Row-Bot Ted Talk

Row-Bots Ted Talk

The welcome task this morning in NEW was a Ted Talk by Jonathan Rossiter and his solution to a huge environmental problem. He invented a robot that eats pollution, he calls it a Row-Bot because it was inspired by the water boatman which is an insect that lives in the water that feeds on algae. This robot is a perfect example of what NEW students should be designing for their environmental unit project that is coming up.
The main issue that this Row-Bot is targeting is pollution, he mentioned the Algal Bloom off Cornwall in the UK and the Deep water oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Rossiter mentioned that every robot has at least these three components, a body, a stomach and a brain.

Environmental Exploration

We are starting our environmental unit in NEW school, and to start off the day we did an environmental exploration assignment where we watched three videos on an environmental problem that is occurring in the world right now and we had to then annotate an article for each of those videos and then create a concept map.

One of my favorite videos to watch was the one on saving the coral reefs,



This video told the story of a man who is growing his own coral and taking it back to the ocean so that the coral reefs can flourish as they once used to, it's is extremely important that the coral reefs do not die out because they are accountable for a lot of the oxygen that we breathe.

Concept maps was a new thing for many people in NEW school today and many found it to be a great way of organizing their thoughts.



Overall, it was a very interesting and educational morning in the sense that we got to see how other people are solving serious environmental issues and we also got to practice our annotations skills along with learning how to create concept maps.

Self-Reporting Grades

This morning in class, we read about how beneficial self reflecting can be for a student based on the investigations of John Hattie, a professor of education at Auckland University. There are a series of questions that a student should ask themselves when they self reflect,

• Are you satisfied with your learning? 
• Are you satisfied that you demonstrated your knowledge and skill? 
• How does your work compare to the expectations on the rubric? 
• With which parts of the assignment (project, performance, etc.) were you most satisfied? 
• How closely does your work on this assignment (project, performance, etc.) reflect your learning? 
• Why do you think this assignment worked for you? 
• Were there any parts that didn’t work? 
• How did you do the assignment/project? Be specific. 
• Were the strategies that you used effective in helping you reach your goals? 
• What learning strategies were helpful? Explain.
•  What would you have to add to learn more, do better, etc.? 
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your effort? 
• Did the amount of time, effort and strategies used help you reach your goal?
•  If you were to do this over, how could it be improved? 
• As a teacher, what can I do to help you? 
• What can I do to increase the value of this assignment/project, etc.?

STEM Challenge

On fun Friday, Neto gave us a STEM project to give us some hands on experience, this STEM challenge was to create a water slide for a little toy person to slide down. The slide had to be waterproof and not kill the toy if it were a real person. The longest and tallest water slide that was the safest would win the STEM challenge and that group would win the most points. The design that our team came up with involved using cups as a tunnel for the toy to go through and then at the end there was a plank of wood for the toy to safely fall slide down at the end. When Neto started pouring the water into our slide and the toy was put in, it got a little stuck in the plastic cups but with a little nudge it finally fell through and safely fell to the bottom. 

My team didn't win first place because there were other teams that did a better job at getting the toy through their slide safely that were longer and taller than ours. If we were to do this again, I would have our group widen the holes in the plastic cups so that the toy could fall through more easily and not get stuck, I would also like to try getting a lot more plastic cups and make our slide longer and taller so that we could have a better chance of winning the challenge. 

At the end of the day, everyone's competitive spirit helped create these amazing slides that were very entertaining to watch a toy go down, especially when it didn't work out very well. Nobody's slide was perfect but everyone tried their best and put in a lot of effort. 

Mental Health Reflective Assessment

     "1 in 10 children and young people aged 5 - 16 suffer from a diagnosable mental health disorder - that is around three children in every class" (youngminds.org). The second unit in NEW School was mental health. Throughout this unit, Neto and Tucker taught us a lot about mental health in all three classes that are incorporated into this core, English, science and technology. There were a lot of things that I took away from this unit and there were so many assignments I completed and learned from. 

      In English, there was a writing assessment where we had to select one of the characters from the play, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The assignment was to study the character's behaviors in the book and decide what kind of mental illness they had. This assignment was called a psychoanalysis of a character. While reading Romeo and Juliet, Tucker decided that while reading a play it had to be performed so that the students can really immerse themselves into the text and have fun. 

Leeann and Kelly Acting as Romeo and Juliet

Riley acting as Juliet

All the students had an option to be an actor, summarizer, vocabulary finder, emotional labeler or a poetic device finder. The summarizers would summarize the selected scenes, vocabulary group would find vocabulary in the scenes that is hard to understand and they would present to the class the definition with examples, the emotional labelers made signs that the actors would wear that would tell the audience how the character is feeling and the poetic device finders found poetic devices in the text. With all these roles available, the whole class can work together to understand the text and also understand the mental health situations that each character seemed to be dealing with. 

      In science this unit we learned a lot about the neurons in the brain, neurotransmitters and what is happening inside the human brain when someone is struggling with a mental illness. We also conducted a lab experiment based on forensics where we extracted DNA and used an electrophoresis gel chamber to find out who murdered Romeo and Juliet. Neto started off the unit with teaching us about the brain and everything there is to know about neurons and neurotransmitters.

Neto helped us to understand that these are one of the factors that go into mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. After we were done reading Romeo and Juliet, Neto and Tucker assigned a new project, there was a murder we had to solve. One of the characters in the book murdered Romeo and Juliet and we had to perform a lab that involved using DNA to find out who the killer was. My group originally thought it was Capulet but at the end of the experiment, we discovered it was Friar Lawrence.

Starting our gel electrophoresis chambers

Extracting the DNA

Preparing the DNA for the gel chamber

This lab really helped me understand DNA more than I did before and understand how to extract it and figure out who killed Romeo and Juliet, even though the lab had inconclusive evidence. 

      In social media and technology, I learned a lot about filming and creating videos and I also learned a lot about depression from a webinar. After we finished reading Romeo and Juliet, Neto and Tucker put us in big groups and gave us a topic and and Act from Romeo and Juliet. We recreated the scene based on our given topic to help show our understanding of both the Act and the topic assigned. For my group, we were given Act 2 and the topic of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. This assignment helped me gain new experience with script writing, costuming and filming. Along with gaining hands on experience with technology, this unit we also got to listen in on something that we may have to experience someday in the future. One day in NEW, we tuned in to a webinar on depression by Dr. Stringaris. 

Depression In Teens Webinar

This was an interesting experience because although webinars aren't the most entertaining thing in the world, it is still something that many people have to experience whether it be listening to one or creating one. Webinars have become a big part in many people's professions. 

      Overall, the mental health unit was a very interesting unit that let my classmates and I experience many different opportunities to help us understand mental health in many different subjects. English, science and technology taught us mental health using writing assignments, plays, videos, labs, filming and webinars. This unit incorporated Romeo and Juliet very well into understanding how to diagnose a mental illness and know the behaviors of someone who may be dealing with a mental illness. Science videos and labs helped to understand neurons in the brain and DNA. Technology helped me to use new knowledge on filming to show how much I know about mental health.