Roller Coasters & Revolutions (Click for Project Description)
Teacher Reflection: This was an incredibly challenging project for the students. We have done roller coasters in the past, but this was the first year that we had Engineering class as an elective. We were able to make our own track which was awesome but also challenging!
Student Reflections:
Dylan L: I learned a lot in humanities throughout this project. My revolution was called the Bambatha Rebellion, which was a rebellion between the Zulu people (A South African clan) vs. the British Empire. I learned a lot on this topic, and through all of the presentations my group and I made, I also learned a lot about the British Empire and its rule. We also wrote "choose your own adventure" stories (linked below) where you read one story, and it leads you to 2 other stories, and that story leads you too 2 other stories. Our groups story was about 2 boys, James (son of a British Soldier) who moved to Natal, South Africa with his family to colonize it, and M'kai (Son of the chief of the Zulu people). The 2 boys become best friends and go on crazy adventures throughout the rebellion.
Nia A: In Humanities I did a lot of research for the Pueblo Revolt. I had Presentation 1, which summarized was the bare bones and key points of the revolution. This made writing the story convenient since I was able to pull the timeline and lifestyle before the revolution easily from my sources. The main part of Humanities was to write a Choose Your Own Adventure that takes place during your revolution and my group followed a teenager named Ahmik and you can decide his morals during the war. While writing the story I had to resolve a lot of issues about the continuity and trying to cut down how much I needed to write since I had 17 different pages compared to the normal 7-8. This helped me grow my organization skills since I had to manage so many pieces of writing. We also had to connect our roller coaster to our story, which took place in modern day New Mexico; 1680 Pueblo Land. Our entire roller coaster had an orange desert glow and our main drop started off from a large mountain. There were leftover wagon wheels spread out and we covered the base of our supports with small rocks. My group also stuck a giant Spanish flag in the center of the roller coaster because the Spanish conquered that land twice, despite the Pueblo people’s best efforts.
Cheyenne F: I didn't really know anything about any revolutions until we did all the presentations about them. I thought that it was really interesting, was within the revolutions there was smaller revolutions. I used my humanities thinking, by doing in depth research, because it's really hard to do good research, but we really focused on it.
Matthew M: In Humanities we studied revolutions, my group's revolution was the Russian Revolution. I learned how society overthrew a Tsar, introduced communism, and how Russia was dictated by Lenin. After learning all of this we created our own story in 1916 Russia. So all throughout this project I was using Humanities thinking whether it be through my writing style in my story or creativity in my roller coaster elements.
Jazmin C: In Humanities I learned many things about my revolution. My group and I had the Velvet Revolution. I learned the two opposing forces were the communists and the people of Czechoslovakia, which is the country it took place in. It was a non-violent revolution which means there were no reported deaths only injuries. The time frame from the Velvet Revolution was November 17 - December 29, 1989, which is a little over a month. When we wrote our Choose your own adventure story I learned how to be creative with my writing. Looking up ways I can be different with it. Throughout this project I used humanities thinking by be creative and doing a lot of research.
Dylan L: I learned a lot in humanities throughout this project. My revolution was called the Bambatha Rebellion, which was a rebellion between the Zulu people (A South African clan) vs. the British Empire. I learned a lot on this topic, and through all of the presentations my group and I made, I also learned a lot about the British Empire and its rule. We also wrote "choose your own adventure" stories (linked below) where you read one story, and it leads you to 2 other stories, and that story leads you too 2 other stories. Our groups story was about 2 boys, James (son of a British Soldier) who moved to Natal, South Africa with his family to colonize it, and M'kai (Son of the chief of the Zulu people). The 2 boys become best friends and go on crazy adventures throughout the rebellion.
Nia A: In Humanities I did a lot of research for the Pueblo Revolt. I had Presentation 1, which summarized was the bare bones and key points of the revolution. This made writing the story convenient since I was able to pull the timeline and lifestyle before the revolution easily from my sources. The main part of Humanities was to write a Choose Your Own Adventure that takes place during your revolution and my group followed a teenager named Ahmik and you can decide his morals during the war. While writing the story I had to resolve a lot of issues about the continuity and trying to cut down how much I needed to write since I had 17 different pages compared to the normal 7-8. This helped me grow my organization skills since I had to manage so many pieces of writing. We also had to connect our roller coaster to our story, which took place in modern day New Mexico; 1680 Pueblo Land. Our entire roller coaster had an orange desert glow and our main drop started off from a large mountain. There were leftover wagon wheels spread out and we covered the base of our supports with small rocks. My group also stuck a giant Spanish flag in the center of the roller coaster because the Spanish conquered that land twice, despite the Pueblo people’s best efforts.
Cheyenne F: I didn't really know anything about any revolutions until we did all the presentations about them. I thought that it was really interesting, was within the revolutions there was smaller revolutions. I used my humanities thinking, by doing in depth research, because it's really hard to do good research, but we really focused on it.
Matthew M: In Humanities we studied revolutions, my group's revolution was the Russian Revolution. I learned how society overthrew a Tsar, introduced communism, and how Russia was dictated by Lenin. After learning all of this we created our own story in 1916 Russia. So all throughout this project I was using Humanities thinking whether it be through my writing style in my story or creativity in my roller coaster elements.
Jazmin C: In Humanities I learned many things about my revolution. My group and I had the Velvet Revolution. I learned the two opposing forces were the communists and the people of Czechoslovakia, which is the country it took place in. It was a non-violent revolution which means there were no reported deaths only injuries. The time frame from the Velvet Revolution was November 17 - December 29, 1989, which is a little over a month. When we wrote our Choose your own adventure story I learned how to be creative with my writing. Looking up ways I can be different with it. Throughout this project I used humanities thinking by be creative and doing a lot of research.
