Menu
A Year in Review
This year has been a very interesting one. In some respects I did well, and in others, not so much.
I have done several math bolts and an english bolt. Enough that I no longer need math credit. That english bolt then led me to starting NaNoWriMo that, while I didn’t do a great job, I hope to maybe pick back up during break and continue into January.
Sadly I haven’t done many IB’s but by far my favorite and best was the politics one. I had tons of fun and learned a lot about my political standing. Additionally the debate at the end was extremely entertaining. If another IB is provided that peaks my interest like that one, I will probably take it.
The other main IB I conducted was Byte-Sized math and while I have done a horrible job with following through, next term I hope to finish that and continue with Byte Sized History. Additionally, over break I hope to do a bit more and come closer to finish that mini-series.
In addition to all of this a group of us have started to correspond with a group of kids from Zimbabwe. This has been an awesome time and we will undoubtedly continue this through the school year.
We have also begun the beginning stages of Mosaic EDU with the eventual goal of running our own IB. WHile this is a long long way off the earliest steps have, so far, been very fun and I am excited to continue that into next year.
However, this semester, where I found myself truly succeeding was with my outside class Futurology. In fact my discussion for the second DoL was with discussing my process in that class. First, Marissa and I did something really cool in that we actually found a problem relating to water, and didn’t just try and assume anything. Instead we found the Douglas County Water Resource manager, called and set up a meeting. From there we were able to discuss water problems that Douglas County is facing in a pretty authentic way. However, we didn’t just stop there. After we met with him, we started coming up with solutions to this issue. But before we got too deep we contacted another professional in this field. He gave us even better information and helped us outline a few potential solutions, while giving us feedback on the ones we had thought of. Spoiler alert, they weren’t good. Finally, after talking with the first guy again and continuing to sift through this problem, we contacted another professional, this time Castle Rock’s water utilities manager. This time, we really struck gold. He outlined in awesome depth Castle Rock’s plan for water, and he gave us a ton of information about opportunities that we could potentially help out with this problem. And next semester, our plan is to take some of those opportunities and explore them in order to do our part in helping with this massive issue.
Finally, here are my plans for next semester. Number one is continue my work with futurology and thankfully Marissa will also be joining me. We have several next steps including sitting in on a city council meeting and joining a program called water ambassadors where we hope to teach elementary school kids about how to conserve water.
The other topic will be Mosaic ERU where I am going to design my own bolt, shadow different classes, and potentially culminate with the creation and leading of my very own inquiry block. I still have know idea on what I would like to do for this. However, slightly related is my desire to sit down with Dr. Calhoun and discuss how he became a teacher, then a principal, and how he assisted in the creation and protection of Mosaic. While I don’t know what I want to do after school, education is one field I am definitely interested in.
I also hope to continue with Byte Sized History, do a bit more writing, and continue the correspondence with ZImbabwe. But maybe even more than anything I have mentioned, if any opportunities come my way, I will not hesitate to explore them.
I have done several math bolts and an english bolt. Enough that I no longer need math credit. That english bolt then led me to starting NaNoWriMo that, while I didn’t do a great job, I hope to maybe pick back up during break and continue into January.
Sadly I haven’t done many IB’s but by far my favorite and best was the politics one. I had tons of fun and learned a lot about my political standing. Additionally the debate at the end was extremely entertaining. If another IB is provided that peaks my interest like that one, I will probably take it.
The other main IB I conducted was Byte-Sized math and while I have done a horrible job with following through, next term I hope to finish that and continue with Byte Sized History. Additionally, over break I hope to do a bit more and come closer to finish that mini-series.
In addition to all of this a group of us have started to correspond with a group of kids from Zimbabwe. This has been an awesome time and we will undoubtedly continue this through the school year.
We have also begun the beginning stages of Mosaic EDU with the eventual goal of running our own IB. WHile this is a long long way off the earliest steps have, so far, been very fun and I am excited to continue that into next year.
However, this semester, where I found myself truly succeeding was with my outside class Futurology. In fact my discussion for the second DoL was with discussing my process in that class. First, Marissa and I did something really cool in that we actually found a problem relating to water, and didn’t just try and assume anything. Instead we found the Douglas County Water Resource manager, called and set up a meeting. From there we were able to discuss water problems that Douglas County is facing in a pretty authentic way. However, we didn’t just stop there. After we met with him, we started coming up with solutions to this issue. But before we got too deep we contacted another professional in this field. He gave us even better information and helped us outline a few potential solutions, while giving us feedback on the ones we had thought of. Spoiler alert, they weren’t good. Finally, after talking with the first guy again and continuing to sift through this problem, we contacted another professional, this time Castle Rock’s water utilities manager. This time, we really struck gold. He outlined in awesome depth Castle Rock’s plan for water, and he gave us a ton of information about opportunities that we could potentially help out with this problem. And next semester, our plan is to take some of those opportunities and explore them in order to do our part in helping with this massive issue.
Finally, here are my plans for next semester. Number one is continue my work with futurology and thankfully Marissa will also be joining me. We have several next steps including sitting in on a city council meeting and joining a program called water ambassadors where we hope to teach elementary school kids about how to conserve water.
The other topic will be Mosaic ERU where I am going to design my own bolt, shadow different classes, and potentially culminate with the creation and leading of my very own inquiry block. I still have know idea on what I would like to do for this. However, slightly related is my desire to sit down with Dr. Calhoun and discuss how he became a teacher, then a principal, and how he assisted in the creation and protection of Mosaic. While I don’t know what I want to do after school, education is one field I am definitely interested in.
I also hope to continue with Byte Sized History, do a bit more writing, and continue the correspondence with ZImbabwe. But maybe even more than anything I have mentioned, if any opportunities come my way, I will not hesitate to explore them.
The Mosaic Extreme Mission Administration. In this project we designed a full scale mission to any place that we deemed "extreme." We learned the various sciences we needed to figure out if the missions were feasible with current technology and if it wasn't then we had to figure out what kind of tech we might need. From there we designed logos for your mission and created a website as a hub for your mission.
|
The World Affairs Challenge or WAC is a completion where teams from various schools select problems in various countries and attempt to come up with solutions to them. From there we present to various judge panels and are scored on content, creativity, and other things. Our team managed to receive the award for "best newcomer team." The day of the presentation was incredibly fun and the whole process was extremely informative.
|
Byte-Sized HistoryA love of history combined with a lack of internet videos regarding history prompted me to begin the creation of a YouTube channel Byte-Sized History. For the past few months I have been developing a workflow in order to create 3-5 minute videos on various historical topics. At this point I have 4 full videos with several in the works and dozens of ideas in my head.
|
Free TibetLast year 2 other students and myself were given an opportunity to work with an organization that is trying to fight for Tibet's freedom. In conjunction with them we designed a march from castle rock to Boulder in order to raise awareness about. In boulder we would have actually met up with the Dali Lama. However he had to cancel his visit to Boulder.
|