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Core Competency Self-Reflection – Convo10
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Author: Elodie
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Honourable George Heyman,
I have been researching about the Mount Polley mine disaster and more in depth about what happened, including the cause of the occurrence and the long-lasting effects. I have learnt about how the disaster occurred and how the engineers played a part behind it in not using glacier slit underneath the tailing’s containment pod. This led to structural insufficiencies which was the main cause of the dam’s massive collapse, spilling around 25 billion litres of contaminated materials into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake. Although it has been years since this disaster, the waters are still contaminated and Mount Polley is continuing to deposit remaining waste from the mine into the Quesnel Lake from a 10-kilometer pipeline. With all this spillage, it has a long-lasting effect on the salmon and their habitats since these areas were major spawning grounds. On top of this, although the mine only spilled into certain areas, the water continues to flow everywhere else, specifically the Quesnel Lake which connects to the Fraser River which ultimately leads to the Pacific Ocean. Now with the waste infecting these areas as well, it is having an impact on the trout fisheries and Fraser River salmon stocks, not to mention the Pacific Ocean is already the most polluted ocean. With all this damage and Mount Polley violating 15 rules under the B.C.’s environmental and mining laws, the engineers and anyone apart of this were not fined, leaving residents unhappy and in shock. I believe that there should have been a fine, but it is too late to do anything about it now, but I hope that we can prevent this from happening again by learning from past building mistakes and remembering all the risks of the lasting problems that still affect us to this day.
1. ASK
- What would happen if they remade the Mount Polley mine?
- Are there any future problems for the surrounding areas like lakes, rivers, and oceans?
- What led up to the Mount Polley disaster (how did it occur)?
- What were the people and resident’s reactions after no chargers were pressed?
- What does the future look like for the environment and others affected?
2. ACQUIRE
The only familiar digital tool I used to complete part of my research was google and YouTube, but for the other half, I tried out new websites such as Gale Engage and Pexels. I found that Gale Engage had very useful information for my topic so I will be using that one for future research projects.
3. ANALYZE
To verify and investigate the websites that I used, I checked for the publish dates and when it has recently been edited, this gives a good indication to whether to information is still relevant and correct to this day. To cite the information I found, I either pressed one of the options that allows you to cite it, or I copied the link.
4. ASSESS
I found parts of completing this challenge very smooth and easy, but others were a bit harder to overcome. I found it hard to use some of the new websites for researching my topic because I wasn’t completely used to it, and it was hard to find the right information. However, once I was able to get going and have all the information I needed, it was easy to format and put it into sway. One thing that I could have done better was coming up with more unique and successful guide questions because it would make the sway more interesting and educational.
HCE 9 – English Write
“Birds on a Wire” – created by Banksy
Explanatory Paragraph:
When looking at this picture, I believe it represents protests that sadly happen quite frequently for various reasons, but in this particular image, it seems that they are going against “different” people, from moving in or visiting a different country. A believe racism plays a big part in this message and how if you have a different race, you don’t belong. In this image, the author used birds on a wire, holding posters that are often used during protests with humans. The author is using the birds as a creative way of showing what really happens but through a different perspective still with the same idea. The posters hold strong meaning as well, in one of them, the poster says, “keep off our worms” and I believe this has a deeper meaning with how humans say the same things but not about the worms. It could be about land, about food etc. I also noticed the different colours the author used which makes a big difference in how you view this image, I can see that the bird on the right is colourful as for the birds on the left are all the same with no colour apart from darker shades. This whole image negatively represents inclusivity, respect and collaboration. The birds representing the people were completely disrespectful when not allowing another bird to enter just because they weren’t the same as them or they didn’t fit their invisible standards. This goes along with inclusivity and how they are not including others and letting them enter their land or where they live. With collaboration, the birds could all work together to be inclusive and teach the others respect, just like what humans should start to do, but instead, they are continuing to go against each other and not have an open mind to accepting others.
Short Story Tableaus – The Gift of the Magi
Description for photos:
Exposition- Looking out window
Della looks out of her apartment building window. She sees the snow of Christmas closing in. Della lives in a poor neighbourhood. She sees people talking to each other.
Inciting Incident- Looking in glass
Della looks at herself in a pier-glass and notices her beautiful long hair. Della gets the idea to cut and sell her hair. People are surprised by this idea because her hair is so cherished.
Rising action #1- Della gets her hair cut.
Della goes to a hair salon. She tells Mme. Sophronie she wants to cut off all her hair. Mme. Sophronie cuts off Della’s beautiful long hair. Customers wait for their hair appointments.
Rising action #2- Della buys the chain
Della goes to a local shop. She sees the beautiful chain in the window. The man sells her the chain. Locals wait in line for service.
Rising action #3- Jim comes home
Jim walks into the small apartment. He is shocked by Della’s hair change. Della patiently awaits his reaction. People are also shocked and reacting to the change in hair.
Climax- Exchanging gifts
Della tells him to open the present she got for him. Jim receives the chain and tells Della that he sold his watch. Della opens her present from Jim. Della receives a comb she can’t use.
Falling action- Putting on the chops
The couple continues their life and makes dinner. They don’t let their failed gifts ruin their Christmas. Della helps Jim put on the chops. Some other people react to the act.
Resolution- Christmas
Jim and Della still have a good Christmas. Others are also exchanging gifts. They sit around their old Christmas tree. They are grateful for each other.
Electric House Project
In this project, myself, Natalie, Paula and Rena made an electric house with 4 rooms which had a series circuit and a parallel circuit. Throughout this experience, we face many problems and obstacles but we mainly decided to focus on the wires and how we can find a way using technology to organise them.
This is the define, dream, deliver, and debrief process for our electric house problems :
Define
While me and my group were adding the wires around the house, we found that the wires would often get tangled together which made it very difficult to stay organised and keep on top of our work. This made it hard for us to follow the wires to the light bulbs because we frequently would get the wires mixed up with each other which held us back to finish this project efficiently and in an organised fashion. To solve this problem using technology, we worked together and used a 3d printer to create a wire holder. This was a great help for us since we could clearly see how to connect the light bulbs and wires so we were able to finish efficiently and use teamwork.
Dream
Me and my group wanted to make something simplistic, easy to print, but also works great. We faced many problems with our light bulbs, wires and our circuits so we did some brainstorming to figure out what we should fix and how we should design it for the best outcome. I found that when we worked together and utilised each other’s opinions and ideas, it helped us to come up with a solution that would be great for our project so that is when we started to design it.
Deliver
Once me and my group came to the decision that our wires were one of our main problems holding us back throughout this experience, we came up with a design of a long rectangle with two long holes that go all the way through to the top. The wires that are especially a problem will thread through the holes to create more space and help us to stay organised. Overall, I thought that our experience 3d printing our design was rather smooth apart from the fact that it was a bit hard to print at first and we faced some technical issues. Once we got that sorted, we were able to successfully 3d print it and pick it up later that day to connect it to our wires and add it to our project.
Debrief
Overall, I believe that me and my group’s experience was great and fairly easy. We were successful in creating our tinkercad design and all of our circuits inside of our house. We all worked well as a group and we all were able to play a part in creating this project. I believe that we were very wise in our decisions especially our 3d printed wire holder because it helped us to stay organised and on top of our due date. However, there are some things that I would go back and change and one of them would be creating more of our wire holders and not only just one because there were more wires that had to be dealt with. Of course we faced many problems and obstacles but overall I had a great and educational experience. 
Indigenous Exploration – Mental Health Issues
Intro – In this podcast, myself, Nico and Tavia will be talking about the mental health issues among Aboriginal people in Canada. We will be discussing many different topics, such as suicide, alcohol, drugs, depression and racism. We hope that you enjoy our podcast and learn more in depth about the mental health issues for Aboriginal people.
Reflection:
My experience creating this assignment – When creating this assignment, I found that my group was very organised and efficient, which helped to make this experience fun and easy. Occasionally, I did find it hard to edit the audio clips by using all the different tools in the audacity app but eventually everything was able to fall into place and me and my group were able to overcome this obstacle. Overall, my experience was great and easy going and I would say that this project helped me to learn more in depth about the mental health issues of Aboriginal people in a fun and interesting fashion.
My group’s path in researching mental health: When researching about the mental health issues of Aboriginal people, me and my group used the tips that we learnt from our visit in the library and these tips helped us to find correct and useful information by narrowing down our answers to be very specific to what we were looking for. We came across various articles and news paper reports about our subject and we found all the information very educating and perfect to use for our podcast. Overall, me and my group were successful in finding the right information for our topic.
Obstacles and items I learnt in recording: When recording our audio clips, me and my group came across a few obstacles. One particular thing that we found difficult at first was making sure that the audio all sounded somewhat the same and that it was all the same volume. This meant that we had to figure out the right distance to talk into the microphone that would be equal for all of us. We also had some difficulty with background noise with the hallways being full of loud people. Me and my group were able to find a quiet spot that would help us focus and give our audio a good and clean result.
Option 2 – Communication:
One way I used to communicate my learning was by talking and discussing with my group about the research and making sure that we all understood and were on the same page with everything. By communicating our research, thoughts and ideas, this helped us stay organised and kept us all on agreement for our script. Another way I used to communicate my thinking was staying in touch with my group and keeping each other updated in case somebody missed a day of school. This helped us all to stay on top of our work and to stay organised.
Sites we used:
https://www.theindigenousfoundation.org/articles/indigenous-mental-health-and-suicide