For this part of the exhibition I wanted to show two of my past projects and show the difference half a year can make. First I will show some artefacts from both projects after each project I will write my thoughts on the topic and then include a 5 A's reflection based on authenticity, active learning, adult relationships, acedimic rigour and assessment. After that I will write an overall summary on the two and compare the differences.

My Thoughts:

This was by far my worst project looking back but at the time I was proud of the work I did, the term I did this project I had to stay at my mum's for 3 or 4 weeks as my dad had to travel because of work, I thought that I could look at the difference between city and rural gyms as she lived in inner Queensland and we were traveling to Sydney to see my auntie and her kids. I also wanted to do something about my fitness at this time I weighed around 115kg, I was big into biking at the time and thought that if I could improve my original speed and distance by riding my bike regularly it could help me lose some weight, everything was going well, my times were improving and overall I was thrilled, but then my bike tire popped and I thought about giving up as I didn't know what else to do, but then I decided to go for runs daily, my first run It took me 30 minutes to run 2.5 km which is crazy to me looking back because now I can run a 2.5 km in 14 minutes, at the end of my project I ran 2.5km in 27 minutes which was my best time yet, I can't believe that I felt happy getting this time but I guess we all start somewhere. Some of the things I could have done differently are adding some research on what would make my improvement faster and going more in-depth into why I am doing it and the effects of doing a project like this. With my gym rating project, I feel like I could have added more options, gone more in-depth regarding my reviews, and maybe added how they could have done better as a company.

5 A's Reflection:

Authenticity (2/5)

I chose this Biking and Running project as at the time I was really into fitness and wanting to lose weight as I was quite fat at the time, I found it hard to motivate myself to exercise and I was also just starting to go to the gym which was super fun for me as I could test my strength and fitness. After I went to the gym for a while I kept noticing that my fitness was terrible and I needed to change it, so I decided to do a project on biking and running to improve my fitness levels and loose weight which was perfect because that was my main interest at that point in time. I think it benefited me and a lot and gave me a head start on my weight loss journey, My classmates and friends also were starting to notice that I was getting slimmer very gradually. 

For my other project which was rating gyms based on location I originally decided to do this as I was going to be staying at my mothers for a few weeks and needed something to do, I was still pretty new to going to the gym at the time so I wanted to see the differences of gyms in rural areas compared to city gyms. The reason I compared it to city gyms is that while my Mum live in a rural town, we were actually going to visit my Auntie who lives in Sydney as well so I thought I could compare the two as a little side project. At the time I felt like this could also be continued on to be a really good project in the future but it never really happened as my goals and passions have changed since then.

Active Learning (3/5)

This Biking and Running project was very much based on active learning as at the time I didn't really care for the science behind it so all I really did was setup a table and then the rest of the time I just rode my bike and ran, for equipment I used my mountain bike, my computer and an app on my phone called Relive which is a running or fitness app that it used to track how far and how quick you completed an exercise. After gathering al the information from my phone I put it into the table I created in google docs on my laptop.

My rating gyms project was almost all active learning. Due to the fact that I had to travel to the all the gyms, workout in them and then rate the gym based on location, equipment and price. For example I went to a gym that was really close to our house called Rapid Fitness, when I first arrived I went to the front desk but there was no one there even though the store was open, I then looked around and all I saw were yoga balls and treadmills, which was not good for a gym as it is only good for a select few people. So, i gave it a rating of 0/10, though looking back at it now i should have gave it a 2-3/10.

Adult Relationships (1/5)

This project was really lacking in adult relations which sucks as it would have helped me deepen my understanding in some of the things like how to setup my project who to talk to and maybe even calling the gyms beforehand. The only time I talked to an adult is when I went to a gym called Conquer Fitness where they gave me a free shaker for leaving a review on google, after I got the shaker I talked to them for a bit but nothing important came out of it.

Academic Rigour (2/5)

This project some of the learning goals I incorporated were quantitate reasoning as I was using tables and tracking data using an app on my phone, I also used personal qualities in this project as I felt better by losing weight and exercising and becoming more resilient and determined. I will show my work from these two projects by creating tables and putting the findings into these tables, i will then write small notes on what I felt. This project I felt that I didn't use enough academic rigour as I could have as i didn't research the topic that well i kind of just tracked my progress, which is ok but i could have done a lot better, therefore my rating for academic rigour is not the highest. 

For my second project I also felt like could have implemented a lot more academic rigour into this project, some of the learning goals i used were, social reasoning as i compared the gyms based on location and community, I also implicated communication as i would talk to some of the staff on pricing and what equipment they have and so on, I also used quantitative reasoning as i put all of my data into a table with specific columns based on the project. Although both projects could have been done better I will say that i still did implement some academic rigour therefore i am giving these two projects a rating of 2 out of 5.

Assessment (2/5)

I didn't really know how to rate these two projects on assessment as i dint rally have a deadline other than finishing it before my exhibition, although i did in fact mean to record my data in a 2-3 week time period in both projects as that was how long i was going to be staying at my mums. The steps to completing my project were pretty simple, I would first go either on a bike ride or a run and then use an app on my phone to record my distance, elevation and pace, i would then go home and write in my findings into a table and give the exercise an overall rating out of 10, after that i would write a small description on what happened. For my other project I would go into a gym, talk to the staff about pricing and then go in for a workout to test the equipment and see what equipment they had available.

OVERALL RATING (10.5/25)

Looking back at this project and ranking it to the A's I now understand this project was definitely not the best particularly for academic rigour and assessment because it was not very well set out, it was lazy because when I would write my reflections I didn't go into detail, I gave this project very simple guidelines, so that it wouldn't take much effort to complete. At at the time I felt like it was a good project because it was around my interests, and it meant you had some learning to do at mums, away from school. If I had my time again with this project, I would set it out with more research and detail, as well as going more in depth with the gyms and biking, I would also like to have set up an experiment around my bike riding. for adult relationships I could have talked more to owners of the gym, explored their equipment more, instead of just visiting once. My main negative thoughts around it are that I only produces a couple of tables and this means my assessment score is low. If I look at the score of 10.5 out of 10, I feel this is fairly accurate, however at the time, with my abilities I thought it was better than this. 

HOW CAN I BE THE HEALTHIEST VERSION OF MYSELF?

This term one of my main goals for this term is become the healthiest version of myself, and I wanted to achieve it by doing at least 40 minutes of cardio daily, eating healthy, and going to the gym a lot too. But it wasn't just that i also wanted to feel more energised, happy and concentrated. So I started to research, I found that sleep and routine is super important to a healthy body so I researched what sleep can do for you and formulated a routine that can help me with it.

My Thoughts: 

I believe that this was one of, if not the best project i have done so far, i wanted to use this project instead of my most recent ones as i felt like this project was quite important for me as it kind of finished off my weight loss goals, and after this project i actually bulked up as i had cut so much weight off. This project was mainly based on weight loss but also to improve on fitness, sleep and just my overall daily regimen. I aslo tracked my workouts and mad a program for one of my friends Finlay. I first started off on this project by looking up how many calories i should be eating to loose weight, so I looked at how many calories my body naturally burns everyday with a website that calculates it: https://www.verywellfit.com/how-many-calories-do-i-burn-every-day-3495464, Although these results aren't 100% correct they give you a good idea of many calories I burn, I then found out that my body naturally burns around 3091 calories everyday. I also set a calorie intake goal of 2000 calories so that I was giving my body the nutrition it needs and not starving myself. After this i then looked at how important sleep is for you, i will say though i should have researched more in depth and made my project more around sleep as i didn't really make a massive part of my project about sleep. After that one of my friends Finlay asked if i could make him a program as he wanted to loose weight, so I calculated his caloric intake and how many calories he burns, I then made him a workout split based on weight loss. At the time i was also tracking my running so as a side project I tacked my running and in the end i actually got i miniute faster which i was really happy about.

5 A's Reflection:

Authenticity (4/5)

I chose this project as I had been going to the gym for a while now but wasn't alossing much weight so I choose this project to help me with that goal but also as im interested in health and fitness and I wanted to go more in depth into that subject, so I created my project around being the healthiest version of my self like creating a routine, tracking lifts and runs, tracking calories and researching on sleep. I feel like this benifited me in many ways as it helped me loose weight and become way more active. 

Active Learning (4/5)

This project has a lot to do with active learning as I am going to the gym 6 time a week and and running 3 times a week, I tracked my progress with just the notes app on my phone and I used google docs to create a table to put all of my findings in. This project is also mainly outside of shool as I do almost all of my work in the gym which helps bump my active learning score to a 4 out of 5.

Adult Relationships (1/5)

The only help I got from adults was just how to set my project up by Nick and a bit from my farther, this project could have been better with more adult relations but at the time I didn't  think it would be that important or make that much of a difference. I think if I had a talk with a personal trainer on how to set it up better I think that my results would have improved way quicker as they have more knowledge on the subject. 

Academic Rigour (4/5)

I think this work challenged me well as I leart a bunch of new stuff like how much sleep effects the body, how many days a week should you do cardio and how many calories should you be eating. In this project I incorporated the knowing how to learn, as I sourced lots of research and applied these to my own training and reflections. I used lots of Math collecting data around calories, comparing energy deficits and tracking. In empirical reasoning I was experimenting the whole time on myself, your habits for training and diet and lifestyle, I was adjusting and trialling different routines and approaches. I was able to asses my results through my overall weight and my improved consistency in lifestyle. My personal qualities I improved were time management and resistance, to be consistent regardless of setbacks. 

Assessment (3.5/5)

I showed my work and everything I learnt this term by going in depth into websites and showing research in my projects and using that research to benefit my learning and the routine that I made. I also created table of workouts for finlay to use as a tool for losing weight and incorporated some of the research I did like using calorie calculators and finding out what the best forms of cardio are. I also tracked my cardio before and after to track how much faster I got in the 2k, 3k and the 5k. 

OVERALL RATING (16.5/25)

I think this project deserved a 16.5 as it was good but there was a lot I still could have added, I feel like my adult relationships was something that was definitely lacking and could have been solved easily by contacting a pt and asking do either do an interview with him or train with him. Although I got a 3.5 on assessment  I feel like I could have definitely added more to my project by maybe showing more links to websites and comparing them so I don't just trust one source, I also feel like in terms of my sites layout I could have definitely added a few more pages based on researched and how felt the project went. The way I planned this project was to go along with my daily life and make all of the things I had been researching to come into play even though I could have doe some things better I believe the score of 16.5 out of 25 is fair but not ideal I hope soon some of my projects can get around the 20 mark.

Both of these projects sparked my interest, despite being centered around the same topic. While both involved exploring aspects of fitness and health, they each offered unique challenges and opportunities for growth but, I think that  the projects were significantly different in terms of work ethic, research depth, and how they were perceived, both by myself and others.

For my first project, I received a 5 A’s rating of 10/25. Although there were some strong aspects of the project, I see that I could have significantly improved the quality of my work with more extensive research and i needed to approach to gathering feedback harder. One area for improvement is to deeper into the reasoning behind my research. I failed to provide a thorough explanation of why I was doing this and who would benefit from my findings. A more in depth explanation of the purpose of the project would have added more focus making the work more engaging and purposeful.

I also realize that I could have gone more in-depth with my project by gathering first-hand insights from regular gym-goers. Conducting interviews or surveys would have allowed me to gather valuable feedback and would have helped me to use their experiences with gym equipment, staff, and overall satisfaction. This input from real people would have made it more relatable and also made me more informed by actual gym-goers perspectives.

In the side project I did, which involved tracking my biking and running progress, I missed an opportunity to analyze the benefits of different types of cardio. Specifically, I could have researched which forms of cardio are more beneficial for short-term versus long-term fitness goals and what the optimal time or distance for fat loss is.

My second project, which focused on becoming the healthiest version of myself, received a 5 A’s rating of 16.5/25, showing a 6.5-point improvement from my first project. Although there are still areas where I could have done better, this project was an important part of my learning process. It gave me a much deeper understanding of muscle growth and fitness because I spent a lot of time researching these topics. As I got more involved in the project, I realized that being fit isn’t just about working out; it also includes other important aspects of health like nutrition, recovery, and mental well-being.

One thing I could have improved in this project was the range of my research. I focused mainly on muscle growth and fitness, but exploring other areas of health would have given me a more complete picture. For example, researching the role of nutrition, the importance of rest and recovery, and how mental health affects physical performance would have helped me understand how all of these factors work together. Including these topics would have made my project more well-rounded and provided a better approach to becoming healthier.

I also made progress with the website I created for the project, but there was still room to improve on both the content and design. Although I built the site well, I could have added more pages with additional details, tips, and resources. This would have made the site more helpful for people viewing it. Improving the design to make the site more attractive and more simple would have also made it easier for people to use and enjoy the content.

Another area for improvement was the variety of sources I used for my research. While I did a lot of research on muscle growth, I mostly relied on a small number of sources. Using a wider range of materials, such as academic studies, expert articles, and advice from fitness professionals, would have helped me see the bigger picture. 

Looking back, both projects taught me how different things can be even if they around the same topic. The first project showed me how important it is to do thorough research and gather feedback from others. It made me realize that I needed to go deeper into my topics to understand them better. The second project allowed me to explore my own health journey and taught me more about muscle growth and fitness. It also helped me see that becoming the healthiest version of myself involves not just exercise but also nutrition and rest.