Capstone blog post #3

After weeks of hard work, my capstone project has finally been completed. I researched many sites for new information as greek mythology is fairly new to me. I had to search through many websites because some of the websites didn’t have the information I wanted for my project. When I started my slideshow, I was thinking about which type of presentation I wanted to do. I also had to think about my interview and who to interview once my research was over. 

My slideshow was fairly easy to make, but my script took me a very long time to make because of all the other things I had to do during the day. I finally settled on a solid script 2 days before the video due date and that made me really scared. What if I messed up? What if my capstone failed? I was very worried about the success of my capstone project. However, my worries were all gone after I did my video. It turned out to be a very successful project and I feel happy for all the hard work I put into this capstone project.

In conclusion, I think Capstone has worked very well for me. I was very successful in everything I did except for finding an interviewee. I really liked the process of this project and this will be helpful for other projects I do in the future.

Here is the link to my capstone video
Felix M-Capstone-Greek Mythology

Capstone blog post #2

In the capstone, it is required that we complete an interview for our research. For my topic, it was hard to find someone who knew about Greek mythology. My first try was for a history teacher, but I got rejected since he only taught English history. My next choice was one of my dad’s friends and he agreed to help me out. So on Sunday, 5/24, we had our interview. My questions were: 

  1. How did Greek life go before Greek mythology was introduced?
  2. What changes were made to Greece after Greek myths
  3. How did Greek myths change Greek celebrations, architecture, and religion
  4. Why did Greek myths become a reality?

I learned from my dad’s friend that there was evidence of the Trojan war found in the 19th century. He also told me all about the effects of Greek religion, celebrations, and architecture. It was 6

Overall, I think that the interview went pretty well being a new interviewer with only a couple of experiences. I feel like that my capstone project will be successful and I really wish that my movie turns out as I want it to.

Capstone Blog Post #1

 

Capstone Blog post #1

After starting this capstone unit, I have felt excited about what is to come, and thus far, I have felt successful in choosing the main inquiry question for my topic and my sub-questions. 

My topic is Greek mythology and my main inquiry question is “What is Greek mythology and how has it impacted Greek culture?” I felt that the topic was easy to choose because I was reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians and I really wanted to know more about Greek mythology so I chose this topic. The challenging part was that Greek mythology is very new to me so my parents gave me other ideas such as architecture and stuff. At first, I agreed but I didn’t want to give up my idea so I stuck with Greek mythology.

I learned that if I am passionate about something as a learner, basically no one can stop me from reading about it. Usually, I spent an hour or two reading, but these days, I start reading at seven until ten, basically five hours of reading on my kindle. I hope that capstone can be a success to me and I become an expert at Greek mythology.

A long Walk To Water Review

A Long Walk to Water Review

By Felix

After reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, there were many things that I thought about. In the story, there were many times where it had impacted me. The time where it had impacted me the most is when the boy had hung on to Salva to survive in the Gilo river, but he was fatally shot by one of the soldiers on the river bank. This impacts me because it shows the boy’s desire to survive when they were crossing the Gilo, yet sacrificing himself to save Salva. Another time where the story had impacted me is when Salva reunites with his dad. Salva followed his uncle’s directions, never gave up hope and finally reunites with his father.

I think that Linda Sue Park wanted us to convey that we shouldn’t give up in hard times. Just as Salva’s Uncle had said “ One step at a time,”  Salva persisted the heat of the desert with the reluctant sun, the peril of the Gilo river which included gunshots and crocodiles, and most importantly, the death of his uncle. Nya had to persist the long walk to the pond, Akhere’s sickness and the same as Salva, not giving up hope. Hope was a big motif for this story in which Nya and Salva had never given up hope. I think the symbolism in this story is that Salva represents the people who never gave up in hard times which we should all do. 

I think the story A Long Walk to Water was a book that talks about a real-life issue that all of us should take into account and help countries like Sudan overcome this problem. We should never give up hope and we should always take one step at a time like Salva does.

Astonishing Alarm

On September, Friday the 13th, students all had a question that left them confused: why was there a fire drill right in the morning? As people were pouring into Heathcote Elementary School, it seemed to be a perfectly fine day. So when the fire alarm went off, the students all thought they were hearing things. When the alarm didn’t stop, students began rushing out the front door. All of the students were confused because since the bell didn’t ring, the school day didn’t actually start so why was there a fire drill? 

When the students all huddled on the sidewalk for a really long time, they realized that this was no joke. The fear in our hearts grew even more when the fire trucks arrived at the front circle. Student Gabriel Telles, a 5th grader says “ when the fire trucks came into the front circle, I felt frightened because there might be a very critical accident.” The Firefighters were dressed like when there was a real fire and they rushed into the school. When a police car showed up at the school, all the students were really frightened.

The cause is still unknown, but most students think that something had caused the smoke detector to go off. Or even worse, a student accidentally pulled the fire alarm and started all this chaos. Student Jonothan Shukovsky, a 5th grader says “ I was talking with my friends when the alarm suddenly goes off. I thought I was hearing things. I was so confused “. Tom Degani, also a 5th grader states that “ I was coming into the front circle when I see all the teachers and students standing outside.  When I see the fire truck and the fire alarm going off, I felt scared and confused.” 

The students of Heathcote were relieved to hear that it was only a false alarm, but Friday the 13th was a confusing and frightening day for the students of Heathcote.

 

Blast Off

On the Heathcote field, students in 5C were in extreme happiness. Today was the 1st rocket launch for Mrs. Cooper’s class and the students were beyond excited.  There was four jobs to do for the rocket launch: the launcher, the air pumpers, and the countdown master. There were also 4 clinometer readers which calculate the height of the rocket. The first group to go was the Astros. After the countdown master shouted “ 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!” the launcher pressed the button and the rocket went soaring up into the sky. They got 139 feet which is amazing as the average was in the 120s. All of the students were really happy and the expression of ecstasy clearly shown on the faces of the students. The highest rocket went a shocking 198 feet. The lowest rocket went 67 feet. 

After that, using a special datasheet. All the groups recorded their data, found out the height of their rocket and wrote 2 posts that told the process of their first rocket. For some groups, their facial expressions showed delight like the Astros or the Flying Saucers who got the top two heights, for others like the Three Musketeers or the Astro Rocket’s, not as much. It was an awesome day for Mrs. Cooper’s class and for most people it was a really good memory. 

Rocketry Blog Post #2: Launching rocket 1

After producing and planning our rocket, we finally got to launch them in the field. It was a brilliant day. As Ms. Cooper set up the launching machine, I was waiting with joy because my group, the Astros were going first and I was thrilled. The clinometer readers stood at each end of the field as we walked to the launcher.

After we set up the launcher, I started to pump air into our rocket. After I had the right amount of pressure, Sarah shouted ” 10, 9, 8, 7 … 3, 2, 1, Blastoff!” As Greta pressed the launch button, our rocket was fired up into the air. “ Woah!” everyone shouted as our rocket went up and up, way out of the reach of the camera that was taking a video. I was so excited when our rocket pummeled down towards the Earth like it pummeled out of nowhere. When the rocket finally drilled into the ground, I sprinted to our rocket and pulled it out of the dirt.

I was a clinometer reader next and I ran to my spot. ” Yuck!” I shouted as one of my shoes was soaked with mud from the overnight rain. I took my spot and carefully, held up my clinometer and I straightened my arm and as the next rocket took off, I pressed a button and took the readings. 20 feet.

Even though that was only a short moment, it is going to be one of my favorite moments of 5th grade! Our rocket went 138 feet and I was really proud of our rocket and since we had a great success on our first launch, we were really happy.

Rocketry Blog Post #1: Designing rocket 1

For the start of our rocketry unit, my group had to make an inspiration board for our rocketry team. What the inspiration board does is it gives us ideas for our rocket. It also has all the research we did so we can go back to it for more ideas for our design. For our design. We decided to use a pointy nose cone because it will make the rocket more aerodynamic, a thick body because it can fit more air and we chose parallelogram fins because these types of fins are more skinny and our rocket will travel faster. We have 3 fins for balance and we made sure there were no air bubbles on our rocket because air can leak out from there. 

After we started building our rocket, we faced a really big problem. The nose cone. We had a perfect size, but we taped it over and over because air bubbles were on the nose cone. We had to tape the nose cone together using small pieces of tape. However, our fins were unstable, really unstable. We had to trim our rocket fins to make it stand properly. Our rocket colors are red, white and blue because those colors are the colors of the US and we want to represent our country. I really do hope our rocket is a success.

Rocketry Blog Post #3: Reflection and designing rocket 2

After we launched our first rocket,  our rocket reached a staggering 138 ft and slotted us in second place. However, my group totally ignored me and changed our fins that benefited us a lot. I felt really depressed and I feel that my group is ignoring me and leaving out my thoughts.  We had triangle fins and a blunt nose cone.

I am concerned with the Astros because we have recently been debating a lot about what to do so I think if this goes on the Astros will not succeed. I think we can pull our group together. As we pull our group together and start to become more of a working together kind of group, I think that our rocket will reach a majestic height. 

Compared to our other rocket which went high but not high enough, this rocket will probably be bad because it has a blunt nose cone and it had air bubbles. I felt really bad because my group left my idea out

Rocketry Blog Post #4: Launching rocket 2

Oh my god! Our rocket was not what I expected it to be. Our rocket height was barely even 70 feet! As I stepped onto the field, I already had a bad feeling about this and that’s what happened. However what really upset me was that my group didn’t listen to me because they thought our first rocket which had my fins was really bad and since someone made a side comment about our fins. 

My group was totally furious with me. So they literally changed my fins and did most of the work while leaving me only to do the fins of their choice. I also pointed out something that would help our rocket and my group just said that I was criticizing them and that made me really sad.

After that we had a launch just for fun and guess what? My group members let me be the countdown master when I wanted to be the launcher which they gave to someone else making me the only non-launcher on my team. I decided to be air pumper but I barely did anything at all and our rocket didn’t achieve a high launch.

Even after all this madness, I still pulled myself together and completed the dreaded launch. I decided to change the nose cone to make it pointier so that in my mind the rocket will go even higher. Yet that launch was one of my most negative moments of all time.