with his family and friends, he acts completely normal. If he is with people like Julian, he tries to avoid them the best he can. When August is alone, he thinks about himself more and his mind wanders to where it makes him scared, sad and angry.

Water Filtration 2018

Today, we made water filters. It was really satisfying to see that we could filter filthy water into almost clean water.

 

We began studying this unit after reading a book called Saving Salila’s Turtle about this girl called Salila who lives near the Ganges River which is horribly polluted. When she comes to the river one day, she finds a turtle covered in boat oil crawling around on the beach. She immediately adopts this creature and takes it home. Her father doesn’t like the idea of keeping it but her mother, an environmental engineer, doesn’t mind. So, together they hatch a plan to build their own filter. They make enough water for the turtle to live in and the story has a happy ending.

 

First, we talked about what was polluting the Ganges, so we listed a bunch of things that could be polluting it. We named oil, people washing their clothes or bathing causing more soap oil to go into the water. We also named that storms could cause sticks and silt to get blown into the river, even though that wasn’t mentioned in the story, it was very likely. Another thing we named was maybe human waste was dumped into the river, and that maybe this is what is creating the brown color.

 

We then were assigned to actually build filters ourselves to solve the problems Salila had. On the first day of building, we tested out some of the ingredients of our final product. We split into groups, and each group was given a bottle of different types of contaminated water. There were three types. A was mixed with tea, B was mixed with soil, and C was mixed with cornstarch. I felt sorry for the C groups because the cornstarch was permanently dissolved in there. Only like, carbon filters could have separated those two. Thankfully, we got a B and started trying to filter out soil using different materials. Here is a table:

 

                                                               Particles:                                                              Color:

Materials No Kinda Yes! No Kinda Yes!
Screen Check  Check
Sand & Gravel  Check Check
Coffee Filter  Check  Check

 

We moved on to build our final filter. We were given goals to try to reach. Our teacher brought out 5 bottles filled with different types of water to compare against. There was 5, which was dirty contaminated water, 4, with a lighter color and fewer particles. 3 was even lighter and had fewer particles, 2 was almost clear with a tiny amount of particles, and 1 was perfectly clear and clean water.

 

I proposed to use a little berry strainer, but my group declined it. In the first design, we used the same upside-down bottle with the bottom cut off as before. We first put a dried out baby wipe on top to get the big particles, then below that, we had another baby wipe inside of 4 stacked coffee filters, then finally a bundled up mosquito screen. Our second design was similar, except instead of the baby wipe on top, we stretched out the screen. And instead of the screen on the bottom, we used sand and gravel. Here is how that went:

 

                                                                                   Contamination Level:

Design #       5       4       3       2       1!
1  Check
2  Check

With this design, we had very good results as you can see. I liked this unit very much and hope we will come back to studying it in Middle School!

 

Here are some photos:

 

Immigration Project

Today, Arav and I just finished filming our stop motion film. It describes the immigrants in the early 20th century settling and trying to fit into the complex civilization of New York at that time. It shows the immigrants living their life in New York, including their dining, working, and home experience. I have learned a lot about how poor people lived in the 1920s & 30s. Arav and I argued a lot. One example is that he wanted to start a new stop-motion movie for the second half and I just said that we should stay with the same movie since there was no point in it. We ended up having to stop filming and go do something else. Well, that was good filming time lost. I am happy for today because we completed the stop motion and the movie where you put together the clips with titles and audio. Since we couldn’t get speech bubbles in iMovie, we had to have volunteers to say the character parts. I like how successful we are,

A Long Walk to Water

 

In class we are reading Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park. We wonder on some questions about the main characters, and their traits.

What are the qualities of effective leadership? How does Salva demonstrate these quilities? Well, first you need to know that everybody trusts you and likes you and what you say. You need to have strength to stay at the top and also not to cry or fall behind because of a tragedy. Like Salva when he couldn’t find his parents. He cried and lagged behind. You need to be smart to know and identify what is ahead. Uncle Juir had this quality. When the group went into the land of the Atuan, he warned the group that there are lions. You need to protect whoever you’re leading and not to let them get out of your watch. You need to keep everyone together. Uncle Juir did not have this quality because Salva’s friend was dragged away by a lion under Uncle Juir’s nose.

How might Salva’s philosophy help you in life? If you look over something at its full length, you might get worried that you might not make it there. For example, if you do things at a smaller point of view, as Salva did in the desert, you don’t have to worry about it. You’ll think “Thats Easy!”, and you will do it again, and again until you reach whatever goal you have.

Why is perseverance so important? Perseverance is crucial to life because, without it, you can never get anything done if it is not on your first try. Reflecting on the book we used to read Home of the Brave by Catherine Applegate, Kek shows this by trying harder to make himself feel at home. Salva, shows this by the bit by bit strategies that I talked about earlier. When his uncle got murdered, he didn’t sit in a corner and cry, he tried harder and walked swifter and with more strength to try to be what uncle had been, the leader.

How can better develop the ability to persevere? Perseverance isn’t obtained, someone slowly develops it. One thing to strengthen your perseverance is try a challenge. When you fail at it, try again, and keep trying until you succeed. If you don’t have the ability to do that, then, try playing or doing something that you aren’t good at. Keep trying it, and you might get better at it.

Rube Goldberg #3

When we finished our Rube Goldberg, I reflected upon how hard we worked just for a cup of vinegar to go into the baking soda. The cardboard tubes, the ending task argument, the pin problem, phew! I can’t even list how many. When I saw the video, I was a little disappointed that Marcello didn’t catch the main part of the machine in the video. I know it wasn’t on purpose because he had a hard time getting down the stairs with the machine in his way, but still, I am a little nervous when we are going to show the video tomorrow. I am excited on my part since the bloopers at the end were very funny. Well, hope all goes well.

 

Here is the video:

Rube Goldberg #2

We just completed building our Rube Goldberg. We had many Debates [arguments] about what we should do when filming and what not, and I am excited. All we need to do is 1. Take pictures of our design, 2. Complete the task successfully, and 3. Is to make our video. I am considerably worried that we can’t make this in time but Marcello suggested that we ask our teacher for an extra day to complete it. I honestly think that we might fail but I got my hopes up in the last few days. We first had arguments about wherever to make our Rube Goldberg unique or not, I was on the unique side sine I wanted ours to stand out among the other projects. In the end, I was a combination of both. we had many unique tubes and a simple task [pouring baking soda in vinegar] but we also had balls and dominoes and what not. I am happy that we have a good completed task but I am still worried about the filming. We had another argument about the introduction. We planed to make another Introduction but I thought that the other one was fine. He said that we should explain the whole Rube in video on every trial, but I said that we already had an introduction that explained everything that came before all the tries, so we wound’t have to explain it again. But we are going to complete this today.

Rube Goldberg

Last week, me and my friend Marcello started our design for our Rube Goldberg project. A Rube Goldberg is a complicated machine related chain reaction that you use to complete a simple task. For example, if I want to pour water into a cup, I could knock down dominoes and then the dominoes hit a ball and then ball hits the tap switch and the tap runs water in the cup. A Rube Goldberg is like that except around 8x more complex. To build a machine like this you need to do the following: Create a design, list materials, experiment your design, build the full model, and finally, share it. Me and my friend have done the first three, and we still have to build our full model. Our model has 12 transfers of energy. This means that energy transfers into different things to make them move / rotate. I am worried that we will not have enough time but I hope we will make it before the deadline. The project is due at the end of January. We have two weeks to do this. I like this project and I am excited to share it. We have to figure out certain things but I am sure that my friend and I will know what to do.