9th Grade

For a month or two, our Literature class read several short stories and wrote reports about each of them. The Story of an Hour told a story of an hour in one woman's day. The most dangerous Game tells about a scene similar to The Hunger Games, where one person is trying to kill another, on a deserted island. The Lottery is a story about a town that kills one random person per year. Desiree's Baby is about a woman that has a son, who shows the physical traits of sommeone who isn't European.

After we read all of these stories, we were instructed to create our own short stories. My story was based of of a group of four teens: Nari, Grey, Aryn, and Arya. They live on Mars in a distopian future, where Earth is just a myth, ad children don't learn about it in school.

Sundiata Video

In September we were assigned to recreate a scene from Sundiata in a group. We performed this play and were graded off of how well we performed, how we used our resources to create props, and how accurate it was.

Purple Hibiscus Essay

This essay was was written on the novel Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an award winning novelist. My essay covered the main character, Kambili, and her struggle with family & growing up.

Out of Control-Short Story

Every A-day, I go to Mr. Morrison, who is the Geometry teacher. Instead of sitting in hour-long-lectures, Mr. Morrison has us do the do now and present to our class, and then explains some basic concepts. Afterwards, its up to us to complete our work. We can ask for help, but the overall point is to try to figure it our ourselves. At the end of the class we turn in our work, or we can turn it in before 8:00am the next day.

Unit 1 was based off of Transformations in the Corinate Plane(15%). This included translations, reflections, rotations, dialations, pre-image, image, congruence vs. Similarity, and symmetry. Unit 2 was based off of Right Triangle Trigonometry(15%). This included the Pythagoreum theorem, Pythagoreum theorem converse, sine, cosine, tangent, inverse sine, inverse cosine, inverse tangent, and the angle of elevation & depression. Unit 3A was based off of Lines, Angles, and Triangles(15%). This included parallel lines cut by a transversal, triangle congruency, triangle similarity, similarity transformations, congruence in terms of rigid motions, geometric constructions, and theorems about lines, angles, and triangles.

Ramp Design

Our ramp design was in groups of four. I was in a group with Alexandria, Johnathan, and Ellis. We designed a ramp with several features, while regarding the rules and regulations. We had to make sure the ramp was accessible to the disabled, yet was still short and looked good.

2-Way Table Project

This project used probability and data collection to show that there is a corralation with family size and a student's GPA.

What I didn't expect about 9th grade Science fair is that it's much simpler than Elementary & Middle School. Everything is on the computer, and your project will be more focused on the data and your findings, than how unique your idea is. On the other hand, in High School you have to prioritize your time well because there won't be set dates for specific parts of your project. In class, we did several labs, and when it came around to October, we chose one of the labs we did, and made a project about it.

I chose the Acceleration and Freefall lab. This lab focused around a cart and how the cart rolled up and down a metal ramp. I used an app called SPARKvue, to monitor the change in acceleration. I presented in front of my family to get a feel of what it would be like, and then I presented at the School Science fair. In class we did a constructive criticism with our peers where we presented our project, and then had others write a reflection about it.

Free Body Diagram

A free body diagram is a illustration used to visualize applied forces, movement, and in which direction the object will go in. For this project, we created our own free body diagrams. Our class used a program called Canva to create our posters. This project could be about whatever we wanted(soccer, dance, rock-climbing, etc). We then were chosen, at random, to present in front of the class.

My free body diagram shows two ice dancers. My free body diagram shows the normal force going upwards, the applied force going to the right(the direction of movement), friction going to the right(against the direction of movement), and the force of gravity going downwards. Although theoretically, ice should be frictionless, the blades from the Zamboni and from the skates cut tiny ridges in the ice, causing unexpected friction. I chose this project to display because it shows thing we learned from 8th grade Physical Science, and from this first semester.

Name Tag Circuit

One of our first projects with Mr. Vanderplait, was our name tags. He taught us how to create a full functioning circuit, using simple materials, and then we put our circuits onto note cards.

House Project

Part 1

The first part of this project is researching and recording data about the countries Argentina and Ireland. I was assigned Argentina as my PING(developing) country, and Ireland as my PED(developed) country. We use the CIA, ThoughtCo, and Infoplease, to collect data about our countries. The type of Information we recorded was about the geography, government, economy, population, energy, communications, transportation, military & security, terrorism, and transnational issues. This info was put in a chart and used to create a description of the country.

Part 2

A population pyramid is a chart that shows the correlation of gender, age, and the population count. For part 2 of this project I created population pyramids for Argentina and Ireland. I used the website here, and recorded the data into a spreadsheet. I titled the sheet “PING Population Pyramid”, and labeled the following as A1= Age Range; B1= Male%; C1= Female%. Then, I entered the age ranges in column A and the percentages in Columns B and C. All Male percentages must be entered as negatives, while female is positive. Once all of the data was entered, I highlighted all of the data. Then I clicked “INSERT” to ”CHART” and changed the chart style to “STACKED BAR CHART”. Then I clicked “CUSTOMIZE” to the “VERTICAL AXIS” drop down. Lastly, I checked the “REVERSE AXIS ORDER” box.

Part 3

Part 3 to this project is to create a map to show different cultures and where they originate from. We used the website here, and used the info from it. We opened a Google My Maps, and searched for Israel, the Amazon Rainforest, Pennsylvania, Mexico, America, North Baffin Island, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Vanuatu, Japan, China, and Arizona. Once we added all of them to the map, we filled in descriptions for each of them. Then we added photos and unique icons for each.

Culture Mingle

This assignment showed how people from different cultures mingle, interact, and treat each other. ​Before we started the experiment, we were separated into randomized groups. We were then named as a specific candy and given sheets with "rules" and "guidelines" to follow. For example, I was part of the "Snickers Culture" and we couldn't look people in the eye. We also had to bow and say "salutations" when we met a new person and we idolized people from the Pocky Culture.

At the end of the experiment, we had an oral reflection. We shared our feelings about the experiment and told everybody what culture we were from and explained some of our odd behaviors. This point of this experiment is to show that different cultures/religions have different traditions and practices. I think we were supposed to learn how to show people respect no matter what culture they had, and to try to connect despite differences. It's important to learn about culture because there’s a lot of people in the world, and if we aren’t accepting, then we may miss some great opportunities to learn/do something.

App

For our headbandz game, we created cards with a photo on one side, which the player is unable to see. They then have to ask yes or no questions(in spanish), in order to guess what the photo displays.

Personal Portfolio

For our end of semester assignment, we were instructed to create a portfolio that showed our presentation writing skills, listening skills, presentation speaking skills, reading comprehension skills, and our knowledge of cultural awareness.

STAMP Testing

For this Spring concert, our class played Focus by Her, Great Day, and Pizzoli. We started practicing Pizzoli in late 2018, and we started the other two pieces in January.

Winter Holiday Performance - 2018

For this Holiday concert, our class was assigned to play O' Christmas Tree by Ernst Anschütz, Over the Rainbow by Yip Harburg, and Havana by Camila Cabello. We started practicing in August, and throughout these months, we had several auditions and mini performances.

The Georgia Chapter of the American Harp Society's 40 Years Performance