Younicorns Reflection

We had peer assessment between 2 GP classes of our project plan. We shared our project plans on GoogleDocs and written feedback on it too. Then, also explained our feedback to them when we meet. According to the other group, we had nothing else to improve on, but we will still use ideas from their group project to edit our plan. Our group also decided to pull off the plan for the proposal, and just do research and edits without presenting.

Our group has been selling T-shirts to spread awareness on sustainability. We thought that it may be difficult to clear our sale because it seems like many of the students doesn't carry enough money to pay. We have been regularly checking on our stock to make sure we have the correct amount of money to our number of T-shirts sold.

Reflection

Today, Mia and I have completed the table for all the photovoltaic systems we have researched on which includes the advantages and disadvantages.

Our main aim today was to search for a custom T-shirt organization in Malaysia which sells T-shirts within our budget. It has to include custom designs and colours. Wen Wen had sent all the humanity teachers a link to our survey for more responds. We have mainly achieved our main for today.

Self Evaluation

The Group Work

What have I contributed to the group project?

- I have been the secretary of the group.

- I am responsible for the agenda and I take notes during discussions.

We all contributed to the group during discussions/debates. A task that I have been assigned to is to create a video.

What would I do differently next time? Why?

Sometimes, I get off topic during discussions. And I often procrastinate on my work which would cause outcome quality problems among my groupmates. When taking notes, I don't always remember everything we say, hence misses out some important points. This is why Mia helps me out; she is our second note taker.

What have I learnt about working together?

I have learned about each other's weaknesses and strengths. Such as Jacelyn, she is a focused person who tends to help us get back into topic when we drift off. Wen Wen and I often goes out of topic. And Mia helps us simplify our work so that it is moving towards our group question.

What has been good/challenging about working as part of a group?

I think that the most challenging part is to get together for a group meeting. We often forget and have to search around school to find each other.

What have I learnt doing the project?

What have I learnt about;

a. deciding on and planning a project?

Our group members shares our interests among each other and finally decided on a project which fits all requirements. We often have long debates about this. We will list a bunch of information we require, research them and include them in a word document. We have a 'sharing session' where everyone brainstorm. These are ways I have learned to efficiently plan a project with my members.

b. planning and producing research?

When researching, we split tasks to every member of the group. A few of us are editors. Which means, we edit work of other members to simplify them and lead them to our focused question. I have learned to use a word document to put our researched information together.

c. reading and presenting my ideas?

We used a share document to share our written work. Also, verbally among every member during occasional discussions.

d. time management?

I have learned that a Gannt Chart is very useful for planning. We split our tasks quite equally and efficiently using the Gantt Chart. And currently, there has been no problems about lack of time. We have always achieved our intended goal.

What would you do differently to develop these skills?

I do not think that I have to further develop these skills. We already found our mistakes and will try our best to achieve it as time goes.

How did I approach my individual contribution?

As long as we have an idea, we all had chances to share them. We listened to each other and rarely talk over each other. Since Mia and I are note takers, we can't multitask and contribute at the same time. So, instead, we often remind Jacelyn and Wen Wen to pause during discussions.

What are the most valuable points I have learnt? Why?

I have learned to take notes efficiently. And also learned that Wen Wen and I are huge procrastinators. Being a person who procrastinates brings the group down vastly.

Peak Oil Evaluation

The Project

1. What area of study did you choose? Why?

"What would happen if oil ran out today?" The future scenario. Because it was appealing to all of us especially Jacelyn because she watched the documentary. Then she intrigued the rest of us by introducing the same documentary to all of us. We also decided to do it because we wanted to do something that did not involve money and a lot of time.

2. What did your groups hope to achieve? What was your proposed outcome?

We hope to discourage people from living excessively, encourage them to live sustainably with our main focus being plastic bags. We attempted to achieve this by creating a video and presentation to be shown to secondary learners during assembly.

3. How could you critically evaluate the success of your outcome?

We would have a discussion and send out a survey and use the feedback to consolidate our evaluation.

4. What were your specific group roles and responsibilities? How did you organise this? Was the allocation effective?

Jacelyn - Shaper. Wrote video script.

Jia Yi - Secretary, technical person. Create video.

Wen Wen - helped out whenever she could. Found videos, pictures, and editted script.

Mia - Taking down notes, summariese notes. Wrote and edited script.

5. Did your project have enough scope for every group member to play an active, full time part in the group work? How could you improve this?

We had enough scope for everyone to play an active rold in the group work. We all contributed ideas equally. It was pretty ideal so there weren't much room for improvements.

6. Was the workload manageable in the time frame given?

Improvements: Set a timer to help us keep track of our time as we take a very long to make decisions as our decisions ooften lead to debates. Some work was finished ahead of time, some behind time.

7. How effective were your minutes and agendas? How did they help you? How could you improve them?

Not very helpful, except to know what we did in the previous lesson. Our notes we found were more useful.

Improvements: make our agendas like our notes.

The Perspectives

1. How did you gather information and opinions/viewpoints from a personal, national/local and global perspective?

We researched on the internet. We used personal experiences to know what our target audience (our age group) wanted in the video.

2. How did/could you ensure you consider all these perspectives in your project?

Fish bone diagram. Improvement: Checklist.

3. Would your outcome need to be accompanied by some additional explanation or elaboration?

A little bit. We need to explain how our final product works with our outcome.

4. How could you make sure you include cross-cultural views?

Compare our target audience (secondary learners) in different schools (National, Chinese, Tamil, International).

Jacelyn

Jia Yi

Mia

Wen Wen

Peak Oil Reflection 3: Moving on...

Today, our group had a debate on whether we should continue with our mock project or move on towards our real project. Since we really require a long time for our real project, we decided to begin on it. We had a long debate about whether we should do the peak oil presentation or not and finally decided not to because we thought it wouldn't benefit us in our real project.

We have completed our ganttchart, also made some changes to it.

Group Peak Oil Reflection Day 2

We have done our fish diagram (Ishikawa Diagram)

Each side of the fish diagram consist of colour coded National, Global and Future perspectives. Positive views were on one side and negative views were on the other. All STEEP (Social, Technology, Environmental, Economic, Political) were included.

We were short in time for the fish diagram so we completed it during lunch.

Group Peak Oil Reflection Day 1

We have created a google document to combine and share all our information as one. We've edited them together and finalized them. Our group have worked collaboratively during the process. We have also split tasks to each other such as a pair of us doing the global views and the other pair doing the future views.

By the end of the day, we distributed work to be done at home and completed them for the next time we meet. At home, we have communicated through Skype/Document. Some of us has done extra work for the document.

Together, I think that we have worked well as a team. Everyone were on time and met their date line.

Jacelyn

Mia

Wen Wen

Jia Yi

5 mins Vlog

What is the peak oil debate?

A question

Summary of local, national, global perspectives

Fish Bone Diagram

Reflecting

What did you find easy? Why?

Getting information was the easiest. Friends helped by sharing websites they found. Interviewing friends and family from around the world. Getting feedbacks from friends.

What did you find difficult? Why?

I find the start most difficult because it was difficult to combine and end up with one key question on what to focus on.

What problems did you encounter?

Researching. Whether the information were reliable or not.

How did you overcome these?

By going to trusted websites like BBC and such.

The Apprentice

As a team, what have we learn from watching The Apprentice?

Delicate but still keep in touch over time.

Aim from something achievable.

Working As A Team

What do you think you are good at?

Understanding other's ideas and opinions

What areas do you think could be an issue? How could you make sure you develop these areas?

Following other's ideas

Teamwork [LEAVE NO WOMAN BEHIND]

Teamwork

Working together in a team that is cohesive & cooperative and contributes equally, and

LEAVES NO WOMAN BEHIND :)

Listen to everybody's opinions & ideas

Have good communication (effective)

Keep to DEADLINES!

Have regular meetings (Be on time)

Put full effort (Assignments, discussions, contribution)

Delegate tasks equally and complete them in time (full-heartedly)

How Can We Use Multimedia?

What is multimedia? Why should we use it?

Multimedia is a way to present information to the audience through anything visual or audio or both.

Instead of a complete block of essay which can bore the reader, multimedia supports the essay that you write. Multimedia are such as imovie, drama, presentation, podcast and more.

How can you use multimedia in your individual project?

Producing an imovie with recorded interviews, points of information included.

Use a Question/Answer format in the video. Add some slides to provide statistics. Include audio recordings in the background.

Examples: How you could use multimedia in Tristen's project?

Interview the elderly on their daily basis. How are they supported? What is their opinion on younger people? etc.

Leatherback Turtles

10 MAY 2011 PUTRAJAYA.
Endangered species are species which only has a few hundred or less left existing on Earth. Threatened species are species whose habitats are destroyed by humans, polluted or being hunted down.

Leatherback Turtle

Leatherback Turtles are the top 6 most endangered species. They are the largest marine turtle and are also migratory. They only go on land to lay eggs and live only in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The species in the Atlantic Ocean are very stable but the species in the Pacific Ocean are very endangered. Jellyfish, crabs and small fish are general diet of the Leatherback Turtles.

Leatherback Turtles are threatened by the loss of nesting and feeding habitats. Egg-collection, fishery-related mortality like nets and long lines of fishing, pollution and coastal development. Increasing mortality means fewer turtles which means that there are not enough to reproduce. This shortens the life cycle of the turtle. And less turtles existing over the past and future generations.

World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) and Greenpeace are just some of the organizations that are helping to save the species. WWF Malaysia has a program that is helping to hatch the turtle eggs and safely release them back to sea. This is slowly increasing he population of Leatherback Turtles.

We should help the turtles! This is what we can do to help.

1. Do not buy souvenirs made from turtles.

2. Do not buy and create a demand for turtle eggs. Allow the eggs to be incubated naturally where laid.

3. Ensure rubbish is properly disposed of. Plastic bags floating in the ocean are often mistaken for food, and when eaten, may cause a turtle’s death.

4. Do not light up fires or make noise on a nesting beach. These activities may disturb a nesting turtle.

5. Avoid using illegal, non-turtle friendly fishing devices. A turtle caught in fishing gear may drown and die.

6. Support turtle conservation efforts and pass on the conservation message.

Is It Ever Right To Take A Human Life?

A valuable life taken is a life ended that God has given. There are reasons behind why these happen whether it is religious or political views. People believe in this world, everyone is given and trusted with second chances. But sometimes, mistakes happen and they just can't be forgiven as certain necessity that includes fulfilling the law rights has to be proceeded regardless of what else. When a life is taken away no matter by murder, death penalty or accidental, there are no 2 lives of the exact same person.

Murder comes to a conclusion whether it is planned or intentional.  Murders occur in a large variety of reasons. One of a few of them is because of vengeance. Revenge is strongly affected by your emotions towards people around you. Your emotions can lead you out of control, and when a human becomes uncontrollably jealous, anger and hatred builds up which will eventually meet its limit. And your limit leads to committing a murder. Unless, your choice is to calm down. In metaphoric terms, fizzes of a bottle of coke won't stop building up until the bottle bursts or stops shaking.  A life taken through jealousy is strictly unforgiven because letting your emotions ruling over your physical action is wrong. Taking a life of an innocent person over a small matter is not justice to you nor anyone else. Ever heard of the quote, "Don't let your emotions control you?"

It is in your ability in the future to build your own family, buy your own homes, and supply yourself with food regardless whether you're rich or poor. Having a wealthy family background has no guarantee that they can support you always. You can't always depend on someone else; it takes patience to be independent. We are all humans and human beings find it hard to obtain the importance of being independent. Lose of patience leads to dropping out of work. No work means no money which leads to desperation of money. Like lazy or uneducated human beings, the easiest way to escape from money shortages is to steal. The process of stealing includes murdering, injuring. Killing an innocent, hardworking, wealthy human being is definitely unacceptable.

When it comes to unintentional killing where self-defense comes around, everything is different. If you were attempted to be murdered at this very moment, helpless from every possible ways of escaping, what would be your decision to break free from troubles? In crisis, it is an obvious immediate response to fight back with all your will to stay alive regardless who is attempting to murder you. No matter the outcome, it is said nowadays that unintentional killing is a valid point to save yourself. Murderers took gave their lives away in return for their attempt.

Many people think of murders as general human beings of above 18 age. Ever thought of juvenile murder? Sentencing a child to death due to juvenile murder is not a practice regardless the reason why they murder in the first place. But different countries have different views on juvenile delinquent mostly caused by religious views.
Here's an example of a juvenile murder.
John Henry Vasquez was 16 when he killed another teenager at a party over a momentary insult. "I made a mistake. There are no excuses," said a tearful Vasquez, who was given a 15 years to life sentence for the second-degree murder of Robert Maisonet, 19.
The child - John Henry Vasquez has yet killed a teenager again. Being honest, he turned himself in and as a punishment, he was given a 15 years life sentence.
John Henry Vasquez is an educated student which makes no excuse for the murder. Yet as a child, he was sentenced to death.

Mandatory death penalty is a practice in some countries like Malaysia and Singapore.  Although, mandatory death penalty is literally not necessary at all neither do death penalty. Taking away a life at any circumstances is not right. Everyone deserves chances despite the number; as long as they are committed to change for the better. Reasons varies such as deterrence, cost and religion.

Deterrence is a huge point in death penalty because it is the main reason why death penalty exist in the first place.
"No study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent." Quoted from the American Society of Criminology, "Similarly, 87% of the expert criminologists believe that abolition of the death penalty would not have any significant effect on murder rates."
As quoted, there are no proof that death penalty causes deterrent. So why kill? The death penalty is not a deterrent because most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Frequently, murders are committed in moments of passion or anger, or by criminals who are substance abusers and acted impulsively.

Cost is a big issue in our economically developed world. Because of money, decisions changes. Because of money, there is war and chaos. But as statistically proven, life in prison is less expensive than the death penalty mostly because of the legal process which is supposed to prevent executions of innocent people.
"The average cost of death penalty is 2.3 million. And the average cost of prisoners in prison for life is 1.5 million."
In this world, majority of us are greedy or at least selfish. Only a few government will be generous enough to contribute a massively large amount of money on a single criminal. The death penalty isn't reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It doesn't apply to people with money. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

More than half of the world's population is religious. There are many religions in this world such as Islam, Christian, Jewish, Buddhism and more. Taking of a human being's life is against certain religions.
"May the death penalty, an unworthy punishment still used in some countries, be abolished throughout the world." (Prayer at the Papal Mass at Regina Coeli Prison in Rome, July 9, 2000).
Going against religion is not a small matter as strict or not strict believers will be against it automatically.

To sum this all up, it is not right to take away someone's life at all. Taking away a human life is strictly uncooperative, also against many religions and the general public's views. Many statistics have proven taking a human life is wrong and not forgiven.

For and Against Death Penalty

12 Angry Men

About
The 12 Angry men is about a jury discussing whether to give someone a death penalty because he is accused of murder. In the beginning, most of them vote that he is guilty and only one of the juror voted not guilty. The other jurors reasoned his opinion and their own. They were persuading him to change his decision to guilty. Towards the end of the movie, it was found that the murderer was not actually guilty of the murder. The one juror convinced everyone to change their decision.


My favourite part of the movie was the part where the one juror who voted not guilty finally convinced everyone to vote for guilty. He used his opinion and evidence, also targeted other juror's weakness
to prove them wrong. It is unbelievable how other jurors decide on someone's life so quickly at the beginning as though they never thought of the situation. They used a woman's eye witness and took it as a true statement.

The Stars of the Twelve Angry Men are :
1 - Martin Balsam
2 - John Fielder
3 - Lee J.Cobb
4 - E.G. Marshall
5 - Jack Klugman
6 -Edward Binns
7 - Jack Warden
8 - Henry Fonda
9 - Joseph Sweeny
10 - Ed Begly
11 - George Voscovek
12 - Robert Webber

How reliable are you senses?

 Eyewitness of others can be trusted to a certain extent. They are not 100% reliable because most senses can be distracted or mistaken depending on the surroundings or the alteration of the brain.

Falsely Accused or Imprisoned People
Greg Taylor

Greg Taylor was convicted of murdering Jacquetta Thomas, a woman he had never met.
He swore his innocence from the start, but every appeal failed. Taylor got a break, when a novel fact-finding agency called the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission recommended his case to a three-judge panel for further review.

The judges declared him innocent and set him free.

He was the first prisoner in the nation to earn his freedom through such a process.

He had spent 17 years longing for his home and family.

For or Against Death Penalty

For
Justice (Prevents Vigilance)
Deterrent
Safety
Cheaper
Prisoner Cannot Escape

Against
Universal DHR
Innocent
Does not necessarily stop crime
Encourages violent crime

There are many different conditions towards whether death penalty should be held or not.
In my opinion, I'm FOR death penalty only up to certain reasons.
Why?
Death Penalty should only be held when a life is taken away for no sensible reason.
Such as:-
Murder with Intention
Terrorism
Though, it should not be conducted for:-
Drug Trafficking
Killing for Self Defense
Accident
Being Not Mentally Stable

It is unfair for those who are less fortunate and uneducated about the law. Most wouldn't know the effects of drugs trafficking which leads to them doing it.
Self Defense is mandatory, no one wants a murderer to kill them so instead they would attack first.
Accidents are accidents unless there is an intention to it.
For one who is likely mentally insane has rights to live life normally. Even if they kill, they should be punished instead of sent to death penalty.

Should Different Offences be Given one Fixed Punishment

We do not think that there should be one fixed punishment for different offences. Each crime is committed by someone for different reasons.

There is a wide range of offences in this world, there should not be one fixed punishment for the different offences this is because some are severe and some are not. Also the range of people that do this crimes. and the reason why these people did it. Depends on why the person did it.

For Example, if someone who is hungry stole one bun from a bakery because he is starving and needs it for his live, I personally do not think he should be punished but instead should be helped. This person is perfectly innocent and is just trying to keep himself alive.
But if there someone who would steal a bun for the fun of it, that is an actual crime.