Answering my Main Inquiry Question

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a while ago we were assigned to write a capstone essay to answer my main inquiry question. I liked doing the essay because all I really had to do is keep looking back at my notes and write it down, with an introduction and conclusion. But there were some parts that I didn’t like when doing my essay. I didn’t like revising and editing because I feel like there was always something I had or would have to change and have to see if it makes sense (which didn’t always work out)

Here is my capstone essay:

Have you ever wondered why we have the moon? I wondered why, so I decided to do it for my capstone project. You might think that the moon doesn’t affect a lot of things, that’s what I thought when I started my capstone project but there is actually a lot more that the moon affects than you think.There are many ways the moon is important to living things and our planet. This is my main inquiry question: “ How does the moon affect earth and humans?”. The moon affects the earth’s rotation, weather,  night time, and tides. It also affects human sleep patterns and animal behavior. 

In what ways is the moon important? There are many ways the moon is important to earth.  One way the moon is important to earth is that the moon helps with earth’s rotation. Without the moon, earth couldn’t rotate normally because the moon helps with gravity.  A lot of years ago the earth didn’t have a moon. The moon was created by a collusion of a bigger planet and the earth. Scientists believe that earth’s rotation took about 6-18 hours before the moon formed. But the moon’s gravitational pull slows it down to 24 hours. The moon’s gravity holds earth’s tilt in a stable way. Without that the earth wouldn’t rotate as usual. And if the earth wouldn’t rotate normally clouds would move faster and the weather would change and that would cause an harsher environment. Some researchers say that it depends on how high the moon is and when it’s high it makes a big difference on what amount of rain falls. The night would be much darker, and the moon is also important for animals because prey would have much more opportunities to hide because the night would be completely dark and animals that hunt wouldn’t get that much food anymore. As you can see the moon is important to many different things.

What would it be like without the moon? Well very different. Because the night would be completely dark our eyes would slowly get better eye vision.  And also because the moon affects the tides without the moon there would be no high tides they would be very small. Animals would be very confused because the night would be much darker than usual. We’d have shorter days. The moon’s gravity makes the earth stable, but without its gravity the earth would wobble around back and forth and that obviously causes danger. Without the moon the seasons also would be different because, without the moon’s gravity the tilt would change, the tilt would become extreme that would cause severe seasons or the tilt could decrease which then causes that we almost can’t see seasons anymore. As you can see it would be very different without the moon.

Does the moon affect sleep? Researchers say that moon phases affect human’s sleep. One example is that on a full moon the moon is about twelve times lighter than it usually is, so that means, because of the energy, coming from the light of the moon your body might think it needs less sleep. Also researchers say that on a full moon it takes longer to fall asleep. And on a full moon you also may dream more. Most of our human body is water, so that makes the moon able to alert our mood and mental state, if the mind is turbulent it makes it harder to fall asleep, says Jaya Jaya.  The light of the moon affects our sleep and that might influence our mood too.  And because the human body is mostly water and the moon affects the ocean tides, it might affect humans too, but even though our body is mostly water the pull from the moon would be very weak it would be difficult to see if it affects us too. The full moon affects sleep, it’s unclear how but researchers say it does. So as you can see the full moon might affect your sleep.

Does the moon affect the ocean? Yes the moon affects low and high tide. The moon’s gravity is pulling at the earth that’s why the water doesn’t float instead it stays on the ground because of the gravity. When the earth moves it causes tides. High tide happens at the part of the earth that faces the moon. As the earth rotates it depends on what part is closer to the moon and then on that part it’s high tide because the moon’s gravity is stronger on the part of the earth that’s closer to the moon. And also on the opposite side of the earth where high tide is, is also high tide but at the other two sides it’s low tide. So as you can see the moon isn’t just affecting humans and other stuff about the earth it can also affect the ocean.

How has the relationship between people and the moon changed? In ancient times  people used to believe that the moon was a powerful god. The Romans called their god “goddess Diana”. And in Greece they called their god “goddess Selene”. And some American Indian tribes believed that the sun and the moon are sister and brother gods. Some legends were told that the moon looked like a man’s face. “Man in the moon” , they also believed that the man in the moon was imprisoned there for stealing. When the moon was not visible because it was in complete shadow, people in ancient times were confused because they thought the moon was gone and then when they could see the moon again they were confused again because they thought it was gone. As you can see, people in ancient times thought the moon was something different than we do now and you can also see that the relationship has changed over the years.

Overall the moon affects a lot of things on earth including aspects of our daily lives and I think this topic is very interesting and there is a lot to learn about, because there is so much that the moon affects and the moon is important in many different ways to earth. The moon affects things like tides, sleep, animals, night time, weather and earth’s rotation and humans. As you can see the moon affects a lot of different things and it would be very different if we wouldn’t have one.

Capstone Final Project

 

 

Capstone Interview

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I didn’t like the part getting an interview done. For me it didn’t really help me.

It was challenging because the first person I was going to interview couldn’t, and then the second one could but when I was going to interview him he wasn’t there that’s why I thought it was challenging. But I also think that it is easier than I expected because I thought it was going to take really long till he emails back but he emailed back under three days. I think writing the questions down was easier than I thought, because In my questions I included all of my sub questions and questions for the person (questions like “why do you like your job?”).  

 It didn’t go as expected because the person didn’t show up, so I had to interview someone else that works there but she just really knew about the building and not about my topic and that’s also why I did not get a lot of information from the interview. The most things that she said were things that I already had in my notes And I thought that she was going to have longer answers which she didn’t because she just really knew about the building. I didn’t really learn anything new.

Overall I didn’t like the part getting an interview done because it didn’t go as expected and it was kind of challenging.

Blog post 1#

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I am excited how it will come out and I hope I will find enough research.

I chose the topic space because I always wanted to know more about space and I think the topic is very interesting. And I don’t know a lot about the topic. First I had two topics but I had to choose one and the other one was art. I didn’t choose it because when I searched up art history or something I couldn’t find anything. So I chose to do space

I thought it was hard to come up with a main inquiry question. My inquiry question is How does the moon affect humans and the Earth? Coming up with a main inquiry question was challenging because I actually wanted it to be my main inquiry question about space but I didn’t think it would be about the moon so I didn’t even think about other things in space than just space.

I think coming up with sub questions was less challenging. One of my sub questions are in what ways is the moon important and another one is what would it be like without the moon. 

Overall I like the project and so far I only came up with a main inquiry question and sub questions

Immigration Video

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I started the video and I liked how it came out. My video is 2 minutes and 4 seconds long. First I had to do the script that goes with the video and I then realized, when I finished my video, (I just had to do the narration) the pictures weren’t in the correct order but then I fixed it, and coming up with picture that match what I’m saying was hard because sometimes I was saying different things.

For My video I first had to do my script which was not that hard because I only had to look at the answers and turn it into not an answer, in telling their journey and more. Selecting images was hard because Every time I was about to select an image, the other images I’ve already used looked very similar so that’s why it was hard. And it was hard to keep it between 2-4 minutes because mine was too short at first.

I didn’t really learn anything in this project

I liked this project even though part of the process was boring but sometimes it was fun. And I like doing the video and script 

Immigration interview

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The immigrant project, you have to interview an immigrant and ask them questions and then you have to make a WeVideo and tell their story

First I had to come up with 20 questions but I actually only had to have 10-15 questions now I have 11 questions 

I didn’t think it would take that short to ask the interview questions and get the answers because it only took me about three minutes. I had my interview in person. It didn’t really go as I thought because I expected it to be longer and that the answers would be longer. I didn’t really learn anything new about the person that I interviewed because I already expected what she would say and she also said what I expected.

Overall I haven’t started making the WeVideo yet but I want to start it soon and I am excited how the video will come out.

Rube Goldberg Post #2

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I finally finished my Rube Goldberg Project. It was exciting to build. This blog post will cover, my sketches, my attempts, the final process of the project, and making the WeVideo.

My first sketch I actually built and then I tried to make it work but every time I tried it fell together and I thought there wasn’t really a point anymore of always rebuilding it because it would always fall together. So I changed the whole entire sketch, I felt like it was much shorter but it still has eight steps, I think. After I built the second one it almost always worked. In the sketch there was supposed to be a car hitting a book but after a few tries I realized that it’s just not going to work so I changed It, I made the car thing an inclined plane And that worked better. After that change I also realized I had to change something else, the glass/cup. It was too small. Always when it got there the water always spilled out and there was no way the bottle would exactly fall into that glass/cup. So I changed that into a bigger one, almost like a bowl (it is one that my dog drinks because when I would use a bowl that humans use it would be a bit weird because humans don’t drink out of bowls so I used a bowl from my dog). After that change it just needed some tries and then it finally worked. The most challenging for me building it I think was making the changes and realizing that I needed to change it. I thought filming it was hard because my Rube Goldberg machine was going really quick, so I thought it was going to be hard, because I would have to move quickly, but it came out that it was actually very easy. I had 40 attempts until my successful run. I think it took a really long time until the successful run.

My second sketch felt much shorter than the first one.  And the second one went much quicker than the first one. I actually didn’t think that I would have to change my first sketch but when I tested it, it always didn’t work and I gave up on that sketch.

I think making the video was the most fun part because it was very easy because you basically already had everything you needed and just had to put it in a video. My video included my final sketch, my final sketch explained, and my fails, my final run through, the changes that I did in my sketch, and some materials that I used, and how many failures I had

Overall I think the project was challenging and I’m glad that it is done now, but there were some parts that were fun like making the video, I didn’t like to build it. I think it was very hard and it took really long to do it. And the whole project took really long and a lot of steps were needed to finish it.

 

 

Rube Goldberg Post #1

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The Rube Goldberg machine is basically a long machine that at the end does something simple

I did watch some videos where people also were doing a rube Goldberg machine.

My simple machines that I am using are inclined plane, wheel, and something that is in the lever category. In my sketch there is first there are books that are knocking each other down the last book is supposed to push a marble (or something heavier) to the inclined plane. Then the marble is going to push the car (small toy car) down another inclined plane (which is steeper than the one that the car is going to roll up to) and then rolls up to another inclined plane (which is not steep). It’ll push a soccer ball ( or any kind of ball) this ball, then falls down the scissors which then cuts the rope that is placed right under the scissors to cut the rope. The rope goes over a chair and there’s a bottle (there’s water in the bottle because it needs to be a little heavy) tied on the rope and when it cuts the rope the water bottle knocks down a book which then knocks down three other books. The last one knocks down cups and at the top of the cups there is sort of like a way to a marble way thing. At the ending of the marble way there’s a tiny seesaw at the other end of the seesaw is another marble ( or ball soccer ball or something) that will push another golf ball (because it has to be heavy for the ending), the golf ball rolls down a steep inclined plane and rolls up a not steep inclined plane and hits a golf ball (the golf ball is taped or tied or both on a rope, the rope is taped on the ceiling) it’ll swing to another box (like a small box) there is a water bottle on that box and the golf ball will knock it down that the water bottle (with water filled in it) fills up the glass. I didn’t have to make any changes yet because I didn’t start building yet

Overall, I haven’t started building yet. It was already challenging doing the sketch that has to have eight steps and coming up with something simple at the end. My ending is going to be that there is a water bottle filling up a glass. And I am going to start building it soon.

 

 

Feature Article Reflection

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When my teacher assigned my class to write a feature article I thought it’s going to be fun but challenging. I even thought it was hard to come up with a topic but I chose Switzerland as my topic. I didn’t think it would be that much work to come up with a meaning and topic and a title, and a subtitle.

First we had to come up with a topic I didn’t think that was so easy then we had to look if we had enough information for it after that we had to draft the categories that took kind of long and then we had to make a meaning next we had to revise everything we had to look if we could add some examples in our feature article and then we had to revise it again and had to bring out the meaning and then we had to put all that information into slides it was hard because when I put my first category into the slide I didn’t know there was so much information and almost didn’t have space for the pictures anymore put it was fun to move things around and finding pictures matching to the information then I had to add a title to my feature article I think my title is kind of boring it is just really simple and then I had to add headings after I did all that stuff I finally saw my feature article in paper it looked much different than I thought but I sort of liked it.when I saw it I saw that there was a lot of white space and then I moved the picture a little more down that there wouldn’t be that much white space when I did that I felt like I was done.

But when I had all my information then we had to revise everything which also was a lot of work and took very long. I liked the part where I had to put my information in the slides and find pictures. I liked to do a layout and move things around but it was also challenging because every time I changed something on my slide the whole thing changed but it was still fun. I also didn’t like to come up with a meaning, topic, subtitle, and title, and a conclusion, most of them took me a long time to come up with.

think writing a personal narrative was much easier than writing a feature article because when writing a personal narrative I didn’t have to have so much information and I knew what I wanted to write about when writing a personal narrative it’s something that I did so it’s easier to write it but when writing a feature article I needed information, and a subtitle and I liked my personal narrative more than my feature article because I also feel like I put more effort in my personal narrative than in my feature article. 

Overall I really liked writing a feature article even though I think my feature didn’t come out perfect and it was really hard work but it was very fun.

 

Reading Timeline Reflection

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I think the reading timeline was a fun project.

First I thought about the books that I wanted to include. Then I printed them out. I think it was hard to think about a book that I read in 5th grade because I didn’t read that much in 5th grade. Then I thought about what I thought was important about the book. After that, I glued the book covers on colored paper and wrote down the important things about the book. After that I was actually done. The only thing I had to do was write down the reading timeline and then I was done.

I liked the part where I had to decide where I wanted to glue the book covers the most. And I didn’t like the part where I had to find the book covers and had to print them out and cut them out.

When I saw my timeline when it was finished I thought that I made a big progress between each book because the first book hadn’t even words in it and then the second book was how to learn to read and then I saw the books got harder and harder and I thought it is cool that I can like look back and see what progress I made.

The first book on my reading timeline stood out to me the most because I forgot that I had that book (not anymore) and then I remembered what I found so good in this book.

 

 

 

Choosing a Topic for my Feature Article

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Our class is starting a new writing unit where we will be doing a feature article. I am nervous but also excited for it. My topic might be Switzerland.

I chose that because it’s where I lived before I moved here, and I know about it.

My categories  are food, school, places, and languages. I chose the category food because I love the food there and here it doesn’t have these kinds of foods. I chose the category school because it has a lot of differences and I thought I Could tell a lot about it. I chose the category places because I think in Switzerland there are some nice places to do things. I chose the category of languages because there are four different languages in Switzerland.

For the category food I will probably write what the best kind of foods are in Switzerland. For the category school i might say like how school is there. And for the category places I will write what nice places there are and what people do there. And for the category languages I will write about the four languages and what kind of languages they are. And I’ll maybe put like a map on the article.