Progressive projectThe definition of progressive is: a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas. I agree with that. I think progressive is a state of mind. Anyone can be progressive because it means you want change and not change where you're just making things worse by being ignorant and always thinking you're right the kind of change where you are open to people's thoughts and opinions even though they might contradict yours. The kind of change where you're thinking of everyone and making things better for not only yourself but other people as well, even if it's only one person. Making change for yourself is important too though. But in the end I think that's what's really important. Helping to make change not only for yourself but for people who can't or for people that need help.
For the progressive project I decided to do something about endangered animals. Why endangered animals? you might ask well, that's a good question. In the beginning I didn't know, it was one of the topics and I couldn't find anything else I might want to do. But then as the project progressed I was glad I chose this topic. I'm glad I chose this because I gave a voice, no matter how small, to something that couldn't help itself. Lots of animals everywhere become endangered because of humans and if we don't decide to help them they can't ask for help themselves and they become endangered or even worse, extinct. The California Condor is what we decided to focus on because endangered animals is such a broad topic. Now the Condor is not a beautiful bird and that's why I personally took an interest in it because the first thing you think when you look at the bird is "Dang that is one ugly bird" and you don't care to learn further but after learning about them it opens your eyes to how badly we treat animals and nature. I had never known about this bird at all before this project but now I have an actual emotional attachment to this bird, not only that but I have a lot of respect for it. Which I think was the point of this project. project process
|
|
progressive day
- The video for our progressive day is above. To view my self-reflection video go to 3:05 in the video above.
- Progressive day was a lot of fun. My favorite part was at the end when the kids told us how much they learned because it made me feel really good about what we did and I felt accomplished because that was our goal for the board game. I researched and learned about this bird for at least a month and to be able to teach the kids what I learned made me feel like I was imparting some great wisdom and it made me feel good. My group and I had a rocky start though, for me it was mainly nerves. But the middle and end were great, I had a lot of fun and the kids were great. So if I could re-do anything it would be to feel more prepared in the beginning and look more prepared. By doing this I learned never to underestimate children because I definitely thought the kids would not care and not remember anything we taught them but at the end when they gave us feedback they were impressive and they told us how much fun it was and how much they learned.
self reflection
This project was a lot of fun. In the beginning I'll admit I didn't take it seriously but eventually I learned why we were doing it and I learned why I wanted to do it. At first I was just doing it because I needed to in order to pass class but as the project progressed I found my why. I wanted to do it because my topic was endangered animals and after researching and trying to figure out which one to do, which was probably the most difficult part, I realized that not a lot of people know about what is happening. Not everyone even knows California Condors are animals. So to be able to give these animals a voice and spread the word about them, even to just one class, was something I was proud I get to be a part of. The most difficult thing though was probably the decisions. Having to decide what endangered animal to do when there's so many or having to decide what to do or make in order to best benefit the condor was really hard for me. Luckily I had 3 other partners to bounce ideas off of and in the end I'm proud of what we decided to do. It was hard but in the end I realized how important this project was because of the things I learned. One example of what I learned personally is that everyone has a story and that helping someone, no matter how small the gesture, goes a long way. When I first saw a picture of the condor all I thought was 'that is one ugly bird' and it kind of interested me a little bit but as I began to do research and I began to learn what was happening to it I developed an emotional attachment to this ugly bird. It became beautiful because of it's struggles and I learned why its head is bald and that became very cool and interesting instead of ugly and creepy. I became empathetic to something that I didn't even know existed until about a month ago. Not only did I grow personally but I feel I also grew academically. I learned that looking on the bright side of things goes a long way, i'm not always going to find a whole project interesting but I have to suck it up and deal, just finding one thing you like makes all the difference. In the end we made a board game. That may not seem like a big change for the Condor since you know they can't play board games but the point was to get the word out, and what better way to do it then to teach little kids who talk all the time. It was a success. At the end the kids told us how much fun they had and how much they learned, they would not shut up! (in the best way possible). It was great and if they talked to us that much about it they would probably tell their parents about what they learned and other kids who will in turn tell their parents and it becomes one great circle. The only thing I would change would be going to visit more classes and teaching more kids about it, spread the word out some more. Our board game itself was great and I already said what I would change above on the poster. But overall the game was fun and competitive and it took just the right amount of time.