Here's a link to the project description: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GApq0DMYGjDjNmk2XpmX9XRkek7UlE0OIcUuG5vXvEo/edit?usp=sharing For this project, I was in a group with Angel Rios and Mariah Perez. Together, we were able to mostly split the work to the best of our abilities. Unfortunately due to availability and time, I had to do the majority of the work myself. Though, my other group members did try to make up for it. We were able to keep our relationship professional, yet causal, so we had some fun while working. We might've not been the best team, but we did pretty well despite the drawbacks. As a group member, I think I could've tried to get my group members to do their part in a timely manner as well as try to stop putting myself in overwhelming situations.
In Humanities, we read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, researched and made a presentation on a totalitarianism government, and created zines on controversial topics. We visited a lot of sites, had a lot of critique sessions and learned a lot about where to look or what to look for. For our regime presentation, my group got Syria, and though it's a current event and facts aren't caught up-to-date, we were able to research quite a lot about the information that was already known about the event. Our zine topic was about feminism/Gender Equality/misconceptions about it, and we each wrote a persuasive writing pieces on the different sides of feminism as well as made censorship visual poem for it. The book, Fahrenheit 451, was a book about a fireman who has second thoughts about the society he lives in, and it relates to the society that the people in a totalitarianism government have to go through.
In Physics, we learned the basics for Thermodynamics as well as creating Phase Diagrams. The basics of Thermodynamics helped a bit with the Stirling Engines we made in Engineering, we learned about heat energy, how the cold is the lack of heat, the definitions of absolute zero, phase changes, etc. With that, we were able to made a Phase Diagram comparing the characters of Fahrenheit 451 to the different phases, and everyone had different opinions about who's what. For example, I chose Beatty as the highest energy because he died. He could've been just like society, where everyone's lives is automatic and fast-paced, but there was evidence in the book that he's been egging the main character to kill him.
In Engineering, we used some of the Physic concepts to learn about and build our own Stirling Engines. The Stirling Engines were constructed using soda cans, CDs, music and coat hanger wire, a 90 degree elbow PVC pipe, and a balloon. With those items, we made parts, including the pressure chamber, drive push rod, flywheel, crankshaft, displacer push rod, etc. We watched a lot of YouTube videos as well as read over written instructions to build it as well as how it works. The Stirling Engine actually converts heat into mechanical energy, when adding a heat and cold source to an assembled engine, the heat expands the air in the pressure chamber which pushes the drive push rod (PVC pipe and Balloon) to move the crankshaft, thus rotating the flywheel(CD); the cold source then compresses the air, the displacer push rod then rises, causing the cycle to keep going, if the Stirling Engine is done correctly.
The exhibition went fantastically! Everyone know what they're were doing, the displays were interesting and the people were interacting closely with each person. My group's final products were a professional presentation about the Syrian regime, completed black-and-white zine copies about Feminism/Gender Equality, and a cleaned up, presentable Stirling Engine, though it didn't work. For the presentation, I took a lot of the critique given into account, and added a lot of more engaging activities and visuals. I was able to organized and participate in most of the pages for the zine and I contributed a lot of effort into building the Stirling Engine. For this project, I'm a bit sad to say, but I actually had to do most of the work myself. My group members were either in a weird schedule or hard to cooperate with, so I took on the work while encouraged the other to do their parts. I researched quite a lot for the presentation, even creating almost all of the slides and all edits to the final one. I did four out of the eight pages for the zine, including the title and the censorship visual poetry, and I helped construct a lot of the Stirling Engine. With the 9th grade learning outcomes: work ethic, collaboration, oral communication, written communication, content knowledge, I would like to give myself an A or A-. I knew everything about all of the products we worked on for the project and put every detail into them, researching for the zine and the regime as well as paying close attention the the functions of the Stirling Engine and explaining them as best I could during the exhibition. Though for the first presentation I wasn't the most professional speaker but I made up for it in the final one, especially when a person came over and started bombarding me with harsh critique and information/opinions near the end of the exhibition. Everything I've done for the presentation and the zine has been redone over and over again, everything to the best of of my ability. I worked hard for every little or large steps, putting a lot of extra thought/things into each product. With the zine, I drew the two pictures by myself as well as the background info page and the mandatory persuasive writing piece. For collaboration, I would think it could be worked on, my group and I were all friends so I found it a bit hard having to be the strict and stressed out one, when they're messing around more than working. I believe I should've urged to work a bit more seriously on all of the products instead of just doing it myself, but I'm not much of a leader. I actually did get overwhelmed with stress about everyone, even though I had finished most of the work, I don't think it was healthy to do what I had to go through for this project, but I'm starting to think it's a habit. I do hope to work on that soon.