Joseph's Project Wonder Blog

This week we focused a lot on the Digital Portfolio. The Digital Portfolio was something we used to show what we have been doing. Not just any work, the work we have been doing during Project Wonder and during independent study. I have finished my Digital Portfolio and is working on other work. Another thing that I did was come up with a homework plan. I did this individually and is working toward developing a better homework plan. I created this homework plan because I wasn’t feeling that I was meeting all the needs for 7th grade. So outside of school I will do more research on a certain topic and work from there. 

This will be a brief summary of what we did as a class last week in Project Wonder. We did numerous things that I found enjoyable, and also things that I didn’t enjoy. It included: Building a Rube Goldberg machine, making paper airplanes, and doing independent study. Although, during the Rube Goldberg machine challenge, I got very infuriated at my team for not building a “complex” enough machine. I tried not to let my competitive nature take over since this was supposed to be something enjoyable and something to have fun with. I took a look at our group’s and the other group’s machines and they don’t differ a lot.

We also made paper airplanes. We didn’t use the regular white paper, we used the blue papers. Which in my opinion made the paper airplanes look a little funky. My airplane was kind of lame, I made a simple airplane, the one everyone should know how to make. I was kind of disappointed with the way it turned out. Whenever it was thrown, it would curve down and flip upside-down. The airplane didn’t have much success, which didn’t disappoint me much. The only thing that did disappoint me was how we spent a lot of time on useless competitions. People would cheat so I didn’t understand why we even had those competitions. (It was just for fun.)

For independent study, my unhappiness fades away. It is a great time to expand your mind, and it is absolutely a fantastic time to learn new things. My unit is about Fission and Fusion. If you know anything about subatomic particles, then you would know I’m researching. Another thing that we did was we had to draw how to make toast. It was a challenge and we had to accomplish the task of drawing it in 10 minutes. Something I did was start to plan out my unit. I don’t like to plan out my units, so I’m reluctant about the idea. 

So this is a basic summary of what we’ve done this week in Project Wonder.

This week in Project Wonder I covered a tremendous variety of projects. We covered our self-assessment on our grades. We were supposed to assess ourselves and decide what our grade was. Another thing we did was to constructed paper towers. During that time we had worked in teams. The main goal of the paper towers wasn’t a competition, but rather it was more about teamwork. We also watched a video about Ted talks. He talked about how creativity should be something that factors in learning. Lastly, in the future, we will start covering our Utopia’s economy and how it functions.

This is another blog for what I’m doing in Project Wonder. Currently, I am working for an interview project for the upcoming 6th graders. Mr. Ecker had requested for this, although not everyone will or wants to be interviewed. The interview has not happened yet and I will be setting up the interview soon. Another one of my projects is researching the two planets Uranus and Neptune.  

This is blog four for Project Wonder. Currently, I am working on a Project Wonder interview. Not only did Mr. Ecker ask me to do this, but it is also a video to give the upcoming 6th graders a good idea of what Project Wonder is about. I have a list of questions provided for the interviews and will need to set up the interviews. I will be using the makerspace since the room is unoccupied, but a green screen will be needed since the room has a lot of materials. For me to set up a well-designed interview, I will need things like a microphone, multiple high-quality cameras, good lighting, and a simple background. The interview has not started yet but will be recorded soon. Some people may not be comfortable being in front of the camera, so instead of having everybody in the interview, I can only have the people who are willing to do it. We are also working on our ancient civilizations. We are currently modernizing our civilizations. As I had mentioned in my last blog, we are working on our own civilizations. So this is just an update on what I am doing in Project Wonder.

This blog is an update blog, in project wonder we have done more things that in my honest opinion, should be presented to everyone else. (If you had not seen or read the last blog, please go and read it, details in this blog may not summarize the last blog.) Currently, we are doing a mini-series, which somethings have been changed. Our director, Aloya, didn’t want to change the plot, but everyone else wanted to, numerous altercations were going on, but in the end, she relented and changed the plot. It has not been thoroughly gone through, (acting, script practicing, etc). A considerable amount of mistakes were made not only the plot but just the actors and what roles they play as. Acting has not yet started and we are also still practicing our scripts. Another thing that should be mentioned is that we are doing our ancient civilizations, which contains a map that is drawn out, what our civilization contains, what the climate is and other sorts of details that we have. My map, which contains many intricate details on the biomes, the cities and a lot of other things. So this summarizes what we are doing in project wonder, (currently).

Right now in Project Wonder, I am currently doing my Utopia Project. For our Utopia, we are creating our own country, and we have our own rules. I have finished my flag and the description of my flag. I really do enjoy my project on the Utopia, but I have not finished with my project yet. Also during project time, I am helping Aloya with her project, I am acting in her movie. I will also help her edit her project once we are done with recording and acting in the film. We are having a lot of problems with switching the actors and the video quality and also what we are acting. We have to keep re-acting the shots and clips. So far I really like the things that I am doing in Project Wonder. We don’t really get homework in Project Wonder, which is something that I do enjoy we don’t get. I also really enjoyed my Ancient Chinese project, I really enjoyed because I got to learn more about my own culture. People did all sorts of different things and I got to learn about Chinese music, art, paper money, etc. I also enjoyed what others had learned and what they had presented. These are some of the things that I enjoyed doing in Project Wonder so far in this school year.