Category Archives: Social Studies

Capstone Blog Post 3

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   The capstone project has been a big part of school these last couple of months. We had to pick our topics, decide on the main inquiry question, research, find an interview, and finally, we had to present the final project. Some parts of this process have been easier than others. For example, when I got an interview it was exciting, but when I was recording my Adobe video and there were background noises it was not very enjoyable because I had to rerecord it. But in the end, it all ended up well and made me feel accomplished.

 

   The research process all started with finding resources online or in books but this process was not easy. It all started with trying to find resources that fit your topic or that answered one of your sub-questions. It wasn’t easy but something helpful about finding resources in books was to look in the index at the back of the book. This was helpful because it showed the keyword for a page. Something that made it easier to find resources on the internet was to search for your topic, not your main inquiry question. This helps because it can find articles with a lot of information about your topic that you can search for something talking about your main inquiry question. Finding resources was difficult but getting information from these resources was not difficult because you just had to read, take notes, and put them on the correct subtopic slide for where the information goes. The research process was difficult and easy but it was worth the struggle because it taught me new information.

 

   With all of this information, I had to present it in some way. I could do a Ted talk, ignite, or a movie. I choose to do a movie because for me it is hard to memorize a script. I knew that making a movie would not be easy. For example, it had to be perfect no background noises or blurry photos. I decided to an Adobe video instead of a wevideo. There are some advantages like how it was less difficult to put the presentation together. But it also had disadvantages when the recording was glitching. Finding photos was also difficult because the diagrams I thought would be good to put in my Adobe video were copyrighted so I could not use the photo. I had to be creative with what photos I was using in my video. It was also difficult recording not just because it glitch but because there were background noises so I had to rerecord many times. Finally, when I thought that my project was done and I looked over it again it was not perfect so I had to change some parts of my presentation. That happened multiple times but my video got better every time so it was good that I made those changes. These changes have helped me make my presentation as good as it is right now. At the end of the presentation, I think it worked out well and that it is a good presentation.

 

   In conclusion, this presentation has been challenging and easier at some points but it all made my project a very interesting and informative presentation.

Capstone Blog Post 2

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   In the process of my capstone project, I have to get an interview. The purpose of the interview is to get more detail about my topic. It can significantly help make the final project better and answer more questions. I think that the research process is a good step because researching always gives you a lot of good ideas but it’s a good thing to have an interview because it can help you push your work to a better level and answer more questions you might have about your topic.

    The process of figuring out who to interview was very challenging for me. It was challenging for me because at the start when I called a zoo that had dolphins in them nobody answered for multiple days. That was already challenging but then when I met with my teachers Mrs. Robert and Mrs. Mcshane I thought that I would get an interview. But it’s not that simple we had to send some emails and not everyone said yes but then somebody actually said yes. It made me happy to know that I could learn more about my topic and have an interview. One easy thing was actually doing the interview because the only thing I had to do was send the questions to my interviewer and they just had to respond. A challenge for me was definitely getting an interview because I had to contact many people. Writing questions for me was generally not very hard because coming up with questions was just things you wanted to know so if you wanted to know what part of the brain dolphins use to communicate you could ask it in your interview questions.

   My experience conducting the interview was a good experience for me because it did not take a long time to get my interviewer’s response back. It was also a good experience because for me writing the email made it less challenging if the person did not know what the answer to the question was. It did not go as I expected it to go because I thought that I was going to do a zoom and that it would take a long time to actually get the answer. I was wrong because both of my interviews were emails and it did not take a long time to get a response. Some new facts that I learned from my interview were Echolocation is a process used by the species that have it for sensing the environment when vision is no longer useful. Another interesting fact I learned is that scientists still do not fully understand the intelligence of dolphins. This makes me wonder can they be smarter than they are understood by scientists.

   In conclusion, the interview has been hard, easy, and very helpful for getting more information.

 

 

 

 

Capstone Blog Post 1

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   In the last couple of weeks, I and the rest of the 5th grade have been working on a project called capstone. The capstone project is a project where each person gets to pick a topic that they are interested in. You have to learn and present all the research you did. For example, my topic is Dolphins. Personally, the capstone project hasn’t been easy for me but I keep going because I think it will turn out to be a great project.

   The process of coming up with my topic started with an organizer where we write what we like. Some of the things I wrote were lego, basketball, medicine, and dolphins. It had questions like interests you had since you were younger and something you have in common with your family. It was a bit challenging to fill out because there were a lot of questions and you could not repeat anything. Then we narrowed it down into the final two topics. I had dolphins and medicine. I chose dolphins because it was my favorite animal. I chose medicine because it is something that I want to do when I’m older. But in the end, I chose dolphins because it is easier to research and it would be hard to research about medicine.

   The process of coming up with my main inquiry question started with making three inquiry questions. Coming up with the inquiry questions was difficult because just making one made you have to think of all of your all knowledge about your topic. Like with mine, I had to think about their echolocation and their knowledge. Later on, we met with our teachers to help improve our interview questions. Then I realized that I wanted to learn about what is the relationship between how dolphins communicate and their intelligence? 

   The process of coming up with my sub-questions was easy for the first three questions I came up with but it became more difficult and challenging on the last two. I think that the first three questions were easier because the first three were more straight forward and the last was more creative and different questions. For example, my first sub-question was how do dolphins communicate and explain the process? That was a question that was easier because it was a question that was about communication like my main inquiry question. Another example of this is in my 5th question Is echolocation a learned behavior. This is different from the first question because it is more detailed and harder to connect with my topic.

In conclusion, I think so far this project has had its ups and downs but I think it will be a great and amazing project in the end.