Capstone Blog Post #3

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This Capstone project was very difficult. I enjoyed learning about the Titanic and doing my script. Hopefully next year I will be able to have another project like this. This was a long term project and was challenging at some parts and very easy at other parts. 

 

Starting the project was very difficult. I had no clue what my topic was going to be and if I would be doing a ted talk or a movie. When we got the Capstone organizer, I found that there was a lot of stuff that I could have done my capstone project about. I came down to two options: The Titanic and Mushrooms and Fungi. I decided to go with the Titanic because there was way more stuff that I could write about then mushrooms and fungi.

 

Then it was research time. We had to come up with a man inquiry question and five sub questions that we had to research about. It was hard at first because I couldn’t find anything in all the books and resources I had. Eventually I had to change most of my resources to websites and books that I knew had good information. My main inquiry question was “How has the discovery of the Titanic wreckage changed what we thought about how it sank?” and my five sub questions were “How was the wreckage discovered and What was the response? Why was the sinking of The Titanic so shocking to the world? What were some treasures left behind on the Titanic? What was the process of recovering items from the wreckage and why hasn’t the wreckage been lifted yet? And What are some major discoveries about the ship that have been made since the wreckage has been found?”  

 

Also the interview was very hard. I couldn’t find one until the week before it was due. I interviewed Dr. Paul F. Johnston. I chose a ted talk because I felt like it was the easiest. The ignite was timed and I felt like I couldn’t fit all the stuff I had to say in 15 seconds. I also didn’t choose to do a movie because it had to be perfect.

 

Overall, This project was very challenging. The presentation is up ahead and I’m nervous for that but I think it is going to be fine.

Capstone Blog Post #2

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The purpose of the interview was to get an expert on your topic to help you with your notes. This part was super hard for me and not being able to do most of this blog post the first time I saw it was harder. I am happy that I got it done and the person that I interviewed, Dr.Paul F. Johnston was really kind to let me interview him. I am very grateful that he allowed me to interview him.

The process of finding an interview was the hardest part. There wasn’t anyone that me, my parents, or people I knew that worked with the Titanic. Then I read one of my resources and found that there were many places to go to that involved the Titanic. But when I went back to tell my parents, they said that they found someone I could interview from a museum! His name is Dr. Paul F. Johnston and he is Curator of Maritime History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute. He was very kind. Also coming up with questions was hard. I wanted mine to be really good, but they all came out really bad.

The experience conducting the interview was okay. It went as planned because we did it on zoom. It was lagging a lot but it got better near the end. I learned that Dr. Paul F. Johnston works on more than just the Titanic. He works on many types of shipwrecks and  he is very talented and hardworking.

The interview was hard at first, but it got better as it went on. Thank you Dr. Paul F. Johnston.

Capstone Blog post #1

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The capstone project is where we take a regular topic and write about it. You have to make a main inquiry question and 5 sub questions to go with it. For example, I’m doing my capstone about the Titanic. 

The process wasn’t that hard. I have been interested in the Titanic ever since I saw the movie. It was the first topic I came up with.

Unlike choosing the topic, choosing the main inquiry question was hard. I had no clue what to write. My teacher helped me though, and we came up with the question “How has the discovery of the Titanic wreckage changed what we thought about how it sank?”

Coming up with the sub questions was easy. I just reflected off of what my topic was and wrote about things I wanted to learn. Some of my sub questions are: How was the wreckage discovered? What was the response? And What are some major discoveries about the ship that have been made since the wreckage has been found?

All in all, I really hope that my project turns out good. I also hope I can find an interview.

Immigration Blog Post #2

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The Immigration Project was really fun! I feel really good that I have done all of it. I also feel accomplished.

Creating the video was hard. There was one part where I was really stressed. It was when I was working on the Adobe video and I couldn’t get my photos onto my video. I solved this by screenshotting my photos, cropping them, and then adding them to my video. I recorded my video late at night because I had no time to do it anytime else. Other than that I liked it.

I learned so much about my Immigrant, Margarita. I always thought that she traveled with her family but it turns out that she traveled with her son. She has taught me way more than I thought of her.

Overall, Margarita is a really kind person and was such a fun person to interview. I liked this project because it was such a challenge.

Immigration Blog Post #1

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The immigration project that I’m working on is about my babysitter, Margarita Bautista. She was very easy to reach and was very excited to answer the questions that I had for her. I love this project so far and can’t wait to work on the video.

When preparing for the interview, I was very stressed because I couldn’t figure out any question to ask. Since my sister also did the same immigration project I asked her for some feedback. Luckily, she helped me with some questions. I was also really nervous because I kept on asking my parents to call her so we could talk. Unfortunately, it took a few days until they actually told her about the project and such. Preparing for the interview was stressful.

Doing the interview was the hardest part. I did it over the phone and I couldn’t understand what Margarita was saying because she only spoke Spanish. I had to get my mother to translate it for me. An interesting thing I learned about Margarita was that she traveled to America with her son and has lived with her son ever since. Another thing that was hard about the interview was that for some of the questions Margarita didn’t give a definitive answer, so I had to delete those questions. I also had trouble writing down the answers to the questions because the phone that I had the translated answers on kept turning off so it was annoying to turn it back on. 

Overall, I really like doing the immigration project because it is fun yet challenging. I hope to do another thing like this sometime soon!

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #2

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Now that I have done my Rube Goldberg and finished everything, I feel like it was pretty easy to do. I felt that I was really stressed through out the process because I thought that I wouldn’t finish on time but I did which made me feel a lot better. Also, my design changed a lot too. I didn’t end up going with the steps I originally did, but I liked my new design better because I got my machine to work on the second try. I feel like if I used my regular Rube Goldberg design then it would take many tries to have it work. The new steps to my Rube Goldberg are 1. I let go of a baseball 2. The baseball hits a hammer 3. The hammer hits a softball that is being held up by a wedge 4. The softball hits dominoes 5. The dominoes hit a tennis ball 6. The tennis ball rolls down an inclined plane. 7. The tennis ball hits a piece of wood 8. The piece of wood hits the end of a skateboard 9. The skateboard hits dominoes 10. The dominoes hit and ring a bell. I felt like I was way more confident with the second design than the first one because I could be more successful with my second one.

I learned that even if you fail, you should always try again. You had to keep on trying and remaking your design so that it could be perfect.

Resources: scoutlife.org, Hative.com

My Sketch:

Credits:

Builder: Me

Camera Man: Me

Rube Goldberg Blog Post 1

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This is the first blog post for my Rube Goldberg project. For designing the sketch, the process was kind of hard because I put a toy car in my sketch but I don’t have a toy car. I was thinking that I could maybe replace the toy car with a golf ball because I know I have those in my house. Testing the design was hard because I couldn’t find all the parts to make my Rube Goldberg. Building it was also hard because my design kept on falling over. I think that this happened because it wasn’t stable enough so I’m planning to make it stable. The steps in my process are, 1. A toy car or a golf ball hits dominoes 2. the dominoes hit a tennis ball 3. The tennis ball falls into a pulley 4. the wiffle ball on the other side of the pulley falls out 5. The wiffle ball hits a skate board that is being held up by a wedge 6. The skate board falls down the inclined plane 7.  The skate board goes down a lever which on one side there is a block holding it up 8. The skate board hits dominoes 9. the dominoes hit a button. This might be my process but I don’t think I have enough room or the right materials, so I might just change it. I feel like changing a few things would be fine, but until then, I’m going to stick to this design.

Constitution Project Reflection

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This project was challenge to do but it was also very fun. I’m looking forward to do something like this again.

My question for the Constitution project was “Why was the voting age lowered to 18 and isn’t still at 21?” I chose this question because I was reading my work that I wrote in my notebook, and I found that there was a lot of information about the voting age being lowered to 18. So I decided to write about it. Plus, our questions had to be really detailed and specific, so I knew that was going to be a good question.

Something that was hard about this work was trying to find resources to answer my question. It was hard because I couldn’t find anything in the resources that my teacher gave me. We went to computer lab the next day and Mr. Casal told us that if we couldn’t find any resources that we needed, we could search them up. I decided to search up “Why the voting age was lowered to 18,” and “26th Amendment.” It was very helpful because I eventually found all the resources that I needed by scrolling through the options.

My overall reflection was that when we first started our project, it was very hard. I had no clue what my question was gonna be. I wanted to just do voting overall, but we had to make it more specific so that our question would be good. Also another thing that was hard was when we were doing the screencastify because I had to keep doing mine over and over again because it wasn’t good enough. I think that I answered my question successfully because of all the hard work I did. Eventually, I finished it and did this blog post.

In conclusion, this project was really fun and I really enjoyed doing it.

Book Review of George.

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The book George by Alex Gino is about a transgender girl (or a girl whom the world sees as a boy) that is a school play of Charlotte’s web. She wants to be Charlotte in the play but her teacher doesn’t allow her too. But her best friend, Kelly, gets the part of Charlotte. How will George become Charlotte in the play? How will she show everyone that she’s a girl? Well, you will have to read the book to find out.

I think that Alex Gino was telling me that even if people tell you no or that you can’t do that, there is always a way you can be who you are. Like in the story, when the teacher says no to George and that she can’t play Charlotte because she’s a boy, she makes a plan to become Charlotte. I thought that the story was happy, sad, and suspenseful. I loved reading this book because it shows a lot of pride and little signs telling you to be who you are.

One of the best parts in the book is when George opens up about his identity to his mom and Kelly. I think that me and George are alike because we both changed our pronouns. For example, I use they/them/their pronouns and she uses she/her pronouns. I feel like I can relate to George the most.

I highly recommend this book to boys, girls, and non-binary people of all ages.  This book is my favorite pride book I’ve read so far. I loved reading this book and I hope you will too.

Welcome to 5th Grade!

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Hello! I am excited for 5th grade because I’m one of the oldest kids in the school. My sister was in 5th grade last year and she said that she had a really good time. Last year was hard. Its still Covid.

One thing that I’m looking forward to in 5th grade is doing the Capstone. I’m really excited for that because it is kind of like the passion project in 4th grade. I want to learn more about it through this year. I also think that the Immigration project is going to be hard for me because no body in my family has immigrated. So that is a part that I’m not looking forward to.

I hope that this year will be better then last year and that we can go back to being a normal school year!