The Genius project is the idea of choosing any idea that we wanted to focus on and letting us do it. The idea is to give us time and motivation to do something that we truly enjoy instead of just working on schoolwork. Mrs. Depriest wanted us to enjoy the project. We had 9 weeks to focus on accomplishing one thing we wanted to get done. I chose to get my amateur radio license because I love to build and fly RC planes and wanted to do something called first person view or FPV flying. To do this I need my radio license. This Project let me accomplish this goal as otherwise I would not have had enough time to do so. 

This project really connects to the JAGS pillar take action. As a freshman I was unsure how to do a large project and handle many of the challenges that came with it. This project taught me how to plan in advance and to take action. Within the project I had to learn how to plan in advance. For example, there were only a few times and places I could take my amateur radio test. Therefore, I had to plan ahead and make sure I learned all of the information in time. I feel that this project truly helped me learn how to plan ahead and organize myself. It helped to set a foundation on how to do large projects in the future.

To see more on this project visit my website on the at:

https://sites.google.com/bearworks.jackson.sparcc.org/joshjanssengeniusproject/home

In our Go Night project, we had to choose one country and focus on gaining a broader understanding of that country. Its purpose was to help us understand more about the world and different countries. This project really helped me to gain a broader understanding of another country, especially as a freshman who did not know too much about the world yet. We had multiple parts of this project. We had to collect information about our country such as the imports and exports, environment, GDP, etc. and record that information in part one. Then using that information, we made a trifold about that country and presented it at GO Night. In part 2 of this project, we compared our country to one of the UN sustainability goals and described how the politics in the country were shaping it. When we presented our countries at GO Night, we presented our countries in pairs. We presented with the group from China. While we were presenting, we had to compare these countries, therefore helping to deepen our understanding of these countries. This project helped me learn more about Brazil and its similarities to other countries such as China, as well as how politics in Brazil are affecting UN sustainability goals. 

I connected this project with recognizing perspective and communicating ideas as it truly helped me to understand more about the world and the way that people lived in it. One moment that really stood out to me occurred during the presentation. I was presenting my information on my trifold as well as the connection to the UN Sustainability Goals. With the UN sustainability goals, I talked about the current political election that occurred in 2022 between Lula and Bolsonaro. They each had very different opinions on how to deal with UN sustainability goals relating to deforestation. I was talking about that when one of my classmate's moms came up and started discussing this with me. She was actually from Brazil, and this really helped me to gain a deeper understanding and perspective on the political situation in Brazil. This really helped to understand the JAGS ideas of recognizing perspectives as it deepens my understanding of the political issues within Brazil. I also feel that this project helped me to communicate ideas as it really helped me learn how to present as it was one of my first major presentations.

JAGS Freshman trip to Heifer, Harper's Ferry, and Flight 93 Memorial

2023

Investigating the world and Recognizing perspectives

Our Freshman Trip was one of my favorite JAGS memories. We got to go near the end of school in May. We took buses from the high school to the flight 93 memorial, then we went to harpers ferry and heifer global village. This was a good way to begin to learn how to travel on my own. This was a really cool trip in which we bonded as a program. 

This trip helped me to investigate the world and recognize perspectives. The Flight 93 memorial was very interesting and truly brought the 9/11 terrorist attacks into perspective. Seeing the memorial helped me to understand what sacrifices people made. It was also very cool to see all of the historical sights of America such as Harpers Ferry. Harpers Ferry was where John Brown tried to instigate a slave rebellion to get rid of slavery. Seeing the town was very interesting as it helped to show the conflict of the civil war first hand. The biggest experience I had during this trip though was Heifer Global Village. This truly helped me to understand the world and recognize perspective. In Heifer Global Village we each got assigned a country that we had to live in for the night. We could only bring a sleeping bag with us. We had to cook and trade for materials so we could eat. There were many different countries such as Thailand, Tabeit, and Mozambique. I was in Guatemala (pictured above to the far left). We had to live and work in these countries as if we were there. This was a very unique opportunity that truly helped me to understand how other people in the world live. Before this I would have never thought about it. This is an experience that forever changed my views on the world and how people live and work.

With this Chinese Presentation we had to choose one country from around the world and present the different types of traditional clothes they wear. This was such an interesting project as we had to research another culture in another language. Our group chose Mexico as the country we had to research. After we researched what types of clothes they traditionally wear, we decided on the huipil and sarape. We then introduced the type of clothing, the colors, the material used, the origin, the meaning, and the price in a Chinese presentation. We also had to recreate the clothing out of recycled newspaper to demonstrate for the class what it would look like. 

This presentation represents the ideas of communicating ideas and investigating the world. This presentation represents communicating ideas as we had to research another culture and then present these ideas in front of the class. Furthermore, we had to do it in another language. I feel this helped me become a much better presenter overall. If you can do an entire presentation in another language, then you can most definitely do one in English. This really helped to learn how to research and present ideas better. This also connects to the JAGS pillar of investigating the world as I learned so much more about Mexican culture and what they wear despite speaking a different language while presenting it. This was such a unique way to learn about another culture as you are learning about two different cultures at the same time.

Summit Night Project

2023

JAGS Biology, Mr. Preston

Investigate the World and Recognize Perspectives

In this project My partner and I had to choose a country and focus on basic information and then relate it to two of the UN sustainability goals. First we had to choose a country to do our research on. We ended up choosing Morocco because it was a country we did not know too much about and we wanted to learn more about it. Then we had to do some basic research on Morocco such as what the government was like, its imports and exports, and its work force. We then used the basic information we gathered to figure out how we could connect it to a US sustainability goal. We choose goal 13 and goal 15 relating to climate change as these are big issues in Morocco. We then used our background knowledge in science to research why it was harming Morocco and what we can do here in Jackson Township to achieve these UN goals. 

This relates to the JAGS pillar of investigating the world as we began to research how Morocco was being affected compared to other countries and what is happening. This helped us to gain a better understanding of Morocco and what challenges they are facing.