My current understanding of Reasoning Analytically is that I can form solid claims backed up with solid evidence and a good reasoning. I think it means that you're making sure to examine every part of your subject before making your final conclusion. Reasoning Analytically means that you use an unbiased opinion when making your decisions and strive to see all sides of the problem.  When you Reason Analytically you use logic and prior knowledge to judge evidence and weigh pluses and minuses of every bit of evidence you use. In any part of your life you need to remember to Reason Analytically. All decisions should have some logical explanations to them. Finding evidence to help with your decisions from research and different perspectives is a great way to do so because you can see all sides of a problem. Judgements should be based on well-examined evidence from multiple perspectives, not personal bias.

In my 6th grade year I didn’t understand what exactly Reasoning Analytically was. I didn’t use this skill for the few assignments that I could have reasoned analytically because it honestly made no sense to me, so I had a lot of growth to make. In 7th Grade the meaning of Reasoning Analytically clicked in my head. This was most likely due to me joining the SEEQS Ambassador community which gave me a more in depth look at the sustainability skills. I was now able to give good claims with solid evidence in all my projects, and I still had a lot of room for improvement. I used Reasoning Analytically outside of school when I was trying to get a voice acting role for a popular animator at the time. I Reasoned Analytically by backing up my reasons, giving evidence of previous experience and my current voice acting skills. In the end I was able to get the role.

In 8th grade I have been able to use Reasoning Analytically for even more things outside of school, such as applications for different schools. I needed to gather evidence on what schools would be the best for me, my passions and my education. I believe that I have successfully learned how to break problems into parts, and weigh different evidence and opinions, however I still need to work towards making my own evidence clear.

The Four Plans project is a good example of how I Reasoned Analytically. This project was in my 8th grade year for math class and took around a week to finish. The goal of this project was to help a hypothetical client find the best investment for retirement out of the four different investment plans we were given.

 Before we started the project we made a group document to work on. Our first step for this project was to decide which plans each of us were going to do. I chose to do plan 1 and plan 3, while my partner did plans 2 and 4. The next step for this project was to actually solve the problems and figure out the equations. For each of the plans we have to figure out the equation, show the growth of money in 10 years, add a graph made on desmos that shows your equation and finally put the final answer of how much money our client would have when they are 65. The age of our client would vary so the amount of years that they could invest their money for could differ from the other plans.

My first steps were to use the knowledge that I knew from previous classes to solve the graphs. Both of my plans used an exponential equation which is y = a(b^x). The first step I had to do to solve these equations was to figure out what I needed to put in the “b” area. In this case “b” represents the growth of my clients money through the years, so I needed to find what percent my clients money would grow by. Plan 1 had our client start at age 20 and had an initial investment of $10,000. Their money increases by 7% every year. To figure out how to figure out this equation for this I first added 7% to 100% because the money was increasing every time, which means that the client would have their initial money from every year plus 7% of that money. Now that I had 107% I had to turn it into a decimal. I know that 100% is the same as one because it’s basically saying that “This number is equal to itself”. Knowing this I simply move the decimal point from 107. to after the one, which gives me 1.07. I then figure out the “a” value. This is $10,000 because the “a” represents the starting value of money that my client has. I then put my equation together which then gives me “y= 10,000(1.07^x)”. My next step was to fill out the table which look like this:

Throughout the Four Plans project, I made judgements based on factual and logical evidence.

One example of this is when I was doing my own calculations, I made decisions based on the math that I learned from previous classes. I used notes that I wrote from previous class periods to guide me in figuring out my equation. I used mathematical evidence to figure out the equations I had. A good example of this was when I was working on my table. I needed to use mathematical logic to fill out the whole graph by using knowledge I had known prior about tables and I needed to figure out what places I put the numbers into in the equation. I used what I knew to create my equations and used a calculator to fill out the tables.

When my group compared each of our plans, I made a judgment about which plan was best for the Client by just seeing which of the plans gave the client the most amount of money in the long run. This is because the client would probably want to make the most amount of money they could up until they are 65. The best plan for the client was Plan 1, although it depends on the situation of the client. If the client only needs a certain amount of money by the time they are in retirement then the other plans might be better for them. 

I made a judgment about which plan was best for the Banker based on the plan that gave the client the least amount of money. This was because the bank would most likely want to keep as much money as possible. The best plan for the bank was Plan 2.

I came to the conclusion that Plan 3 might have been the best plan for both of them if they had to come to an agreement. The bank would lose a bit more than half of Plan 1’s money and the client would make a good amount of money. Plan 3 seems the most fair for both perspectives.

Throughout this project I broke my problems down into different parts and took my time to make sure that I reviewed all the data that was given to me. I used my time to understand what I was doing so I could use logic to confirm my answers.

If I did this project again, I would probably choose plans 2 and 4 to be able to solve them too! I would do this so I could understand all of the choices the client would have and how to solve other kinds of equations.