Periodic Table Project Blog 10/8/17

Our Project

Summary:

     This week in science we have just finished our periodic table project. What we had to do for this project was with a team (of 3-4 people) you must create a periodic table of any subject (we chose all-time basketball players) and make it have all the components that the real periodic table has (atomic mass, atomic number, families and family names, periods, element name and symbol, and even more). The biggest thing I learned from this project is that periodic tables have to be clear and easy to understand for it to be amazing. I also learned that in order to make everything about it understandable you do need to show and have the key components that I mentioned above. Another thing I learned was that you need to accommodate and change the way the periodic table was built based on the subject you are doing. I learned that some things in the periodic table just don't make any sense for you particular subject. For example, basketball players do not have protons or neutrons so it doesn't make sense for me to make their atomic mass' and numbers' based off of protons and neutrons. I have to change it so it fits my particular subject.

Backward-Looking:

      What I knew about this subject before actually starting the project is how the periodic table works and why it was made that way. The process my group went through to produce this piece was we first thought of a topic and then tried to figure out a way it could be organized. We then researched to find the elements (players) that we would put into the periodic table. We lastly then started to write, build, type, and put everything on our actual periodic table. The image above is our finished product. I have done similar work in the past by in Language Arts last year (my 6th grade year) I made my own original myth. We basically made our own version of greek myths and the first Percy Jackson book. We had to have certain components that these myths tend to have (other greek gods, a villain, a hero, an oracle, and a certain journey our hero takes). The ways I have gotten better at this work is that by making sure before I actually start that I make a plan. For the basketball players periodic table we drew everything on paper before actually building, creating, and typing the actual project up. Also by making sure that I truly understand the topic we are changing to make our own. In order to make a remake of something else you must actually understand what the thing you are making a remake of is. The ways I think I need to improve is by looking over the project more and making sure it is nice and neat. The problems we encountered while working on this piece are that I was being to dominant and making sure that everything that every person was doing was said by me. I was being a little to controlling. The way we got through this was me allowing everyone to talk and share ideas more so then we could all make a decision about something. Another problem we got in to was we thought we didn't have enough time so we started rushing towards the end. What we did to fix this problem was that because we rushed we actually got our project done early. So after we thought we were done we tried to fix our mistakes to make things look much nicer. The main resources we used when working on this piece were computers, printers, pencils, and paper. The ones that were most helpful were the computer and printer. This is because the computer helped us organize everything better and helped find the images. the printer was also most helpful because we used that to print things so it would look nicer than actual handwriting. The resources I would use again are the computer and printer. I have actually been using these resources for almost all my projects because it really helps everything go faster and look better. This work doesn't really tell a story, this work actually explains a topic. It explains the topic of basketball players and many facts about all the players on our table. 

Inward-Looking:

      I feel pretty good about my group's  project, the parts of it I like are that it is different from any other periodic table I have seen. It is completely original and I have not seen anything just like it. I like this because it makes people think that we are very creative and we have thought outside the box a little. I dislike that my project looks kind of messy, I dislike this because then it makes people think that we didn't really care about our project when we actually really did. I enjoy that our project is based on a subject I really like, which is basketball players. I enjoy this because it made our project more fun because it is about something that I do want to talk about. But if our project was on a subject like types of dolls then I wouldn't really like talking about it. What was especially satisfying during the process of actually creating this project was that I was doing it with friends. This makes everything more enjoyable to be able to do a project with you friends. What I found frustrating was that after we were done the people on my team said they did more work than I did and that I was being lazy. I didn't like this because I knew that I did just the same, maybe even more work than they did. This made me very angry but we just had to push through it and realize that this was a group effort. The standards for this project were that we had a key with explanations, that all the squares were labeled and made sense, that we had a good abstract, and that the presentation of our periodic table was good. We were very close to meeting our standards because we only got one point off because of our periodic table could've been more neat. My goals for meeting this project were to get 100% on the project and our goals never changed the whole time we were working on it. We were very close to meeting our goals because we got 95%. What I learned from doing this project was that I need to make sure that I am not being to dominant. By being less dominant it will allow the whole project to go much more smoothly. 

Outward-Looking:

     If I were the teacher the comments I would make about my project is that our project followed everything that was needed. Also that we need to make it  more neat by making sure that our handwriting was better and our cut and tape/glue job was better. The grade I would give our project is an A, this is because as I said before we have everything needed, we asked all the questions, and we truly have done everything that needed to be done. But not everything was super neat and this is why I don't think it would be 100% but more in that 94% - 97% range. The one thing I want people to notice when looking at our project is how many explanations and thought we put into the organization of our table. What other students usually notice when looking at our project is each players face and what their name is. This is because many players on our periodic table are players they have never heard of due to the fact that we have many players that aren't from our generation. The ways we met our standards are that we have good explanations and organization of our table. But the one way we didn't meet standards was because of neatness and our handmanship. If someone were to look at our project things they might learn about me are that I like basketball, I like making sure that I have good explanations, I am good at organizing, and that I am not very neat.  

Forward-Looking:

       One thing I would like to improve upon is making sure that I am being more careful before actually permanently on my project. What I would change about my project if I had the chance to redo my project is to make sure that everything looks nice and neat in pencil or before taping it down. This will allow all of us to make sure that we know that everything we are putting down looks nice and neat. One thing I have seen my classmates do that I will try to do the next time is taking their time when they are actually about to be actually putting things on their project. This will allow me to truly make sure that I am making everything neat every step of the way. The goal that I would like to set for myself the next time is to get 100% on everything my improving my neatness. I would like to spend more time on this at school so I could make things more neat by cutting things, making new straight lines, and using better handmanship. What I might want more help with is better time management because I feel that if we had better time management this neatness thing would not be a problem.