What aspects of this course did you enjoy the most?
Throughout this course, I enjoyed doing labs and simulations the most. I especially enjoyed the bird mutation simulation, and the acid and bases labs. They were the most interactive thing we did, and I especially found it more engaging and easier to understand when it was explained through a simulation or lab.
2. What aspects of the course did you not enjoy?
Some of the aspects that I did not enjoy as much was the memorization for biology, the understanding/math in physics. I also did not enjoy the radiation unit because I found it to be a hard concept to grasp, and overall I found it boring.
3. Were there any topics or activities that you are interested in that were not covered in this course?
The main topic I am interested in is the system and movement in the human body. Biology for science 10 was mostly about DNA and mutations, so I am looking forward to Anatomy and Physiology 12 when I take that course in grade 12.
4. What skills did you improve on during this course? (ex. studying, time management critical thinking)
During this course, I improved my time management skills because I had to balance this class with other academic classes and school sports. I found that Science 10 involved even more studying, assignments and focus, so I really improved with getting things done right away, not procrastinating and having better time management.
5. Do you have any recommendations for how this course was taught?
I don’t really have huge recommendations for how this course was taught, but I do have some minor suggestions or some feedback on my opinion. I found that some concepts needed more explaining, as some units were a bit brief. I also found that some multiple choice test questions were not what we learned or focused on, so this was a bit frustrating at times.
6. If you had the chance to do this course again is there anything you would do differently?
I would probably study even more thoroughly because there were some test questions on some worksheets/notes that I did not study or did not think were important, resulting in me not knowing the answer.
7. Which science courses are you taking next year?
Next year in grade 11 I am taking the three main sciences; Life Sciences 11, Chemistry 11 and Physics 11.
After my semester in English 10 I feel like I have learned a lot as we covered many major units such as Romeo and Juliet, Short Stories and Poetry. The unit that I learned the most from was probably the poetry unit because I have a better understanding of how to identity and use poetic devices. I have also had a lot of practice analyzing poems and integrating lines into paragraphs from all the poetry cluster assignments.
I am most proud of my final English project, which was a children’s book that coverers a social issue. I am most proud of this project because I worked extremely hard to make it my best work, and even went deeper into the social issue to highlight the importance of it.
The assignment I enjoyed the most was the Romeo and Juliet diary entry because it allowed me to be creative, and I really enjoyed having the ability to write freely. I truly enjoyed getting into character as Juliet and expressing how she would feel when she first saw Romeo.
Some of the things I plan to do to stay mentally and physically healthy includes joining different athletics and sports, spending time with friends and family and keeping up with school work. I am planning to join school sports such as the morning basketball class, cross country and track & field, while doing other activities out of school to keep active and have fun. Also, keeping up with school work will prevent me from getting stressed and help me with time management so I can spend more time with family and friends.
Some short/long term goals for myself include participating in class, asking questions and getting work done right away without procrastinating. My plan to achieve them is making sure that if I do not understand the unit, I can ask the teacher for help, and this way I can participate in class by answering questions. I will also ask a teacher right away if I do not understand a project so I will not have to worry at home the night before the project/assignment is due.
My first year of High School was a learning experience where I achieved goals and made new friends. At first it was stressful because I had to learn my way around a new school and make new friends. However, after a few weeks I started to enjoy being at High School because I had more freedom and found that it was an enjoyable and fun experience. I have definitely shown that I have the ability to be independent and collaborative, well being very successful. Additionally, I am proud of myself for working hard with school academics and sports, and I continue to push myself and improve. I believe that my grade 9 year was about pushing myself and exploring new things such as picking new electives that I enjoy and joining school athletics. From doing these things, I have learned that I have a passion for different arts such as cooking, baking and photography, and sports such as basketball and running.
A Quote That Inspires Me
“Success is not an accident, success is actually a choice.”- Stephen Curry 🏀
This quote is very inspirational for me because it really describes the meaning of success. This is something that really connects to me, as a person who is always pushing myself to be the best that I can be. This is both for academics and sports. When I read this quote, it reminds me that I have the choice to be successful if I really work hard.
Another reason why I chose this quote is because it inspires me to play basketball. This year especially, basketball has become a passion that I really want to improve in. Even though I am not the best at times, this quote tells me that I can be successful if I practice and work hard. This is even more inspiring coming from Steph Curry because he isn’t just an amazing basketball player, but he is so inspiring for everyone because he makes the word “success” seem so real.
My Image!
🌼🌷🌻🌹📷
This is actually an image that I took while I was in Photography 10 during the first semester. I chose this photo because it is one of my favourites that I took in Photography, and it is something that I am proud of. It demonstrates that I learned how to use the camera and incorporate different techniques that we learned. In this specific photo, I learned how to have a blurry background while focusing on one part of the flower. In this case, it was the center part of the flower because the yellow pops against the white petals and the dark background.
The reason why I used one of my own photos that I took during Photography is because it helps explain my Grade 9 Year. One of my electives that I chose was Photography 10, and I have discovered that Photography is a passion which I enjoy. Photography was a class for me that was enjoyable and kept me relaxed when I had other harder classes such as French and Math in the same semester.
A website that I found useful this year was “Thesaurus.com”. This website makes it easy to find synonyms and more sophisticated words, rather than using happy, nice, good, etc. This makes you have a larger vocabulary and makes your writing more engaging.
I used “Thesaurus.com” in my Food Studies 10 class when we had to write “Food Folios” about our recipes. By using this website, I was able to find better describing words for my food. An example of a word that I used a lot while describing my food was “delicious”. Instead of repeating this word, I used the Thesaurus to help me find similar words to replace “delicious” . I used words such as “appetizing, delectable, exquisite, and heavenly”.
An Educational Video That Was Helpful
Meiosis- By: The Amoeba Sisters 🧪🔬
This video is by the “Amoeba Sisters” and it explains the different steps of Meiosis. This is important to understand because it is a big part of the Biology unit in Science 9. I found learning about Mitosis and Meiosis very confusing and hard to memorize, but the “Amoeba Sisters” made it easier for me. Their videos are very engaging/fun and they use phrases like “IPMAT-C” which helped me memorize all the steps in Meiosis. All their Science videos are very helpful, but I found this one video specifically helpful as it was a challenging and complicated unit.
Works Cited
Admin. “Steph Curry Quotes: Inspiring Words of Wisdom from the NBA Superstar.” Thatonerule.Com, 24 Dec. 2023, https://thatonerule.com/rule/steph-curry-quotes-finding-inspiration-in-the-words-of-the-nba-superstar/.
Reflection Questions: Is violence justified during a revolution and/or a protest?
A) How did the use of AI assist you in developing this project
When doing this project, Perplexity.AI helped me find different websites that I could use to gather information. This helped me because I found it easier and more accurate to find websites, rather than looking on Google. I was able to read through all the points that it gave me, and then pick a link that would take me to more information that was related to my subject.
However, I found that the AI was not super helpful at times, depending on what I was asking it. The position I had to argue was pro violence, and the AI always seemed to not support this side. This made it difficult to find convincing arguments that would help back up what I had to say.
B) How did you ensure that the work you created was still your own, rather than just a product of the AI
When using AI and other websites, I had to make sure I was not copying points that were already created by the AI because that would not be my own work. To make sure the work was still my own, I read through the AI and and remembered the main subjects in the article. Then, I took some of the main points and made them into my own words. This allowed me to get some inspiration, but also gave me an opportunity to do my own work.
C)Did you agree with the position you had to argue? Why or why not?
The position that I had to argue was: “Violence is justified during a protest and/or a revolution”. I would say that I do not totally agree with this side of the argument because violence is absolutely not right and causes a lot of harm. However, if you think about it, violence is the only way to really fight back and overpower another side.
My partner(s) and I did not care about what side we were on, because we knew it would be challenging to make each side convincing, as both positions have negatives and positives. As a result, I decided to be on the “pro” side because I thought that it would be a challenge to say that violence is okay, and it would be interesting to dive into different violent events that have happened in history.
Core Competency Reflection
I seek, develop and weigh options as demonstrated by picking a side for an argument and debate. When thinking about what side I wanted to argue, I really had to weigh the different negatives and positives. It was important that I developed ideas of great arguments before I started so I could seek the best side for me to argue.
Examples of where I communicate clearly and purposefully can be seen in groupwork because for any group project, clear communication is necessary when two people are needed for the assignment to be completed. My partner and I demonstrated this because even though we were on two different sides of the argument, we communicated and supported each other because we were partners. We worked together to start getting ideas down about the arguments, and we really had to communicate clearly about who was going to answer what sections. Also, communication was key because we needed to make sure we were both stayed on track and were ready to record ourselves on the chosen day.
Explain how you figured out what your Avatar would look like:
I was able to create an avatar for my main character because I had a clear description from the book of what she looked like. The book described almost everything about her physical appearance, and then the whole book was about her first person perspective in her head.
How did you choose the plot points?
I figured out the main points in my book by seeing what events matched each point like: Initiating incident, rising action, climax and denouement. Also, I looked at what parts of the book were the most important and made a big impact in the book. An example is when Melody got to be apart of real classes, and where she interacted with new classmates. I picked this for initiating incident because this really fit best, as it was what really the event that lead up to the climax.
Explain how you figured out the setting in your story. Why is the setting significant to the story?
I figured out the setting pretty quickly because the “quote” that I used was near the beginning of the book. This was very important to find out because the whole book was basically at the school, which is a big part in Melody’s life and learning experience.
Explain what the word mood means and how/why you picked the song that you picked?
For me, “mood” is the way that you are feeling, and it is something that you can express with emotion. When choosing the song for my PowerPoint, I wanted it to match the emotion of my book. Something not too dramatic as it is not a horror book, and something that is not too sad. I wanted something calm and happy, which represents Melody’s personality and attitude the entire book. When people listen to the music and watch my PowerPoint, I want them to feel emotion and connect to the slides.
Competency Reflection
Choose and write 3 of the prompts:
I can contribute to and work with criteria to improve my own work; evidence of that is:
Before I start an assignment, I make sure I read over the criteria and make a note of everything I need to include in my work. Also, I read through everything I need to do to reach “proficiency”, and then I think of ways where I can “extend”. I can show evidence of this because when I do long PowerPoints or big posters, I tend to forget small sections in the criteria. Reading the criteria sheet when you finish really helps because you can sometimes catch small things missing before you hand in your project.
An example of where I built upon someone else’s ideas is:
I can really connect to this sentence, because it is something I do when I am doing groupwork. Whenever the teacher tells me to get in a group and brainstorm ideas, my group and I work together to build upon each others ideas. Also, I feel like every class does this because when the teacher asks a question, a bunch of people contribute and pitch in different ideas.
I appreciate feedback on… and prefer it comes in the form of:
I absolutely appreciate feedback on my work, especially from my teachers because it lets me know how I can do even better, and not make the same mistakes again. However, I prefer it comes in the form of positive feedback, and just letting me know of things I could change: Instead of hearing all my “bad mistakes” and things “I did wrong”. I also like to hear my feedback in private, and it makes me uncomfortable when my “mistakes” are shared with the class. If somebody tells me feedback, I will make sure that I listen to it.
After this semester, I feel like I have definitely improved my knowledge in the French language. I have definitely improved with oral speaking, and I think that my pronunciation and fluency has gotten way better. What I find challenging is understanding how to have the correct grammar in French and what verbs to use when talking about different things.
If I had to pick something that I am most proud of, I would definitely pick my “Family Tree Project”. I think this project turned out well because I made sure I had proper time management, and I made sure I was reading the criteria. Also, the presentation portion went well because I practiced and made sure I was prepared.
In this project, I used some core competencies to help me with my success. Firstly, I used communication because I told my parents what I needed for my project. In this case, I needed a large piece of cardboard, and green spray paint. The second core competency I used was creative thinking because it helped me think of something “out of the box” and creative.
This photo demonstrates communication because it shows how I communicated with Amalie to get the perfect photo. By communicating, we were able to tell each other what the other person had to do for the photo to work. Some examples of this was “can you jump higher” or “are you ready for me to jump?”. Communication was very important for this specific photo, because the main part of this photo involves freezing the action when it is in movement. At first, it was challenging to find the correct settings, but Amalie and I worked together to find the correct “shutter speed” and “F Stop”. However, communication isn’t just about talking with each other, and telling each other what to do. Amalie and I communicated well because we communicated respectfully and efficiently.
