Tag Archives: Social Studies

Capstone #2: Choosing my Main Inquiry Question and Sub Questions

“Oh, this is going to be easy!” I told myself when is was time to choose my main inquiry question. Boy, was I wrong! After sitting and thinking, and sitting and thinking, and sitting and thinking, I came up with an idea. I don’t remember it exactly, but let me tell you, not one of my best moments. I asked my friends what they thought, and because they hadn’t come up with a good inquiry question yet either, of course they liked it. When Mrs. Edwards asked if anyone had come up a thought for their main inquiry question, I told everyone my idea. That was when I got my first dose of setback. So we all went off on our own-or with a partner-to come up with our own inquiry question. I thought, I thought, and I thought some more. What do I really want to know about the Soviet Union? I asked myself. I brought my second question to Mrs. Edwards, and she told me that it was two questions in one. So I was back at the drawing board. Finally after an exhausting 1 minute, I had tweaked it. I thought it was pretty good. But I guess not. I should really claim that drawing board, because I sure spent a lot of time at it! I met with Mrs. Edwards, having a better question. She helped me revise it. So, my question was “How did the political climate of the Soviet Union during the Cold War affect the culture and economics of their citizens?” I liked it. Mrs. Sorensen and Mrs. Edwards did too! I thought I had my question! Until I went home…

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Capstone #1: Choosing a Topic

“What should I choose?” I thought when we finally started Capstone. After thinking for about 30 seconds, I decided to do the place I tutor kids, the Saint Baptist Church. They have a reading program that kids can go to after school. I thought it would be great! Not my best moment. When I saw the Curriculum Wheel (a wheel to help us choose our topic by giving us a bunch of mini topics and having us write questions about them), I realized that I couldn’t fill in all the categories with questions! Music? Art? I had no clue! So I decided to keep looking for topics. The next one that I stumbled upon was Soviet Immigration. My mother and grandparents had immigrated from Ukraine, so I had a ton of people to interview. So I decided to do it! It was a difficult to choose, but I am very excited for our big project!

Westward Expansion

We were leaning about Westward Expansion in class. Some of the topics our first test were the Transcontinental Railroad, the Gold Rush, Lewis and Clark’s Expedition, and the Louisiana Purchase. We did a project with different topics. My group consisted of Giselle, Sammy, Meena, and me. Our group was Pioneer Life.  All the other groups did board games relating to their projects. We wanted to do something different. We put on a play (About a girl who travels back in time to the 1800s. Three girls help her and teach her about Pioneer Life) and made a clay visual of a pioneer home. It turned out really well.

NASA Video Confrence

Today we talked to a person from NASA. She said she was in Kennedy Space Center. Back when I lived in Miami, in fourth grade we got to go to Kennedy Space Center for a field trip.

    This person’s name is Rachel Power. She specializes in digital learning network. She informed us about a private company that builds rockets. It’s called Space X.
    There is a rocket that was flying to Pluto. It left in 2006 (When most of us were 1 1/2 years old.). It just got to it’s destination. 9 1/2 years later.
    We that they are launching  a rocket signal thing on January 17, which is my brother’s bar mitzvah date.
    Overall I think it was really educational to here about what is going on in the complicated world of NASA.