Adventures With Tyson

Capstone Blog Post #3

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another post. If you have been following this blog for a while, you might have known that I am in the middle of a research project called, Capstone. If you didn’t know this, Capstone is a huge research project where you pick a topic and learn as much information about the topic as you can. You do this by visiting multiple resources. This includes books, websites, articles, and videos. Then, you gather all of your data and put it into one huge presentation. The different presentation forms you can choose from are a video, TED talk, or Ignite. This is my last post for this project. If you haven’t checked out my other two posts on Capstone, I highly recommend you do so now. Without further ado, let’s get started.

The biggest thing I will be writing about today was my decision to change my presentation format from a video to a TED talk. When envisioning my video, I realized that I would maximize my experience if I chose to do a TED talk. That is why I made the decision to change course.

After I changed my mind to prepare for a TED Talk, I had to create a script. However, I already made one for my video. Therefore, basically, all I had to do was copy my old script, and paste it into my new one.

Once I did this, I had to find images for my presentation. The images had to be non-copyrighted and match what I was saying. There were challenges when I wanted to find specific images. For example, when I searched for photos of people not incredibly recognized, barely any results appeared.  After talking with my tech teacher, I realized that I just needed to give credit to my source.

The next part was for me to memorize my script.  I knew from past experience that if I tried to complete this task in a day or two, I would find little success. As a result, I decided to pace myself.  I had 23 slides I needed to memorize and decided to do 4 slides a day. This ended up being a great plan and I completed this part in about 5 days.

The last and final thing I had to do was practice presenting in front of an audience.  In this case, the audience was my classmates and my family. This was pretty easy for me as public speaking was never a problem.

In conclusion, I would rate this project as one of the best I have ever done.  I am very proud of my final product and grateful to have learned a lot- not only about my topic, but also about myself as a researcher. This is the last blog post I will write as an elementary school student. Thank you for reading this blog post and I hope to write more in the future.

CREDITS FOR IMAGES I USED IN MY PRESENTATION: 

Photo of Erik Finman

Photo of Lily Born

Image of Botangle Logo

Image of Kangaroo Cup

Photo of Cameron Herold

Photo of Mikaila Ulmer

Capstone Blog Post #2

Hi everyone. Welcome back to another adventure. Today, I will be writing more about my Capstone project in this blog post. Before I begin, if you haven’t read my first blog post yet, I recommend you do that now. In this blog post, we will be focusing on my interview process. So without further ado, let’s get started.

The first step is finding an interviewee. I chose to interview Ms. Yokana, a teacher at my local high school. She teaches the entrepreneurship and engineering class which fits my topic perfectly.  My teacher, Ms. Boyer, is the one that suggested I interview her.  As a result, I sent Ms. Yokana an email introducing myself and asked if she would agree to schedule an interview. She agreed.  After that, I knew that I successfully completed the first step.

The second step is creating questions to ask. For me, creating the first eight questions was very easy.  However, later on, I found it a little difficult to think of more things to ask. However, after a lot of hard thinking and some help from others, I came up with 12 solid questions that I was proud of and satisfied with.

The third and final step was conducting the interview.  I asked my questions to Ms. Yokana over a Zoom call.  She gave me thorough and detailed answers which I documented digitally. I know that I said I came up with 12 questions but during the interview, I asked fewer. This is because when she was answering questions, she also answered ones that I was going to ask later on.  I thought that it would be a waste of time to ask a question she already answered so I skipped the repetitive ones and instead, asked more follow-ups.

Capstone Blog Post #1

Hello everyone. Welcome back to yet another adventure. Today, I will be writing about a school research project called Capstone. Let me explain what this project is. First, you have to pick a topic. This can be anything that is reasonable and teacher-approved. However, you need to choose wisely because you will be working on your topic for the entire length of the project. I chose kid entrepreneurs. Next, you need to come up with one main question, and several sub-questions. After that, comes research. That’s right, research. Resources include websites, articles, magazines, books, videos, etc. After all of this is done, you have to transform your research into a presentation. There are three presentation forms you can choose from. These are a video, a TED Talk, or an ignite. Well now that we got that out of the way, let’s get started.

To begin, I want to talk about the process I went through to come up with my topic. As mentioned before, my focus is on kid entrepreneurs. I chose this for two reasons. The first reason is because of my interest in entrepreneurship. Since one year ago, I have been fascinated and inspired by people who created businesses. These people include Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg.  I recently noticed that what they have in common is that they are all adults. The truth is, I have never really heard of a kid entrepreneur. The second reason is that my teacher, Ms. Boyer, suggested I think about kids who own businesses as a topic. After a lot of consideration, I decided that this was the topic that was going to be the most fun for me to investigate.

Now I want to talk about the process of coming up with my main inquiry. At first, I tried asking questions without doing any previous research. This was unsuccessful and the only thing it did was waste my time. The next day, my mom encouraged me to read a few articles which could help me think of my main question. I didn’t think that her advice would be helpful but I did it anyway. I was wrong. After browsing through four articles and discussing with my mom, I was able to easily formulate my main question and even more, several sub-questions. The main inquiry question that I created was ‘How is kid entrepreneurship beneficial?’

Next, I want to talk about my process for coming up with my sub-questions. As mentioned before, I did some research before brainstorming ideas for my sub-questions. However, my sub-questions had to be somewhat related to my main question. For me, I found this process easier than coming up with my main inquiry. Here is the list I created: 

  1. How do kid entrepreneurs help society?
  2. What are some characteristics that children can learn from entrepreneurship?
  3. How can being an entrepreneur at a young age benefit you in the future?
  4. How can kid entrepreneurs teach and inspire others?

 

In all, I have learned and completed so much. I can’t wait for the rest to come and hope it continues to be interesting and exciting.

Immigration Project Reflection

Introduction:

Hi everyone. Welcome back to another adventure. In this post, I will be reflecting on my most recent project. It is based on immigration. Today, I will write about the process for this project, what I learned, what I found surprising, and what was frustrating. I hope you enjoy.

HERE IS MY VIDEO!!:

The Process:

The first thing I want to cover is the process of this project. First, we had to interview an adult immigrant. At first, I had no idea who I would interview. However, after about 10 minutes of thinking, I narrowed it down to two adult immigrants I knew. One of the possibilities was my grandpa who came from Korea. The other was my babysitter who immigrated from Nepal. I chose to interview my babysitter, Pema.  This is because she lives with my family 5 days a week whereas my grandpa currently lives in Seattle. Having someone that I could contact easily would make my experience less stressful if I needed more information.

The second step of my process was the interview. This was very easy as I had Pema answer around 15 questions. This only took about 3-4 minutes. She thoroughly answered each question which allowed my next step to be extremely easy.

The third and final step of my process was creating a video on Pema’s immigration journey. This wasn’t incredibly hard but was very time-consuming. For example, I had to create a script and find images for each of my slides. The script outlined what I was going to say during my video and which images I would put on the slides. The script took about 2 days. The platform I created my video on was Adobe Creative Cloud Express. They have their own stock of images and videos. I used Adobe’s stock as well as non-copyrighted images. In addition, I asked Pema to give me some photos from her childhood.

What I Learned:

I learned two main things from this project. One of them was about my interviewee. I learned that my interviewee, Pema, left her country because of a violent political group. This group was called Maoist. Pema left because Maoist was causing chaos and fear. For example, they shut down Pema’s school and killed some of her friends that still attended it. In addition, they threatened to kill anyone who supported the opposing political group, the Congress Party (including Pema.)

The second thing I learned is that when you are running into problems, don’t get stressed. Instead, improvise. Before this project, I would be very closed-minded and wouldn’t use other ideas that were different from my original one. However, while creating my video, I found this to be an issue. After running into this problem multiple times, I learned how to be more open-minded and realize that if an idea isn’t working, I should change it and make it better.

What I Found Surprising:

One thing that I found surprising was that I really enjoyed using the platform I had to use, Adobe Creative Cloud Express. This is because it was so convenient and easy to use. For example, the way the narration worked was that you narrated each slide rather than the entire video. This was convenient because if you messed up, all you had to do was re-record the slide whereas if you recorded the entire video, you would need to start over from the beginning. It also had a lot of cool features and was very different than platforms I have used in the past such as google slides.

What Was Frustrating: 

The most frustrating part of this process was having to speak in a 4-6 second time frame. I had so much information I wanted to fit in one slide, but couldn’t say it all. This upset me a lot and for a second, I wanted to give up. However, I improvised by getting rid of some of the side details and focusing more on the most important facts.

Conclusion:

In all, this project allowed me to learn more about our world as well as some tools to help create a solid presentation.

“Refugee” by Alan Gratz: Questions and Answers

Welcome back to another adventure. Today, my teacher, Mrs. Boyer, had us write answers to 2-3 questions asked by my fellow classmates. All of these questions are centered around Alan Gratz’s famous book, “Refugee.” The book is excellent and well written.  I  recommend this book for 4th to 6th graders. I hope you enjoy.

Question 1: Why did Hitler hate Jews?

Based on my knowledge of World War 2, I think Adolf Hitler hated Jewish people because of Germany’s depression. A little bit before world war 2, Germany was suffering from a depression that was causing widespread unemployment, starvation, and misery. Hitler didn’t want himself and his government to look weak so he needed someone to blame for his people’s great despair. As a result, he indoctrinated his citizens into believing that Jewish people were horrible and caused their depression. I think this is wrong. It’s like as if there was someone who rules the world. He makes a mistake and decides to blame it on his own citizens.

Question 2: Is the boat going to work in Mahmoud’s Story?

The boat is a symbol of freedom for Mahmoud. This is because the boat can take him places where he will be safe and protected. In Syria, Mahmoud is in danger every second of his life. For instance, his apartment building was destroyed by a bomb. I have read several of Alan Gratz’s books and I predict that the boat is going to work. However, it will not be a good boat and will be small like a raft. It will most likely not be safe either. So far, everything the refugees think is going to help them ends up being bad. As a result, I think the boat will crash and Mahmoud’s family will be separated.

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #2

Welcome back to another blog post. Today, I will be writing about my Rube Goldberg project. This is my second post so before reading this one, I recommend you go and read my first one. I am on the verge of completing this project and in this post, I will talk about some problems I ran into, my overall experience, and what I learned.

One problem was while filming my contraption. My mom was the one who was filming and the clips were very funny while still following the criteria. However, the next day, I realized that I made a huge mistake. My tech teacher, Mr. Casal, said to film your videos in landscape mode. I forgot to tell my mom this and as a result, all my clips were in portrait mode. The solution for this was very simple. Refilm my clips. This might not seem like that big of a problem but for me, it made me so nervous and worried that I felt as if the Empire State Building was about to collapse on me.

Another problem was when I tried to film my last step. The task of my machine was to pour dog food into my dog’s bowl and the final step included a magnatile falling off a cardboard box. The magnatile was connected to a pulley. Attached to the other side of my pulley was a stick. A cup filled with some dog food was attached to the stick. The cup sat on a cardboard box and my dog’s bowl was right below it.  When testing my machine, the magnatile fell which lifted the stick up and the dog food poured into the bowl. The problem I ran into was the cup swinging backwards instead of pouring food forwards. This happened many times and I couldn’t figure out what was causing it. However, after tweaking the pulley a handful of times, the step finally functioned properly and which allowed me to start filming some attempts.

I would describe my overall experience with this project as challenging and amazing. Some examples of my experience being challenging were creating the machine and editing as I progressed. Creating the machine was very difficult when trying to get certain steps to work the way you want them to. For instance, when building my first pulley, I found it very hard to have one object on the pulley lift up and hit another object. Editing was very hard because you had to keep reworking and rethinking your final video. This project was amazing because of all the new things I learned. This includes gaining more patience and learning better time management.

I feel that this project requires a lot of patience. For example, you have to constantly be changing things. At the beginning of this project, the constant adjusting made me very annoyed and there were some days I wanted to give up. However, as I kept tweaking and tweaking I started to get used to it and started to build up some patience.  Now that I am at the end of this project, I can confidently say that I have the tools to be more calm and collected. This will hopefully mean I will find myself less frustrated when things don’t go the right way.

Another thing that I learned was better time management skills. All the requirements had separate due dates and it was up to me to decide when I wanted to finish each part. Before this project, I was overwhelming myself by trying to get as much stuff I could get done in one day. However, this project has taught me how to spread out my time wisely which then made me less stressed.

In all, I feel this project has been incredible and I am so grateful that I participated in it. This whole process has changed me for the better and I am looking forward to completing similar projects like this one.

FINAL VIDEO: 

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #1

Hi! Welcome back to another blog post. Today, I will be writing about one of the most exciting experiences of my life, creating a Rube Goldberg. If you don’t know what this is, it is an overly complex machine to accomplish a simple task. So far, I have completed drawing my sketch and building my machine. I will write about problems I ran through and my wave of mixed-up emotions. I hope you enjoy it.

One problem I ran into was having to move the location of my machine. This was because I didn’t have enough space to finish my idea. Instead of tearing down my machine and starting from scratch, I decided to just move it to a  different place. I had already built four steps so it wasn’t too painful. However, it was still very annoying so for me, it was like walking on a path when a giant car drops right in the middle of the road.

My original sketch:

My Final Sketch:

My Final Sketch (Continued):

I drew two sketches. This was because I moved my machine. Since it was placed on a different table, I had to make several changes, I had to erase my original sketch and then make another one. As you might guess, this was very annoying. However, I was glad I did because my new sketch was fantastic and I was beyond satisfied with it.

Another problem I ran into was having a hard time concentrating. This was because I usually worked on my project during the evening. This is after a long day of school, extracurricular activities, and homework. The main reason for me doing this was my eagerness to get things done. Instead of getting things done at a reasonable pace, I try to complete things as fast as I can. This has taught me time management. Fast does not mean quality performance.

While building my machine, I ran into two very challenging parts. It was like running into technical difficulties and trying to solve them. This was when I attempted my first pulley and the final conclusion of Rube Goldberg. The first pulley was a big problem for me because I couldn’t figure out how to have an object on one side lift up and hit another object. After 2 days of digging through old supplies, I found the right materials to make it work. The conclusion was hard for me because I wanted it to work while still looking fancy. I had an idea. It was to just have something pour in a bowl. This would definitely work but wouldn’t look good on camera. After about a day or two of thinking, I hit an aha! moment. This new idea would accomplish what I wanted and make it look good while doing so. I built it and it worked!

Something annoying and boring when testing my machine was tweaking and rebuilding it. This felt as if you were forced to write a ten-page essay. This was because it required a lot of patience that I wasn’t used to having. However, I was glad that this was part of the project. As I kept repeatedly tweaking and rebuilding, I gradually built up some patience. It was like I lost my voice and after many hours of searching for it, I got it back. As I am reflecting on myself, I realized that being patient and calm will help you complete a challenging project better than being frustrated and impatient.

In conclusion, this first half of my Rube Goldberg Project has taught me a lot and has shown me areas I could improve. It also taught me some good qualities. I can’t wait to finish this amazing project and post more about it.

Constitution Project Reflection

Here is my Final Project:

Welcome back to another adventure. Today, I will be talking about a constitution project that I recently completed. I worked hard on it and learned many new things. I hope you enjoy.

My research question was how Martin Luther King contributed to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and how it affected him. I came up with this question because I wanted to learn more about other people who impacted the boycott other than the much talked about, Rosa Parks. 

The purpose of this project was to see how people changed our government. For example, my research question was centered around civil rights. Civil rights are rights that ban racial discrimination. However, it wasn’t included in our constitution or bill of rights. As a result, whites treated blacks unfairly. This led to many protests for equality. Eventually, the 14th amendment to the bill of rights was created and segregation between blacks and white ended. This purpose relates to the Bill of Rights because changes to the government are listed in that document.

One key factor to this project was the research. This part was the most challenging for me because I struggled to find resources. However, I put in a lot of hard work and found 5 databases that seemed to be commonly used. These include History, Britannica, Wikipedia, Ducksters, and American History. I spent nearly two weeks researching. After I finished this, I was ready for my script. However, there was one more step. This was making sure that all my information was true. I did this by taking the information that was stated throughout multiple of my resources. By doing this, my chances of saying false info decreased.

Another key factor to this project was the script. The script was without a doubt the easiest part for me. This is because all I needed to do was to copy my research and put it into my own words. My script contained information as well as me talking directly to the audience. I think it is good to keep a balance between these two things because it informs your readers while still keeping them interested. As a result, I added phrases like, “How surprising!” and “Isn’t that interesting?”

Something that was tied to my script was the slides. The slides were full of images. These images had to be related to my script in some way. The purpose of the slides was to help our viewers visualize the information we were speaking.

One of the most challenging parts of this project. This is because it was very time-consuming and I kept stumbling over words. It took me 12 tries before I got a solid recording. However, once I finished those 12 recordings, I was done and felt proud and satisfied.

The part of this project that I enjoyed the most was the research. This was the part I enjoyed the most because of all the things I learned to improve my research skills. For example, I learned that when researching, take the things that multiple websites say to be true to decrease your chances of writing false information. 

One major learning about my research question was learning that Martin Luther King was the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. This organization coordinated the protest against segregated seating. Their goal succeeded and Dr. King’s legacy was catapulted.

In all, I enjoyed my time on this project. Although it was time-consuming and took a couple of months, it was really fun and expanded my understanding of our government.

Goals for 2022

Welcome back to another adventure. With the recent new year, my teacher Mrs. Boyer said to come up with some goals for 2022. I came up with two major goals that I will try to accomplish. I hope you enjoy.

My first goal is to learn more science. This is because I think science is one of the subjects that I struggle in. Every time I take a science test, I start doubting that I will do well. I realize that this isn’t something that I should be doing. As a result, in 2022, I hope to strengthen my knowledge of science.

My second goal is to start baking more. During the pandemic, I wanted to start new, productive activities so I started baking. So far, I love it! I have found that during 2021, I have only baked a few times. This year, I wish to not only spend time baking but also learn some techniques.

In conclusion, this blog post has helped me further understand what I want to accomplish this year. I will hopefully complete these goals and by doing this, I think that by the end of the year, I will feel accomplished and proud. Thank you for reading.

Feature Article Reflection

Hi. Welcome back to another adventure. Today, I will be reflecting on my feature article. It is about entreprenuering. I will reflect on how I came up with my topic, which aspects were enjoyable as well as challenging, what techniques I used most effectively, what I am most proud of, and how non-fiction writing compares with personal narratives.

I came up with my topic, entrepreneuring because it was something that I was interested in. Ever since I learned what the word meant, I started researching companies and their owners. I was so intrigued that I was inspired to write a feature article on it. This is because I wanted to teach others. Another reason why I thought this should be my topic is to influence others. Creating companies can help people with daily needs. For example, a company called, “Amazon” helps people buy things more quickly.  Another company is called, “Facebook”.  They help people stay connected and socialized. In all, writing the article helped me have a deeper understanding of the challenges, tasks, and benefits as well as how businesses help others.

One aspect of writing that was very enjoyable was coming up with my title and sub-titles. It was enjoyable because it stretches my creativity and imagination. With this creative exercise came a challenge. Having people vote for a title. My teacher, Mrs. Boyer said that we should have people vote on our titles. You might think this sounds fun but trust me, getting people to vote was difficult. People kept forgetting or just said that it would take up to much of their time. Another challenging aspect was researching. Finding articles and researching took up A LOT of time. In addition, I didn’t have somewhere to organize it! As you can see, creating an article was challenging but also stretched my capability to do things.

The technique that I used most effectively in this article was asking questions. For example, my first sentence was, “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an entrepreneur? I added this technique because it also me an understanding of what my reader is thinking. To prove this, I wrote, “you might think, “Wow! Why haven’t I started a company yet?”” I also added this technique because I think it makes my writing sound more fun instead of making it dull and way too informational. 

I am most proud of the amount of information I put in my article. When writing, I spent the majority of my time on research. I went to many websites, books, and videos. I went to several resources because I wanted true and valid information. Once I had tons of info, I took what most websites said was true.  This took up A LONG time so seeing all my information written makes me proud.

Writing a feature article compares with writing a personal narrative for multiple reasons. For example, when writing a feature article, you have to do research whereas you use details from your head to write about past experiences. In addition, the content that each piece of writing contains is very different. Feature articles contain information from multiple resources while personal narratives are made up of events from your life.

 

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