June 14

Capstone Blog Post #3

My Capstone experience was amazing. I learned so much about my topic. When I started the capstone project I barely knew anything about therapy dogs. Now I know so much more. For example, I know that a therapy dog needs to be over a year old to be a therapy dog! I’m finally done with my video and I am ready to share it!

 

Researching my topic was definitely the most challenging part of this project. It is the most challenging because if I did not get enough research my video would not be interesting. Finding the correct recourses for my project also took a long time. Sometimes the resource I had did not have enough information for my topic. I needed to change my resource and find a new one.

 

Finding an interview was hard because I did not think that I knew anyone that was an expert on therapy dogs. I asked my mom if she knew anyone that was an expert on therapy dogs. She said that one of her friends, Marisa Kaplan had a therapy dog. I knew I needed to interview her. Marisa said that tux worked with “The Good Dog Foundation” My mom emailed the good dog foundation to find someone else for me to interview. We came across Carly Goteiemer. We planned to interview her through email. 

 

Now that I had all my research I needed to write my essay. I put the essay into different paragraphs with each paragraph being one subtopic. Each paragraph was long and filled with information. Writing the essay was challenging and it took a long time to complete. I went over it a lot and corrected the parts that were not interesting. My friends and Ms. Robert also went over my essay to revise some parts. While writing the essay I needed to be sure not to say the same thing over and over again. I also needed to know which parts I should not add and which parts I should.

 

The process of making the script and the video was hard. While making the script I knew that each sentence could not be more than 6 seconds. The timing of my script was challenging because of the 6-second rule. I also needed to find images that matched what I was saying. I needed to split some sentences up and put them into a different wording. The video needs to be more than three minutes and less than six minutes. While making the video I needed to find the correct images I was looking for. When I eventually found all the images I needed to record my voiceovers. I needed to read my script on recording without getting the sound cut off because of my length of speaking time.

 

Overall the Capstone project on therapy dogs was very interesting. I worked really hard on this project.

Category: 5th Grade, Capstone, Social Studies | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 24

Capstone Blog Post #2

In the capstone project, we have come so far. We finally did the interview and it turned out great. We needed to do the interview because we needed to hear the information from an expert. We also were allowed to ask our own questions so that made it a lot easier to get more information. I thought that doing an interview would help a lot with the project. The interview needed to have at least 10 questions. 

Finding out who to interview was hard. At first, I did not think I knew anyone that was an expert on therapy dogs. I asked my mom to help me find an interview and she said she had a friend with a dog who used to be a therapy dog. I finally got an interview but I felt that I needed to interview two people to get a lot of research. My mom emailed a therapy dog company called the Good Dog Foundation. Someone there agreed to let me interview them! Writing the questions for the interviews was hard. I came up with separate questions for both experts. I added five subquestions to my first interview question slide. After adding my subquestions I needed to make other questions. For example One of my questions was “How long does training take and why?”

The interview was through email. When my mom found an expert I could interview the expert told us we could email all of my questions to her and she would email my mom the answers to all of the questions. When I got the questions back they had good answers. I was very happy with it. To me, it did not go as expected. I thought that it would at least be on zoom or a call. I learned more from the answers though. It gave me some information that I did not have.

Overall the interview was easy at some points but also challenging for the most part. I cant wait to see what is next!

Category: 5th Grade, Capstone, Social Studies | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 10

Capstone Blog Post #1

Capstone is a 5th-grade project for all schools, it is finally time to do the project! Although it seems hard I am ready to work hard on this project because it is one of our last ones. Capstone is about something that interests you. you are supposed to be excited to learn about your topic. You research your topic and you get an interview with someone that is an expert on your topic. You then take all of your research and turn it into a ignite, movie, or ted-talk. I am very happy, excited, and thrilled about this project because we get to research something we love and are interested in.

Coming up with a topic was one of the hardest parts of this project so far. At first, I thought of soccer. I realized I had always done that as a topic so I thought of doing dogs. That was too basic so I thought of dog jobs like a police dog. That would be my second topic. I wanted to do small kid businesses but while researching there was not much information. I decided to do dog jobs. Dog jobs were a specific topic so I needed to choose a certain job. I decided to choose therapy dogs because they are friendly, cuddly, and cute. They are also obedient. 

Coming up with my main inquiry question was hard, at first, I did not know what a therapy dog really was. I thought it was just to help pediatric patients in a hospital. While researching I realized therapy dogs are comforting meaning that they can help anyone in need. That made me realize I needed to change my question. I met with my teacher and she changed it to “Explain how dogs become therapy dogs and what do therapy dogs do?”

Coming up with a subquestion was not that hard. Since I already knew my main inquiry question I knew what I needed to figure out. For example one of my subquestions is “Do dogs need certain characteristics to become a therapy dogs and what are they?” Another one of my subquestions is, “Is there special training for therapy dogs?” One challenge with coming up with a subquestion was not making them yes or no questions. I needed to make a question that I knew could have a lot of answers and explanations.

From what I have done so far the capstone projects seems like it will turn out amazing. I hope the project just keeps getting better and better. I also hope the projects start getting easier.

 

Category: 5th Grade, Capstone, Social Studies | LEAVE A COMMENT