Principles of Learning Post

First of all, something we looked at a lot is sustainability. We have looked at our impact we have as individuals, then we looked at our impact on the world as a small community and also our impact as a whole globe. We did inactivity that directly relates to sustainability. We did 3 goals, one for ourselves, one for our city (Port Coquitlam), and one for our world. From looking at these certain areas I have seen many more negative impacts than positive, something that should be changed. But we didn’t stop there, now that we were on track about trying to take footsteps in the right direction to environment sustainability, we need the skills to do so. From watching the video “an inconvenient truth” really got me thinking about my personal impact on our word and what I can do to change that. The whole idea about sustainability is preserving our land for years to come and keeping its qualities. There are 3 steps to this. Number 1 is recognizing our impact like when we did the ecological footprint calculator where we found that we have a huge negative impact. Number 2 is looking at ways to improve and change our ways and the third is actually doing so, just like when we completed our personal goals. We did all of these steps when we learned about sustainability from the inconvenient truth video to completing our goals. All of this comes back to the big idea of sustaining our world and we did a lot of in class work on how we can preserve earths qualities.

Interconnectedness, a great part of our learning because we learned how one thing taken from our environment can huge impact on everything else. This also can relate to sustainability, the fact that one persons actions can have a direct impact the world. When doing the cycles of matter activity we learned that one thing can affect a whole cycle because every small thing plays a role into the big picture. Our whole curriculum comes back to the main idea of interconnectedness. Everything we did connects with another, I just gave a few examples. The mind map we just did shows this, how everything we learn is connected and if one thing is removed everything is impacted in some way. The fact that the hydrosphere relates to the atmosphere and that the hydrosphere relates to the biosphere and so on. Interconnectedness shows us that all of the spheres are connected in some way and that they impact each other and rely on one other to function. so over all every single project we did and everything we learn shows a great deal of interconnectedness because it all relates to each other.

 

Stomach Cancer Story

Stomach Cancer Story

Hi, I am a cell living inside the stomach of Jim, and today I am going to tell you his story. The exact way I formed is unknown, one day I just ended up here. I’ve always been a lot different from the other cells in Jim’s stomach. One day I just started lining the inside of Jim’s stomach, not knowing that I would later multiply by the thousands and form a tumour. July 21st the day I found myself in this dark hole. A while later things got bad and the tumour formed. Jim had his chance for early detection but it was now too late. Many things could have led me to end up here, diet (eating too many pickled or salted foods), smoking, genes and not eating enough fruits and veggies. The tumour didn’t get any smaller if anything it spread to others parts of his body. Jim is in pain, he’s experiencing persistent vomiting, loss of weight, nausea and heartburn. And he isn’t eating as much. Even though I ended up here for unknown reasons I do know my purpose, to kill. I have no control of it, its just my job.

Jim has started his treatment for the tumours spread throughout his body. He started Chemotherapy, which is drug taken which is meant to kill off all of the cancerous cells in the body. Radiation has also been attempted, which treats the cancer by using high-energy waves to kill tumor cells. The goal is to destroy or damage the cancer without hurting too many healthy cells. These treatments have resulted in him loosing tons of weight and strength. His hair also started to go. He has also under went multiple surgeries, nothing has seemed to work. He has stopped attending work, good thing because I was sick of the microwave meals for lunch. For all I know Jim just sits in a hospital bed all day other than the rare trip to the bathroom. From what I know he doesn’t have much longer to live, which means my work here is almost done.

As expected Jim was given just weeks to live but passed in days. Off to my next victim…

Stomach-Cancer-treatment1

The Process

1.  What questions did you need to research in order to create your cancer story?

  • what is cancer
  • what do I know about cancer
  • what don’t I know about cancer
  • what is stomach cancer
  • causes and symptoms of stomach cancer
  • effects of stomach cancer
  • treatments for stomach cancer
  • what is radiation/ chemotherapy
  • effects of radiation/ chemotherapy

2.  What new or familiar digital tools did you try to use as you worked through this project?

The 3 online websites I used were google and edublog and easy bib. Easy bib was new for me, it is a super easy site to help create a bibliography in one click. I will definitely use this site again if i ever need to cite my work.

3.  What was the process you used to investigate the topic?

First I wanted to get a grasp on what cancer actually is and its causes and effects. Then I went deeper into investigating a specific kind of cancer, stomach cancer. I researched its causes, symptoms and effects of this certain type of cancer. Then based on the information I found I wrote my story.

4.  How did you verify and cite the information you found?

I verified the information by looking on multiple sites for the same topic to ensure throughout all sites the information was similar. Also by looking at the site name you can kind of tell like the site I found was called cancer.ca which sounds pretty believable. I cited my sources by copying and pasting the website names into a word document and then later putting them into an online bibliography generator.

5.  How did the process of completing this challenge go? What could you have done better?

The process of the assignment went very well. From the beginning I wanted to ensure I understood my topic thoroughly. This made sure I knew what I was talking about. After that writing the story became easy. I think I could have researched a bit more on how the cancer forms and more on the causes. I should have went into more detail about how stomach cancer grows and how the tours spread throughout the body. Overall I am proud with how this project turned out I just could have went into a bit more detail and took more time to research.

Sites used:

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/stomach-gastric-cancer#1

http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-type/stomach/treatment/?region=on

http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer type/stomach/treatment/chemotherapy/?region=on

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/stomach-cancer/symptoms-causes/dxc-20202328

http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-type/stomach/stomach-cancer/?region=on

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/what-to-expect-from-radiation-therapy#1

Works Cited: 

“Stomach Cancer.” WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

“What Is Stomach Cancer? – Canadian Cancer Society.” Www.cancer.ca. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

“Treatments for Stomach Cancer – Canadian Cancer Society.” Www.cancer.ca. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

“Chemotherapy for Stomach Cancer – Canadian Cancer Society.”

“Stomach Cancer.” Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 18 May 2016. Web. 01 May 2017.

“What to Expect From Radiation Therapy.” WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

*photo from flickr* / (all rights reserved)