Spain and Russia are two very different countries. In this post, I will be comparing and contrasting both countries.

First of all the two countries are both in Europe, but Russia is not part of the European Union.

Spain is a constitutional monarchy, with their king being Juan Carlos while Russia being a semi presidential constitutional republic with their president being Vladimir Putin. However, they both have a prime minister, with Spain’s being Mariano Rajoy and Russia’s being Dmitry Medvedev.

The capital of Spain is Madrid, and the capital of Russia is Moscow.

The GDP per capita of Russia is 17,709 while Spain’s is 30,500. (USD) And from that, you can infer that Spain has a good economy, but in actuality Spain doesn’t. In 2008, the whole economy went down , causing the collapse of many construction sectors, causing a influx of unemployment, as it went down to an all time low of 37%. The debt of Spain is 27%.

The population of Spain is 47,265,300, while Russia’s is 141,900,000, which is not surprising, as Russia’s area is 17,075,400 sq km and Spain’s is 505,992 sq km. And as you can see from those numbers, Spain is quite a dense country.

For this year’s experience week we went to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chaing Mai is the largest city in Thailand, and is also the most culturally influential. During our excursion in Chiang Mai, we stayed at the Maekok River Resort, which was a very nice place to stay. We stayed in Chiang Mai for six days. During this trip, we did many activities that were very dangerous and were new to me. These activities included kayaking, jungle survival and archery. Although we did many dangerous activities, we also did some other activities such as community service, which was one of the highlights of the trip for me. For this trip, I think I demonstrated risk taker the most. The reason why I think I demonstrated risk taker the most is because I tried many new activities that I have never tried before such as rock climbing. Rock climbing was sort of a “new” challenge to me, as the last time I went rock climbing was when I was 6. I was quite scared while doing this activity, as my palms were quite sweaty. I think the other learner profile attribute I demonstrated the best was being open minded. The way I displayed this was for example, during the time that we were in the temple, I respected the environment around by always following the right instructions, such as not making noise, taking off of the shoes, etc… I also respected the culture there by taking time to look at things that were native to Thailand. I also respected the fact that the hill tribe people were quite shy, and I didn’t disturb them while I was there. Being away from my family during my trip was not very different from home. When I had my friends around, it already felt like family. This trip taught me more about the culture of Thailand, as we visited the temples, and old hill tribe villages. It also taught me about how Thailand was very rural/varied. Thailand is a very varied country as they have a big city, and while they have a big city, they also have farm houses, and rural countrysides.

HEY GUYS!

In design/humanities class I recently made a documentary about the Wong Tai Sin Temple.

Click here to check it out!

- Wish you could be another role? (Bailiff, Defense)

- What did you learn about KMT?

- New skills?

1. IFOLO Reflection Answer the following questions:

1) Pictures/videos in the conference

2) Do you agree with the verdict Justify with at least 5 facts presented as evidence.

3) What was your job? Explain how you fulfilled your responsibilities

4) If you could do a different which would you do?

5) Explain one or more ideas that you learned about KMT  during investigations

6) Explain how you improved as a scientist during the investigations and the trial.

I don’t think I would want to switch roles if we could do it again. I reason why I think this is because I don’t suit the expert witness role well. I think this because I get very nervous when up on on the stand and I might not say the proper things. Another reason on why I would want to stay as a bailiff is because I like having to feel like I have a high level of authority, which is nice.

So throughout this unit, I learnt a lot about and improved as a scientist greatly. For example, I think now I am  much more confident while dealing with hazardous items in the lab, and I’ve gotten used to it. I also think I now write better lab reports, contrary to the beginning of the year.

As a bailiff, I think I fulfilled my role quite well. I think this because I always did what the judge told me to do, such as telling everybody to be seated, etc…

I think I, sadly agree with the verdict that was made. One of the five reasons on why I think this was because, they had one point that disproved KMT. Which automatically means that KMT doesn’t exist. My second reason on why is because they (prosecution) overall had quite strong points, which disproved KMT. My third point is that they had the point of elastic collisions. This greatly impaired the strength of our arguments. My fourth point is that one of our expert witnesses didn’t know the postulates, or rudiments of KMT, which was very disappointing and also impaired the strength of the defense overall, and one of our members not knowing the postulates of KMT could be evidence of an incredible scientist. During these investigations, I learnt a lot about KMT. The most significant thing I think I learnt was the changing states of matter. I think that being taught these points can be very helpful for later science, physics, chemistry, etc…

I would fall in the 3-4 category, depending on what time of the unit. Because, before the summative/formative assessment, I was quite relaxed, because I thought I was good at fractions, but then I got a very poor mark and I was stressed. I knew I had to bring my mark up, so at that time I was at a 4-5 level. So I studied hard to bring my mark up, and it paid off, as I brought my mark from a 2 to a 5. So after the final fraction culmination test, I was at a 2-3 sort of relaxed level. The challenging thing about this unit was the number line part. Even though I practised the number line before the test, I still couldn’t get it. So the number line was one of the more challenging activities in the unit for me. The thing that was easy was to multiply and divide decimals as they are quite straight forward, and easy. My effort in class was reflected in my assessments because after the first very poor grade on the test, I had a lot of effort after that and that resulted in my good mark on the second culmination assessment. The activity that I liked the most in the unit was dividing fractions and multiplying decimals because it was fun.

For this english refugee project, I learnt a few new skills that I didn’t know before. Such as, learning to use iMovie more in-depth,such asmaking the iMovie like a newscast, by adding special effects at the beginning like an intro like this,

Another new way to apply one of my skills was through writing the script of the project. Meaning that I had writing skills before, but I never had an opportunity apply them onto a script. One of the things that I liked the most about this project was the peer editing. As with every project, I find peer editing a very useful tool to improve and build upon my mistakes or errors. Another thing I liked about this project was that I got to learn much more about refugees, as before this english project I did not have as much interest but after this project I find that refugees are a very interesting topic. For example, I didn’t know that some of the refugees got free housing for a few months, and even a opportunity to find a job. I also didn’t know that some refugees have an opportunity to go to some prestigious universities, such as in God Grew Tired of Us, one of the refugees got to go to the University of Pittsburgh. So before this project, I didn’t know that refugees had good benefits. One thing I disliked about the project was that the book, The Other Side of Truth, did not really help at all with it. It would’ve been nice if the project required some sort of application of the knowledge that we gained through reading The Other Side of Truth. I think throughout this project, I did well because my partner and I had specific roles. So in our group, Andre made 3/4 of the movie, and did 1/4, then I did 3/4 of the script and he did 1/4. And Andre is adept at using iMovie, so we each applied our skills onto the project effectively.

Create a new entry for your iFolio and reflect on what you’ve learned in our Patterns unit. Write it under the “Math” tab and check any boxes for relevant AOIs. Consider the following questions when you respond:

• What did you like most about our Patterns unit?
• What did you like least?
• What do you think you learned really well?
• What questions do you still have?
• Why is the study of Patterns important? How has it or can it help you in life?

In addition to your response, provide EVIDENCE of your learning. Be sure to explain how these artifacts support what you’ve said about your learning. You can scan or take a photo of:

• an excerpt from your notebook (notes, classwork, or homework)
• a part of a class investigation (Dinner Table, Folding Paper, Polygons, or Handshake problems)

I liked the block building activities the most (year old cubes) because the actual block building was quite fun and we learnt a lot about how cubes and squares grew. Another reason why I liked the block building activity was because the block building activity was done with groups. I think this was good as I work the best with groups as I need more than 1 person’s help when building a, for example 6 year old cube which is 216 blocks. I liked writing the How cubes grow, and the how squares grow the least. I didn’t like doing them because they took up a lot of time and it wasn’t really challenging to do. I think I have learnt about how cubes grow the most as I am familiar with the formula and it is really easy. I do not have any questions. I think the study of patterns in real life can be beneficial because using algebraic formulas, you can make a game plan for football. Such as the formation 4-3-3.

This is an excerpt from my writing of “How Cubes Grow”.

“Cubes can grow in only one way, and that is through cubing. so 3x3x3 or, in a formula. x exponent 3″.

For this unit we had studied about Shi Huang Di. We studied mainly on his positive achievements and negative ones. Throughout all the assessments such as the Shi Huang Di poster and paragraph, we had picked up on many important skills. The first new skill that we learned was on how to write notecards. Learning to write notecards I think were very helpful towards our research, as we could link citations to them and also write our own ideas and paraphrase summaries. We also found researching was very important for this unit as for our essays, we were graded on how many different (variety) of sources we used. I think I regret using only 3 different types of sources because I think that if I used 3 or more, I could of achieved a 6. Another skill that we picked up along the way was how to write a paragraph using the hamburger method. The hamburger method basically taught us how to write a paragraph in a layered way, just like a hamburger. Here is excerpt from my paragraph: (Intro).

Shi Huang was the first emperor of China. He ruled from 221 BC – 210 BC during the Qin Dynasty and he was been regarded as one of the most ambitious and ruthless emperors in the history of China. As he was the emperor of China, he had very well benefitted China by: Standardizing the currency.

So overall, I think this unit has been the most rewarding one as we have picked up many new skills along with learning fascinating facts and knowledge about China.

Human Ingenuity:

In math we are studying patterns. I am looking at Human Ingenuity as the area of interaction because patterns can help in real life. I think it is because patterns can help you think different strategies in sports, economically and when you are buying things. Sports, it can help you think of strategies in rugby. The pattern of the opposing team moves.

Man-Made Beach

Chief Executive Leung is currently in conflict with the activists because the Chief Executive wants to replace a perfectly-fine shoreside with a man made beach. The man made beach will stretch 200m, and will kill 200 marine and bird species, and will also kill their homes. The activists are recruiting experts to look at the rocks and examine them and try to persuade the Chief Executive to not build the man-made beach. The environment will be affected heavily because first, putting in the man made beach replaces the perfectly fine rocks, with sand which destroys the homes of 200 bird and marine species.

The reason why Chief Leung wants to create the beach is because he wants to build a nice facility next to it. The consequences of his decision is that all the green groups and activists are protesting against him. The impacts of his decision are that people are against him but he tries to make it better by saying that he will move all the marine and bird species away from the area, and that made it slightly better for the activists. The Chief Executive has also hired environmental experts to make a political decision on wether or not the man made beach is a smart environmental decision.

Chief Leung is handling responsibility for the environment well, as he is in charge of the whole man made beach project, as he has positive attitudes about this project, and is sacrificing his money to make the activists agree with his project for example, by using his money to move the marine and bird species out of the current area. He is also reflective by making wise choices, and choices that make everybody happy. Chief Leung is also very aware of his role in this project, and is conforming with the policies.