Tag Archives: capstone

Capstone Blog Post #3

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My whole capstone experience was terrific. It was amazing whether it was getting research, making the slides and scripts, memorizing, or presenting to the class. Capstone was definitely a highlight of my fifth-grade year. Doing this project has taught me so much, not only about my topic but the research process, and never giving up.

The research process was definitely the most essential part surrounding the whole project. At first, it was definitely a challenge, I couldn’t find a lot of resources or information. I was stuck and had absolutely no idea what do to. After a while, I found lots of good resources and information. When I started getting a lot of information and resources it was really exciting. I learned that when you are searching for something online you have to break down the sentence to be smaller. After I did this I got lots more articles that were really helpful. There isn’t just going to be an article that says “Hey you click on this article it has all the answers to your research project.”

I chose to do a ted talk as a way of presenting my information. A ted talk is when you stand in front of an audience with a lot of people and talk to them without a script. You also have a slideshow where you switch the slides to match what you say. My other options were either a movie or an ignite. A movie is kind of like an actual movie but a voice-over of you talking and you see a bunch of cool images that match what you are talking about. You also don’t show your face in the movie. I wasn’t here for half of the year when everyone was practicing using the apps to create their movie. (I’m also not the best with technology)For an ignite the slides switch automatically. You are still presting in front of an audience of people. I have experience with it and honestly, I didn’t really like it because it was hard to perfectly time your slides to 15 seconds. Although I don’t like speaking to an audience with a lot of people I decided that I was going to overcome my fear and do a ted talk. For a teed talk you get to switch the slide on your own so you don’t have to worry about your slide switching and having to rush.

I learned a lot about ski racing in general and behind the scenes of what ski racers really do that we just don’t see. You may see a ski racer up on the TV screen and just enjoy how good they are. I always did the same. But I always wondered what they did to get there. Turns out they do a lot more than we think. They have diets, training schedules, school schedules, race day preparation and so much more. This research project has taught me so much about racers, and their sport.

Capstone has taught me a lot about everything, not just about my topic but also about collecting research, writing scripts, making a slideshow, how to memorize, and finally writing my blog posts. I know a lot more about all of the things that I listed and I learned A LOT about my topic. It is sad that this project is coming to an end, it was lots of fun and a great experience.

Capstone Blog Post #2

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The interview went fantastic and I learned so much about the person that I interviewed. It was an awesome experience and I had so much fun. We interviewed people who are experts in our capstone topics to find extra information about it and learn from experts. We each came up with a bunch of questions for the expert to answer and teach us about each question.

 When I heard that we will be doing interviews for our capstone project I knew I wanted to interview someone who could really help me out with my project but I also wanted someone who used to be a professional ski racer, who had experience and was once a ski racer or still is. At Burke mountain academy there is this coach, Diann Roffe who is a gold Olympic medalist and I thought, Why don’t I interview her? So I asked my dad to email her and she responded right away and said that she would love to do an interview with me. I thought the process was really easy because after all, she will be my coach next year which made it even easier. When I wrote the questions, they came pretty easily into my head because I had so many questions to ask Diann. I was so curious to learn about her and her life when she was a professional ski racer. I think that the whole interview process and questions overall were a lot of fun. 

I think that interview went really well and just as I was expecting. I knew I would get a lot of information out of this interview and I took advantage of that. I learned many new things that I never knew before Mental toughness is one of the hardest parts and difficulties create winners. At first, I was a bit scared because I had never met this woman, I didn’t know what she was gonna be like, and all of those kinds of thoughts. I knew it was gonna go well I was still just a wee bit nervous.

I loved the interview process and I think that it is so important for capstone because of course you can just read lots of books articles, websites ad all sorts of resources and still find a lot of information, but what’s cooler than actually talking with someone who literally lives (or Lived) your topic! One whose job is (or was) your topic! Interviews can help us understand so much more because we are talking to real experts.

Capstone Blog #1

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Capstone is one of the biggest projects in your fifth-grade year. Capstone is a huge research project where you pick a certain topic that you are interested in. There are many steps you have to follow like getting an interview, writing blog posts, getting research and so much more. I think that capstone is a really cool project and I am enjoying it a lot so far.

My topic for capstone is skiing I wanted my capstone project to be about ski racing because my family is a big ski family and ski racing has been a big part of my life for a really long time. I knew right from the start no doubt about it because ski racing is so important to me. My brother also did skiing as his topic and he was awesome and shared a lot of information. Ski racing is also not one of the sports that people know a lot about so it would be nice to teach people about ski racing.

 My brother did ski racing safety for his capstone so I knew I wanted to do ski racing but I also wanted mine to be different from my brothers. At first, I was a little stuck but eventually, I came up with lots of ideas and I narrowed it down to two main inquiry questions. “How has ski racing and safety changed for the better?” and “what does it take to become a professional ski racer?” I remembered that I wanted to do something different from my brother and that my ski coach was a gold Olympic athlete so I thought of doing the second choice which was” what does it take to become a professional ski racer?” Then I revised and edited it a little bit to narrow it down. And then I ended up with my main inquiry question being “How does training to become a professional ski racer change a person’s life?”

When coming up with my sub-questions I had a bit of a struggle, I was able to come up with three good ones but I couldn’t seem to think of them anymore. Two of the easy ones that I thought up of were, “what strict diets for professional ski racers follow?” and “What ski training/ workout schedules do they follow?” After a bit of thinking I came up with two more that I could for my capstone. Although it was a bit of a struggle in the end I came out with five good subtopics that I could use for my capstone.

So far capstone has been going great and I have been having so much fun researching my topic. Capstone has been a great experience and I have learned so much about my topic.