Biology Movie Project
- The purpose of this project was to inform people on our essential question in an entertaining format that draws people in. As well as this project was about cell replication, genetics, and chromosomes. I believe the answer to our essential question (What makes individuals unique?) is genetics, which I found interesting because the slightest difference in genetics could be the difference between a healthy baby or a baby not expected to live past birth.
- I worked as an actor in this project and that got me out of my comfort zone and let me help my group. I think that I could have worked with my group a little more to make better organization when it came to when we did what shots.
- As a group I think that we worked well together, but I definitely think that we should have had more communication. The editing was done on the day of the exhibition and wasn't nearly what anyone expected. I think that if we had more communication we would have had a better final product
- This project seemed like I was either working through lunch doing stressful work, or I was stuck doing nothing. The best thing that I did was trying to convey emotion that looked realistic and not fake. This took quite an it if work because I have literally no experience acting.
- I think that everyone in our class played their part in this project, a lot of people took on smaller acting roles that we needed, or helped with the props. I think that it would helped if we didn't have to get people from other classes to help us though.
- The biggest challenges that I faced in this project was trying to learn how to act and learning different things about acting as I went along. It was pretty hard for me to convey emotion that looked real.
- The biggest challenge for the class I would say would be communication. We didn't have very good communication so the filmers wouldn't have a great idea of where the editing was. As well as some students not being there on certain days and us needing to make a last minute decision on how to handle their absence.
- A good solution to this problem would be more meetings where we laid out everything we were doing and discussed good deadlines for scenes and editing. Also, if anyone is unable to come to school they could tell someone in the class so we have time to prepare for that.
- In our group collaboration was lacking, we broke off into different groups and all the groups did their own thing. For example the filmers and the editors didn't review that much with each other. But we had good filming and I was surprised by how much one person could do in editing
- Being an actor I think that I was available for my job when I needed to be, I also was able to learn as we went through the scenes and progressively get better. I got out of my comfort zone and overcame the stress of doing twenty takes due to frustrating outbursts of laughing. I think that I did a good job in my role.
- I would try and work together on more stuff such as the editing. I think that the editing is one thing that a lot of people can work on together without a lot of confusion.
- Although I liked this project one thing that I would change is needing our script to contain more content. Our scripts were well written and had good plots but they didn’t really have all that much information.
- I would keep pretty much everything about this project the same. I think that other than incorporating a bit more collaboration and content that this project was successful.
Prior learning
What methods, theories, ideas and skills that you learned or used in class/current curriculum/other experiences were useful in completing this project?
The skills that were most useful in this project were staying diligent and trying to keep on task. This skill (when utilised) made my writing a lot easier and faster.
Present experience
What are two of the most significant things you did during the experience? Through those actions, how did you contribute to the success of the project?
The most significant things I did in this project was going really in depth in my Eco system description and connecting that to the Pika. Ths helped my project and my group because I think of it as the background that you need to have to understand and like the rest of the paper.
In what ways did you experience difficulties (e.g., interacting with others, accomplishing tasks) and what personal characteristics contributed to the difficulties (e.g., skills, abilities, perspectives, attitudes, tendencies, knowledge)?
Some difficulties I encountered were my group not being present for some of the time. Caeley had helped me in the project to try and keep on task and get the most work possible done which helped me alot. But when she was gone it made it harder to complete task due to me not always using my time for the best thing.
What assumptions or conceptions (about yourself, others, or how things work) were confirmed or contradicted by the experience?
I think that one that conception that I had was that I can wait until the end of a project of even a day and still be able to get my work done. This was proven by me getting distracted in this project at time and not really doing anything for portions of the class. On the outside it looks like i’m not doing anything for my group but in the end I was able to get my work done and have a good final result for me and my group.
What did you learn about your subject matter/research area that you had not known prior to having completed this project?
Most of my work on this project was in the ecosystem description, which is basically background for the rest of the paper. I learned a lot in this and it helped me because I live near this ecosystem and knowing all the questions that I had about the ecosystem helped me enjoy it even more. The main thing I learned about was the biotic and abiotic factors of this ecosystem
If you could do the project again, what might you do differently to achieve improved results?
If I were to do this project again I would like to change how we divided the work. We divided the work by section which was good because we had experts for each section that gave good contribution to their sections but we for the most part I for one didn't know much about the other section. If we divided each section up and made our own contributions to every section we would have a more rounded knowledge about our topic.
Your future
What could be the implications of what you learned from this experience for your future work/research/career?
I will use the knowledge that I got about researching in my future work. In this project I had to use a lot of outside sources for writing which required me to learn a lot about citing as well as finding reliable sources. I will take that from this project because it is a very necessary skill for most projects in school and life.
What skills, knowledge, or experience did you wish you had prior to attempting this project that would have aided you to get more from the experience and/or achieve a better outcome?
I wish that I had been better at coordination with my group members that weren't at school. THis would have helped us communicate with Caeley when she was out of town. I think that this skill would have made this project run smoother and we wouldn't have had to situate our final result on the last day when Caeley came back.
How well did the activities focused on in this experience mesh with your learning style?
My learning style focuses on interest, if I can find a lot of interest in something it will help me put out a better final product. In this project we went to do trail work in Durango and we looked into parts that made up this project. This helped me mesh my interest and my learning style.
How will having participated in this experience change how you approach projects/tasks/research in the future?
In the future I will focus more on doing group projects with more origination when it comes to keeping the work divided so we all take the same stuff away from the project. I will also try to organise communication better because that is the backbone of a good group.
What methods, theories, ideas and skills that you learned or used in class/current curriculum/other experiences were useful in completing this project?
The skills that were most useful in this project were staying diligent and trying to keep on task. This skill (when utilised) made my writing a lot easier and faster.
Present experience
What are two of the most significant things you did during the experience? Through those actions, how did you contribute to the success of the project?
The most significant things I did in this project was going really in depth in my Eco system description and connecting that to the Pika. Ths helped my project and my group because I think of it as the background that you need to have to understand and like the rest of the paper.
In what ways did you experience difficulties (e.g., interacting with others, accomplishing tasks) and what personal characteristics contributed to the difficulties (e.g., skills, abilities, perspectives, attitudes, tendencies, knowledge)?
Some difficulties I encountered were my group not being present for some of the time. Caeley had helped me in the project to try and keep on task and get the most work possible done which helped me alot. But when she was gone it made it harder to complete task due to me not always using my time for the best thing.
What assumptions or conceptions (about yourself, others, or how things work) were confirmed or contradicted by the experience?
I think that one that conception that I had was that I can wait until the end of a project of even a day and still be able to get my work done. This was proven by me getting distracted in this project at time and not really doing anything for portions of the class. On the outside it looks like i’m not doing anything for my group but in the end I was able to get my work done and have a good final result for me and my group.
What did you learn about your subject matter/research area that you had not known prior to having completed this project?
Most of my work on this project was in the ecosystem description, which is basically background for the rest of the paper. I learned a lot in this and it helped me because I live near this ecosystem and knowing all the questions that I had about the ecosystem helped me enjoy it even more. The main thing I learned about was the biotic and abiotic factors of this ecosystem
If you could do the project again, what might you do differently to achieve improved results?
If I were to do this project again I would like to change how we divided the work. We divided the work by section which was good because we had experts for each section that gave good contribution to their sections but we for the most part I for one didn't know much about the other section. If we divided each section up and made our own contributions to every section we would have a more rounded knowledge about our topic.
Your future
What could be the implications of what you learned from this experience for your future work/research/career?
I will use the knowledge that I got about researching in my future work. In this project I had to use a lot of outside sources for writing which required me to learn a lot about citing as well as finding reliable sources. I will take that from this project because it is a very necessary skill for most projects in school and life.
What skills, knowledge, or experience did you wish you had prior to attempting this project that would have aided you to get more from the experience and/or achieve a better outcome?
I wish that I had been better at coordination with my group members that weren't at school. THis would have helped us communicate with Caeley when she was out of town. I think that this skill would have made this project run smoother and we wouldn't have had to situate our final result on the last day when Caeley came back.
How well did the activities focused on in this experience mesh with your learning style?
My learning style focuses on interest, if I can find a lot of interest in something it will help me put out a better final product. In this project we went to do trail work in Durango and we looked into parts that made up this project. This helped me mesh my interest and my learning style.
How will having participated in this experience change how you approach projects/tasks/research in the future?
In the future I will focus more on doing group projects with more origination when it comes to keeping the work divided so we all take the same stuff away from the project. I will also try to organise communication better because that is the backbone of a good group.