Saihaj’s Blog

Source: CameraGurus

For my in-depth project, I’ll be learning about photography in nature. More specifically, I’ll be learning how to use the different features of a camera to take the best, most interesting photos I can, and for this I’ll be using what I find outdoors. I’ll also be learning how to take photos in environments where it might be too bright or too dark. Adapting to the environment is a skill I want to learn during this project. 

In my opinion, some of the best photos can be taken in the natural world. I’ve always been interested in photography because of what you can do with a single camera. If you have the knowledge and skills, you can tell stories and capture an amazing moment in a single photo. This is what I aim to be able to do by the end of this project, and hopefully I’ll continue to build on my skills even after the project is over. 

My goal is to know the camera inside out and how to use it to take beautiful photos outside, and my first step was to find a mentor who knew all about photography to guide me through this project. Ms. Kim, the Gleneagle photography teacher, kindly agreed to be my mentor. My next step was to know the basic features of a camera and understand everything about them that I needed to. During my first meeting with Ms. Kim, these basic features were what I focused on. She taught me about two main features: aperture and shutter speed. 

I learned that aperture is about the opening of a camera’s lens. Aperture can be adjusted by changing the f-stop. A lower f-stop means the lens is wide open, allowing more light through, and a higher f-stop means the opposite, allowing less light through the lens. If you want to take a photo of a landscape, for example, you’d want a higher f-stop, and this means a deep depth of field. If you want to focus on an object and blur the background, you’d want a lower f-stop, creating a shallow depth of field. 

Exposure is another term I learned about. It refers to the brightness of a photo. A lower f-stop allows more light through the lens of the camera, and taking a photo with too low of an f-stop can result in overexposure, meaning the photo is too bright. 

Shutter speed was the second main feature of the camera that I learned. Shutter speed refers to how fast the camera takes the photo. A high shutter speed means the camera will take the photo quickly. This is a good feature to know when you are taking photos of moving objects. 

After teaching me about these features, Ms. Kim told me that I could take some photos with the new skills I learned, and she’d give me feedback for our next meeting. I got to look at some examples of previous student’s work, which gave me an idea of how I should use these features to take photos. My plan is to use the skills that I learn in every meeting and spend time every week practicing taking photos with these skills. I’ll build on them until I’m ready to create my final project. Overall, this meeting with my mentor was a good start to this project and I’m looking forward to learning more skills and implementing them in my photography. 

 

Welcome to my TALON talk about the effectiveness of sanitizers!

Below is the link to my PowerPoint. (This PowerPoint has a voiceover and switches slides automatically, so just press play.)

My TALON Talk: Hand Sanitizers

There were several points in this video that stood out to me. The first one was one of the myths that are often believed by people in the middle: the Position Myth: “I can’t lead if I am not at the top.” (Maxwell 2006). I found this interesting because it is a myth that I have often thought was true, and it changed my perspective. It means that if you do not have a position at the top, a position of power, you cannot be a good leader because people will not follow you. What I learned is that people will follow you if you are a good leader. You do not necessarily have to have a position with lots of power to lead people. “You can lead from anywhere in an organization. And when you do, you can make the organization better.” (Maxwell, 2006).  

This is important for TALONS because each of us should know that we don’t have to be assigned a leadership position in order to make a change. Whether we’re doing a project or hiking in a group, every person in the group can contribute and lead others in some way. It’s also helpful for me to know outside of TALONS because I’ll remember not to become frustrated or believe that I can’t be a good leader if I’m not in a position of power. Instead, I’ll work toward making the best impact that I can in the position that I have.  

Another point that was inspiring to me was when he talked about “leading up”. Leading up means influencing the person/people in a position of power. If you can influence a leader in a positive way, you’ve done something great. Leading up principles include lifting the leader’s load, finding ways to succeed with difficult people, and valuing the leader’s time. This section also emphasizes the difference between leading and managing, which I thought was a great point. If you can work toward being a better leader yourself, you can follow many of the leading up principles such as lightening the leader’s load. The book also states that “helping your leaders means supporting them and standing up for them whenever you can.” (Maxwell 2006) 

I find leading up and influencing the leader important for a few reasons. Firstly, the leader might need assistance. Giving help to them is a good deed, and one that they may remember for a while. Second, if you can teach the leader or provide feedback, shaping the way they lead for the better, you are doing something great for the entire organization. I think it’s a good reminder that you can always influence people that are in positions higher than you. Knowing this improves my leadership skills because I won’t only focus on helping and providing feedback to people that are in positions below or equal to mine, but also help the organization by providing help and feedback to those in leadership positions. It applies to TALONS because it’s important for us to give our opinions and thoughts to those who are leading group activities. 

The third point that stood out to me was one of the challenges 360-degree leaders face: “The Multi-Hat Challenge”. This challenge is all about how 360-degree leaders must switch up their attitude or how many responsibilities they take on based on who they’re with. “Remember that the hat sets the context when interacting with others.” (Maxwell 2006). It can be difficult to switch your hat so many times, and I chose to include this point because of how relatable it is and because I know it’s a challenge that I’ll relate to even more once I begin taking jobs. It’s also relative to TALONS because depending on who we’re interacting with, we must change the way we act and how we take the lead. For example, if there’s a teacher or even an older TALONS learner that is stepping up and taking charge, we should know to let them lead and fulfill our duties. Of course, it’s important to give them feedback and voice our opinion when necessary. Knowing when to change my hat and what to change it to is good for my leadership skills, especially if I’m leading in the middle. I cannot treat those who are in higher leadership positions the exact same way that I treat those who are in positions below mine. I would not treat them with any less respect, but rather take more responsibility to lead these people. 

Welcome to my learning centre about Marie Curie! Please follow the steps below.

1. Watch video

2. Read about my interview 

3. Take quiz

Sources

 

Interviewing my partner was a good experience for me. Firstly, I got to learn more about them and their interests. It was a good way of seeing how they were doing and handling our first year of high school. It showed me that they had different expectations than I did coming into high school, and showed me that I wasn’t the only one who was a bit stressed since the homework had increased and gotten more difficult.  

This interview also gave me more practice with my interviewing skills. It allowed me to see my limitations and strengths when interviewing someone, and now that I know what they are I can work on improving certain skills. It taught me that I need to start off my interview strong, first asking how the person is doing then beginning with questions such as asking how and when they gained interest in the topic that I’m interviewing them on. I learned that I must prepare and polish my questions before I hold my next interview, and make sure that there are always questions I can ask if there’s a pause in the conversation. I’ve also learned that follow-up questions are important and fairly easy to come up with as I’m doing the interview. However, I need to make sure that I stay on track and ask the questions that I need to ask.  

After doing this interview with my partner, I know now that I have to be careful using words such as “uh” and “um” when I’m hesitating. I should instead take a moment to gather myself and look at the questions I’m supposed to be asking. For the most part, I think my questions flowed well throughout this interview, aside from a pause here and there, and I must remember to keep this up during the interview that I’ll be doing about my eminent person.

Looking at other’s blog posts about their eminent person was a good experience. I learned more about different people that made a great impact on society, most of whom I had never heard much about before. There was a wide range of fields that these people worked in, from politics to research in physics. All of them helped improve our living in some way, and I found it very interesting to read about the barriers that they had to overcome to get to make the change that they are recognized for.  

Reading the posts also helped me learn more about my classmates and what their interests and passions are. I learned this when I read about their connections to their eminent person and saw how many of them shared interests with their eminent person.  

Looking at my classmates’ posts will help me for my project because reading them gave me an idea of what everyone is focusing on in their eminent person, and the important parts of my eminent person that I should do the most research on. For example, looking at the posts showed me that everybody put a lot of work into proving how important their eminent person was to the field that they worked in. Overall, everyone did a great job with their introductions and showed how passionate they were about the person that they chose.  

Marie Curie once said, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

What drew me to Marie was her strength, intelligence, and perseverance. She worked incredibly hard for what she was passionate about, and although many didn’t believe in her as a woman in science, she made breakthrough discoveries and changed the way we understand radioactivity. Like her, I would like to innovate and make a positive impact on the world one day. In TALONS, I work every day toward becoming a more intelligent person and making this change like Marie did. She exemplifies my goals of being strong and working around obstacles, which included people who didn’t believe in her and tried to dismiss her intelligence. I also share similar interests with her in chemistry. I hope to have her good work ethic and perseverance, because I believe that’s part of what makes a successful person. She always had to work through the struggle of being a woman that wanted to innovate and change the world, trying to dismiss the standards that were held against her. I believe this will be something I’ll also struggle with if I take the path that I hope to with my career, although times have definitely changed from when she was working in her field nearly a century ago. In my project, I’ll address these barriers by naming some examples of what she went through and how she worked through these struggles. There was an instance where she was not accepted into the French Academy of Sciences simply because she was a woman. They did not accept her despite her intelligence and accomplishments, and she took this unfairness as motivation. She went on to make even more amazing discoveries in science. Throughout her life, she discovered two new elements, plutonium and radium, and won two Nobel Prizes, becoming the first person ever to do so, as well as the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. With her studies, she changed the way scientists understood radioactivity and paved the way for new discoveries. She also became an inspiration for girls all over the world, and still is, even after her death in 1934. I do believe she’ll still be remembered for a very long time from now, because she’s made a great impact in the research of radioactivity and made her way into history books. Discovering new elements and being the first person to win two Nobel Prizes will allow her to be remembered for a very long time to come. She deserves to be known and is worth learning about because of the positive impacts she left in the world, both in the world of science and and in the way she inspired people. There are many women who have made an amazing impact on the world, but I chose to do Marie Curie because of the impact she made in science, specifically chemistry, what she’s accomplished, and how much of an inspiration she is. She was hardworking, had many admirable traits, and certainly left her mark in the world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My goal for the next phase of research:

My first priority miss finding people to interview and collecting more information on Marie. From there I’ll do a bit of research on my own about where Marie came from and what her early years were like, then more research about her interest in chemistry. I’ll make a basic outline of important events throughout her lifetime, and from there I’ll research more in depth about her life and personality.