Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

Presentation

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why?

I'm pretty proud that I made time. I tend to talk really fast when i'm nervous, so I tried to put a lot of information into my presentation, and that ended up working out for me. I also didn't forget to talk about any of the information the I had put together, so I am also proud of that.

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why you earned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

For this lesson I would give myself a P. I did everything that was asked of me, including making time, citing my information, turning in my final lesson plan, keeping good eye contact, giving real life examples, having pictures, and talking about my mentor and mentorship.

3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson? How can you use that knowledge to give a better lesson two?

If I where to change anything about this lesson I would have probably have made a poster board to add more to my presentation. I had considered making one the night before, but I didn't want the poster board to look rushed, so I decided to just have pictures instead. I think in lesson two if were not allowed to use power points I will probably end up making a poster board to help my presentation. I also need to work on the fact that I say "Uh" with every other word.

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

Interview

https://soundcloud.com/kyn9/interview-3

Game from the water conservation fair

1. Please explain how your spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else? Are you shadowing? Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to this topic? If so, what? Are there other people who are experts in this location? Etc...)

I am spending my mentorship time at the Montclair city hall. I am working in the stormwater section, and am shadowing and working with Joe Rosales and his coworker Wendy. I have shadowed them during routine inspections for restaurants and manufacturing buildings. I have also helped contribute to the water conservation fair, by helping creating a game and going to the fair and helping run the game. There are not a lot of people in storm water or water conservation, but there are other people in the different city halls that deal with it.

2. How did you find your mentor? How did you convince this person to help you?

I found my mentor with the help of Mrs. Ortega. He mentored a senior last year who had a similar topic to mine, so with her help I was able to contact him and ask him about a mentorship.We met a couple days later at his work, where we talked somewhat about what we would be doing in the mentorship, and he agreed to mentor me.

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship? How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person?

I am pretty comfortable with my mentor. He knows a lot about his work so i'm able to learn a lot about my topic. He has taught me a lot about the procedures that are required to make sure that contaminants are being kept from storm water.

4.What went well in this interview? Why do you think so? What do you still need to improve? How do you know? How will you go about it?

I think I was able to learn a lot about my mentor and his career in this interview. The questions weren't too complex but I learned about his job and the college he went through to get his job. I think I need to improve asking more follow up questions, and possibly more open ended questions. I could do this by reviewing other interviews.

Blog 9 Advisory Prep 3

Blogs

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc.)

I have a mentor named Joe Rosales, and I have already done my interview.

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic. Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.

The most promising and interesting portions of my topic are the the inventions people are creating to help conserve water, and how the lack of water is affecting ecosystems. I find these the most interesting because with these new inventions we can potentially help of fix the ecosystems that are being destroyed from lack of water. The ecosystems also interest me because they show the affects of the drought and why we cant afford to waste any water.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next to gain more research depth? Where will you go to get them?

I think since this is a more modern thing so a lot more internet and newspaper articles will help me. I have two books that I plan on reading that have a lot to do with my topic. I think sources based on the water and its affects will really help me out.

4. Write down a possible EQ. Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers. At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

What is the best possible way to conserve and protect our water and ecosystems?

Blog 8: Indepedent Component 1 proposal

Independent Component

1. Describe in detail on what you plan on doing for 30 hours.

My independent component is going to be based on finding how much people really know about water conservation. With water conservation being such a hot topic right now, people tend to believe that they know everything they could possibly know about it. In truth though, there are a lot of important details that people have never even heard of. For my component I would be making a survey to find out the most common details that people don't know about. I would also using this survey to hopefully prove why educating the public about water conservation is so important. I will ask about ten questions to at least 100 people. The people will mostly be people I don't know, for example I could walk around the mall for a day and take multiple surveys. I will also be doing a lot of research on the questions I can ask, and then some more on how I could help people if they don't know an answer to a question. When this is done, I will compile all of my information together to make a chart and complete analysis on the information I gathered.

2. Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

To meet my 30 hours I will be doing a lot of research on important factors of water conservation, and then creating questions that I will pile together into a survey. I will then survey about 100 people, and make a chart and in depth analysis of my findings. The evidence I will have of my thirty hours will be the research, the surveys, the chart, and the analysis.

3. Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

Doing the research and the surveys will allow me to see and prove how important educating the public about water conservation is. The questions of the survey will also allow me to see what specific things that people know the least about in this topic. The research for my analysis and the creation of it should help me figure out how I could further teach people about the certain aspects of the topic that they knew the least about.

Blog 7 - Second Interveiw Preperation

Interviews 

1. Who is your mentor and where do they work? If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

My mentors name is Joseph Rosales, and he works for San Bernardino Storm Water Pollution Prevention. There job involves handling water conservation as well as water pollution. 

2. What five questions will you ask them about their background?

1. How did you get in this career?
2. What made you choose this career?
3. Did you have to go to college to get this job?
4. What do you enjoy most about your career?
5. What is the main focus of your career?

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

Blogs

(I'm enjoying this project)

1. What has worked well for you concerning your senior project? What has made it a positive experience for you?

My Senior topic is really interesting to me. I have enjoyed researching it so far and enjoy when I find out new things about my topic. I think having the blog is a good way to keep myself organised so I can remember what I have done and can go back to it if I need too. 

2. What are you finding difficult concerning the senior project? How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you? How might the senior team help?

Concerning the senior project I do not yet have a mentor, but have spoken to a few of the senior team about it and I am working towards getting one. I also don't think this is a problem yet, but I have no idea what I'm going to do my independent component on. I think for that I'm going to try and find examples from previous senior projects and then work on making my own idea of one.

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

Interview

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview? Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

The most important thing I learned from this interview was that I should always come prepared with a lot of questions and shouldn't be afraid to ask follow up questions. The questions should just be yes or no questions, and should be more open ended. In my next interview i'm going to definitely have more questions, and try to make the interview longer if I can.

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts? What is the most useful and why?

I got a few more resources, such as websites and books. A helpful website that he gave me was motherjones.com. The person I interviewed also directed me toward a few scientists journals that I might want to look up. Also, as mentioned in the interview, he is helping me get a hold of some people that deal with water in Nevada. He also had me interview someone who works in water conservation over the summer, and I would be able to contact him for more questions.

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

My interviewee is qualified to help me because he works for a company that deals with and teaches people about water conservation. It teaches kids and adults more effective ways of farming. This includes teaching people how they can farm without the use of pesticides and without wasting water. He knows a lot about the subject of water conservation and about walker lake, which is a large part of my project.

Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep 1

House Advisory

My topic is water conservation. Since we are in a drought and I have had personal experience with the consequences of others wasting water, I thought this would be a good topic for me. From this topic I mainly hope to learn how to prevent wasting water, and how to teach others how to not waste water. People would be surprised on how little every day things can help conserve water. I would also like to help prevent farmers and large companies from wasting water. There are so many alternatives that they can use, yet they still use methods that wastes the most water. I would like to learn how to teach these people that conserving water will benefit greatly in the long run.

Blog 3 - First Interview Preperation

Interview

1. Who do you plan to interview? Why?

I plan on interviewing my summer mentor, Jeff Bryant. I plan on interviewing him because I think he would have good answers to these questions. I believe he would have good ideas on resources that I can use on my topic and he knows people that I can talk to for more interviews.

2. What additional questions do you plan on asking? What are open ended questions?

• Do you have any articles that you recommend for me to go over?
• Where can I go to find out more information about my topic?
• What is your opinion on water conservation? 
• Do you think that its extremely important for people to start changing their habits on wasting water?

Open ended questions are Questions that can't be given a straight or one worded answer. An open ended question can have many responses to it and can in some cases lead to more questions.

Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

Mentorship

Tomatoes growing in the green house

Part of the Urban Roots farm

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

Me mentors name is Jeff Bryant. His phone number is 775-636-5105, and his organization in Urban Roots.

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?

Urban Roots is a company that teaches kids and young adults about farming. This includes teaching the them different ways of conserving water while growing crops. A lot of water is wasted while growing different crops, so this organisation helps try and teach people alternatives that prevent that. My mentor was qualified as an expert in my topic choice because he helped found the company and works hard to teach the new generation about better farming methods, which includes water conservation.

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.

• Why do farmers think that "flooding" is the best way to water a field?
• What are some ways that the government can help fix our water issues?
• How much water from Walker lake has been taken by farmers in the last ten years?

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

From this experience I learned how much water can be wasted from just one farmer, and how unnecessary it is. Flooding is when farmers flood their fields with water every other month. This method doesn't work very well as most of the water isn't absorbed by the plants, but instead evaporated. The plants cant absorb as much water that's flooded into the fields, so a lot of it goes to waste. There are so many alternatives to flooding as well, such as drip, which is a water line that drips water onto the plants. This way the plants get all of the water and none of it is wasted. There are also other plants that you can plant in the fields that help greatly with the plants growth. From this I learned that there is no good reason on why we are wasting as much water as we are.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be? How did mentorship help you make this decision? Please explain.

My senior topic is going to be water conservation. I first chose this topic because of Walker Lake, and I still want that to be apart of my my topic, but from this mentorship I learned that water conservation is a bigger issue than I had previously thought. So much water is being wasted, and in this drought, wildlife and ecosystems are suffering. This may not be affecting us, but if we keep the same habits that we have now, it could have some major consequences in the future. This mentorship also showed me how I could help conserve water, and how I can teach others as well.

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

Research

1. What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

The three lessons that where most useful for me to see were storm water, and the veterinary science presentations. Storm water was related to one of my topic ideas, which is water conservation. Watching this presentation gave me ideas of what I should and shouldn't do if I where to choose water conservation as my topic. The presentation went pretty well, but there where a few things I would change. I actually went to all three veterinary science presentations, and they all helped me get a general idea of what I would do if I where to choose this as my topic. Watching these presentations also helped me decide that I would want to do my presentation on wild animals rather than house pets.

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

Something that I learned was that its better to find a topic that I would enjoy.  If I don't enjoy or am not interested in my topic the project could become very boring and would eventually turn into a lot of work. I also learned not to pick a topic just because its easier to find a mentor, as this could also lead to the project becoming really boring as well. Finally I learned that its ok to change topics, so long as I don't change it to late.

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

I am considering water conservation and veterinary science. I am considering water conservation because where I grew up there is a lake that is continually growing smaller as the years go by. The lake is getting smaller for a few reasons, such as the fact that large parts of America are in a drought, and that farmers continually take water from the lake with no limitations. Their are other points that I would bring into the project as well, but water conservation is something that I believe strongly in. I am also considering veterinary science because its a career I may be interested in going into. If I were to do my presentation on veterinary science though I would probably do my project based around larger animals, which could be leaning more towards zoology.

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula... we want this question to come from you genuine interests).

Water Conservation - What is the best possible way to regulate how much water large businesses/farms take and how it is used?

Veterinary Science - What is the best way to properly care for a wild and injured animal?

5. What are some ideas you have about finding a summer mentorship?

For water conservation there are a few people my dad knows who can help me out, including a few of the farmers in that area, and even a person who owns one of the farms. If I choose this as my topic I will probably end up contacting one of them. For veterinary science there is a veterinarian that doesn't live far from us who I could contact and ask if I could volunteer.