Category Archives: Grade 9

My Model Town

Creating a Model Factory Town

  • Town Name- Frostford Village
  • Company Name- Frostford Productions
  • Resources Available- Wheat, livestock, water, crops, coal
  • Elements of The Town- Textiles factory, coal mines, shelters
  • Population- 236
  • Explanation / Brief History- In the early 1800’s, a man called Robert Frostford came upon a wide spread of unclaimed land. He built a home for him and his family where they lived off their own crops. Robert decided he would like to make a business that could be passed down the family line, so he sought out to find workers who could get his company running. He found 30 people within the first two years who were struggling to afford to look after themselves and their families, and he hired them. In return for working at Frostford Productions, they were given decent meals and each paid 10 cents an hour. When Frostford died from an unknown sickness, the company was handed to his son William. By then, there was over 200 people living there working for him, and he didn’t like paying them all their share of money because he was becoming greedy. William lowered their pay rate to 5 cents, and overtime, his labourers left him to work at a higher paying company.

Media Fluency Reflection

  1. How was the ease of access in building the town, and what software did you use specifically? I used an app called MyCraft, which is basically a knock off, free version of Minecraft because I’m too broke for that. It wasn’t too difficult but since I haven’t played Minecraft in a few years (and when I did it was only at friends’ houses) it took me a little getting used to. Also, when I did play it I used a computer or an Xbox which I think would have been much faster than using my Ipad (mostly just since I’m more used to it that way).
  2. Were you able to apply the skills you learned in the planning stages appropriately to a digital environment? I immediately had an image of what I could make my factory, so I looked online to be sure that my idea was accurate and created it right away. For the rest of my town, I found it helpful to checkout some examples made by my classmates.
  3. What were the sources you researched to make this an “authentic make-believe” town? I mostly relied on my knowledge from class, but at one point I looked at some images online by searching up “factory towns from the 1800’s”.
  4. Is there other software online that could have done the job better? Explain. I think that using the original Minecraft might have been better because there’s more building sources in that, but otherwise it was practically the same. Both are pretty straightforward and in my opinion, perfect for this project.

My Most Challenging Foods Lab

I would say the most challenging foods lab for me was when we made quinoa salad/buddha bowls. I think this was the most challenging because of the amount of knife skills involved. I wanted each vegetable to be sliced a certain way; equivalent in shape and size. Along with the hard and specific vegetable cutting, I had to lay each ingredient down in a nice pattern for presentation. We had to choose at least 3 vegetables, 1 protein, 1 leafy green, and 1 type of seed for our salad. For the vegetable portion, I picked carrots, peppers, and tomatoes. For my protein, I added chickpeas. I layered some spinach as my leafy green, and lastly used pumpkin seeds to top it all off. My buddha bowl was very colourful, making a nice presentation and meeting the product standards. The veggies were fresh and crunchy while underneath was the soft, moist quinoa which gave off a sort of earthy scent. Personally, I didn’t like the mix of cold, crunchy vegetables with warm soft quinoa so this wasn’t my favourite thing we cooked. We also had a drizzle of Miss Bolli’s homemade dressing which had a sour-ish taste and definitely added more flavour to the salad. It was quite challenging and time consuming to cut up each vegetable so categorically, but I think the end product was worth it. The different shapes and sizes of the veggies were balanced and complimentary to each other.

Most Successful Foods Lab

I think my most successful lab was when we made “Chocolate Crinkle Cookies”. The cookies were deliciously soft, moist, and sweet. Since it was the day before halloween, we decorated one with icing and liquorish, making it into a spider! As soon as we opened the oven to take the cookies out, I could smell a chocolatey scent. I chose this as my most successful lab because me and my partner’s cookies turned out the perfect shape, size, and texture. They tasted great as well! I think we definitely met the product standards; a light brown colour and very soft texture, with no large bumps or cracks on the outside. I don’t think we really had any challenges in this lab. We worked quickly and always knew what to do, I’d say that was quite a success. If there were any little problems, we worked together and got past them easily, but I don’t think we struggled with much. We probably could’ve conversed more but everything still worked out right. We made these cookies using the “molding cookie method”, meaning we mold the dough in our hands. We didn’t use any tools or equipment that we haven’t used before. The cookies weren’t very healthy; I would rate the nutrition a 2 out of 10 because there wasn’t anything healthy in it except egg and there was a lot of sugar.

My Favourite Foods Lab

Although it is a basic and easy recipe, my favourite foods lab was when we made grilled cheese sandwiches. It was probably the most simple food we made, yet one of the tastiest, in my opinion. We watched lots of videos on how to create a yummy grilled cheese, and I learned some tips to make mine taste amazing. For example, you can put salt on the buttered side of the bread for some extra flavour, melty cheeses work the best, and pressing down your sandwich while it’s cooking with a spatula helps the bread toast evenly. That last one didn’t really work out for me- my grilled cheese was almost burnt on one side and a pale golden colour on the other, but it didn’t affect the taste! My sandwich was crispy, melty, and perfectly flavourful (I think the salt made it that much better). I think the reason it wasn’t evenly cooked is because I might not have had the pan directly in the centre of the element. I decided to put sliced up cherry tomatoes in my grilled cheese… which is funny since I don’t even like tomatoes that much, but it turned out delicious. I think I’ll add them to all my grilled cheeses from now on. My greatest success in this lab, although you can’t see from the picture, was my knife skills with the tomatoes. Since as I said I’m not a huge fan of tomatoes, I wanted to cut thin slices and evenly spread them out so they wouldn’t taste too strong. I was quite impressed with how even the slices were, since cutting isn’t usually my strong suit.

My Breakfast Home Lab

final product
mis en place
in the process

For my breakfast home lab, I created a very tasty and filling breakfast sandwich. I chose this instead of the other breakfast choices because our foods class hasn’t made anything like it yet and I know that my mom would prefer it over the other options. The two bread slices on the outside of the sandwich, I fried in a pan with an egg in the centre; “egg in a hole”, and seasoned with salt and pepper. In another pan, I cooked 3 full slices of crispy (not TOO crispy) bacon- of course, enjoying the aroma of it wafting through the house. As the bacon sizzled away, I prepared the veggies. I chopped fresh green onions, sliced half a medium ripe tomato (overripe tomatoes are gross and unappealing), and tore up some crisp leaf lettuce. For added flavour, I sprinkled salt and pepper and drizzled hot sauce in the sandwich. My breakfast sandwich was colourful and cooked nicely, and the different flavours worked well together. My mom, who loves her bacon and eggs, enjoyed having fresh veggies incorporated with her favourite dish. A challenge could have been that my eggs were somewhat overcooked, but my mom and I like them that way so it wasn’t a problem. I think that to improve my breakfast home lab, I could have been more creative and added less basic ingredients to it. Overall it was a balanced meal, and although I call it a breakfast sandwich, I think it is suitable for any time of day.

About Me

my bio

Hi, my name is Meadow. Some things you should know about me are that I really love clothes, good food, animals, and vacations. In my opinion, a vacation doesn’t always mean travelling over to some exotic paradise like Hawaii (not that Hawaii isn’t breathtaking), but I see going on a little camping trip as a great vacation as well.

Some words I could be described as are understanding, polite, and meticulous. Meticulous is a word I learned recently, used describe someone who’s careful and cautious about what they’re doing, and doesn’t take risks. I don’t take many risks because I’m scared that my ideas might be wrong. This is something I would love to improve on!

My favourite way to express myself and let out all my thoughts is by talking to my bestfriend, Kara. For the past 3 or 4 years, we’ve spent most of our days on Facetime with each other. I met Kara in grade one when she was drawing a picture and I told her I liked the way she draws her flowers. We became inseparable and stayed best friends even after she moved away in grade two.

my favourite website

I chose Pinterest as my favourite website because it’s creative and I learn a lot from it. There’s fashion, quotes, recipes, art, animals, and more. I can find inspiration for ANYTHING on there.

my favourite video

My favourite video is called “I Made Only 3-Ingredient Recipes For A Day”. This is my favourite video because I love cooking and it taught me easy and delicious recipes. It’s also a very aesthetic and relaxing video.

my favourite image

This photo is meaningful to me because it’s a picture of my family and I when we went to Maui in 2014. This was a very memorable trip and we all had a great time. Life was so simple back then : )

my favourite quote

The fastest way to kill something special is to compare it to something else. -Craig Groeschel

I like this quote because it reminds me to appreciate what I have and that just because I may be not as good as someone else, doesn’t mean I’m not good enough for myself.

references

  • https://www.pinterest.com/
  • https://youtu.be/86QgYvlWEU0