What makes us happy?

For our final project we are to find a theme on TED that interests us and narrow that down to a good topic to do a project on. The theme that grabbed me is what makes you happy. Earlier in the year I had one post on happiness and the video that I blogged about I really enjoyed. So, I thought this would be a great theme. Then comes the narrowing down to a topic. What makes you happy, that's a pretty specific thing if you ask me, but lets go smaller and do my final project an happiness in general. What exactly is happiness? Is it just a feeling or something you can accomplish? Happiness is something that everyone wants, but I've never really thought about it much and think it would be an interesting research topic. I have a feeling it will be hard to find the information I need, but knowing this theme is on TED will probably benefit me in the end. Where did the word happiness come from? Does it have a deeper meaning then just a good feeling you get?  So many questions are rolling around in my head, I can't wait to get started. In the end I want to be a happiness expert and be able to answer the question what is happiness, with an in depth, intelligent, passionate answer.

growing up in slow motion

This week we were supposed to find two talks about an interesting topic, I chose living a longer life. In the first video Cynthia Kenyon experiments with worms and their genes to more then double their lives. In the next, Aubery de Grey talks about how aging is a curable disease. My learning goal is will preventing aging cause problems with our population and everyday lives?



I think its great that their is a way to make you live longer, by changing this one gene Cynthia more than doubled the life of those worms. Some people I believe would love that others...not so much.




Aubrey says we age in more than one way, I never really thought about it like that, it Makes sense though. I think it's weird that he thinks of aging as a disease.

if we were to have a learn this button their are 5 questions I have to help reach my learning goal:
1. How much longer does the average person live?
2. What percent of the population wants to expand their lives?
3. How many kids does a typical family have?
4. Will our economy support a higher population?
5. Can we provide the food and houses we need for a growing population?

Learning Adventure Update!

Everything is going great, there is so much to learn and so many websites to go through. I'm having troubles trying to stay on a smaller topic and keeping this project down to something I can handle. Doing research every day has been hard and I have missed some days but in the end I think we will have enough information to say we  were successful.

New Adventure!!!

Once again I have changed my learning adventure. This time Alex Frink and I are going to research what goes on in the mind of a serial killer. What they think, how they got that way, statistics about the types of killers, and many other facts to answer all the questions we have rolling around in our heads in a two week time period.

To do this we decided the best way to find our information is to do research on the internet, a little everyday. Also, Alex said there is a teacher at our school that knows a lot about serial killers and will be willing to answer some questions and help us out when we hit a problem or get stuck. This particular learning adventure promotes mastery because researching and collecting all this information will expand our learning, teaching us more and more every day.

Our main purpose is to learn as much as we can. We want to be able to share what we find with others and answer any questions they have. If our adventure is successful then we will be able to hold a full conversation about serial killers and their backgrounds with what we have found.

Here's a step by step plan of what we want to do, we set up a shared google document where we can keep all the information. We have a list of questions we want to answer and are going to research for an hour every day. We need to learn everything there is about the thought process of a serial killer, if their childhood has effected them, and statistics about most serial killers. Most of our information will be from the internet but Alex knows a teacher who we can talk to, she also has a lot of books we can look at. Any challenges we run into we can talk to her.

Learning Adventure Propasal

In our class we have two weeks to learn about anything we want. Being so close to Halloween I want to learn about paranormal science.

If you have seen the television show Paranormal State you know that Ryan Buell and his team created the Paranormal Research Society. So, using the internet, books, and any resources I can find I will try to learn everything I can about paranormal sciences and what Ryan has been studying. I am going to be doing this by myself unless someone in class wants to join me. 

This adventure will promote mastery because in two weeks time I will be learning as much as possible about paranormal science, getting closer and closer to mastery. I definitely won't be a master but I will know a lot and be able to teach and answer questions others may have.

This learning adventure has purpose because I have always been interested in the paranormal. I know everyone in my family has had unexplained experiences and  this topic is something I have wanted to know more about. 

Flag football!

Powder puff is going on so for my learning adventure I'll learn how to play flag football. We have some coaches picked, decided whose on offense and defense and decided when practices were. It promotes mastery because I'm learning all the rules and plays and everything I need to know to play a game. The purpose for me is to mainly have fun, but knowing how to play helps me get into actual football games better. I am able to create new friends and be engaged in a group sport, and get some exercise.

From Chicken to Dinosaur?

Paleontologist Jack Horner has spent his time trying to recreate a dinosaur. This is the real life story of jerasic park, for the most part.


Who knew you could change a chicken to a dinosaur or that a chicken was a dino in the first place? All the work put into this truly amazes me, there has got to be some autonomy going there.

The fact that all of this can be genetically messed with and changed is fascinating to me. Who would take the time to do this in the first place, I guess the little boy in him never grew up. If people are changing chicken, think about all the possibilities there are. Some day we will have real unicorns and werewolves. I can't wait to see what's next.

Flow

Flow for me didn't happen very often. The few times they did was when I was getting help after school or reading for English. When I was in this flow zone I was either completely focused on understanding a concept or alone in silence drawn in by my book. During the flow test I found that I never had flow early or late in the day, it was always afternoon. Mornings and nights I'm just relaxed and settling in or waking up, not really doing much. Based on my feelings I think my days are set up pretty well, not to much going on until later in the day where I can actually work well. I get distracted super easy and the flow test really captured that. My focus really needs improvement throughout the day. In my morning classes I really seemed to be disengaged and need to work on that by waking myself up and putting forward one hundred percent. Through this whole experience it showed me I really don't have much intrinsic motivation to help me through my day. There is no push to keep me going, I'm just slowly meandering along.

Is What You See The Truth?

How do optical illusions work? The illusion effects your eyes and brain producing an excess stimulation of the brightness, color, size, position, tilt, and movement of what your looking at. Why is it our brains don't catch on to our eyes' tricks?  Beau Lotto shows us how light and color can greatly effect what we see.

It is so interesting how colors and light can change an image completely. Optical illusions are pictures or objects that trick your brain into thinking it's something else by changing the color, light, movement, excreta. I love looking at all these illusions and trying to figure them out. When Beau Lotto finishes his talk with the final question of "is this an illusion," how do you know what is or isn't? What do you think the answer is? Optical illusions are everywhere, how do we know if what were seeing is the truth? After watching this TED talk as I look around I can't help to wonder if what I'm looking at is an illusion or not.

Happiness

The little things in life may make you happy or sad but over all they have a small effect on life. Dan Gilbert has research why people are happy and explains it to us.

Listening to Dan's talk I started thinking about what makes me happy, a lot of it is small things but in the long run they don't really matter. As he's talking about synthetic happiness I tried to think about it in my life. How many times has something gone wrong in your life but turned out for the better? For me i feel like it happens all the time. When he starts talking about how people think what they own is better then the other thing, whatever it may be, I'm shocked. I have talked to so many people who have argued that the think they just bought is way better then the one whoever got because of this, this, and this. Really they are the same stop complaining! This week listen to your friends and see if they do it.

A New Kind of Magic

If you are anything like me and think math is hard enough as it is, you will never believe what Arthur Benjamin does. This mathemagician absolutely blew my mind with the math he can do in his head!



I can barely do math with a calculator, the things Arthur does in his head is incredible. I was a bit confused that he was saying cookie as a number, but it makes it that much more unbelievable. The fact that he was faster then a calculator and probably more efficient amazes me. The only mental math I can do it simple and some times I have to count on my fingers. Does anyone know how he does this? He must have had a great math teacher or a lot of time on his hands to figure out how to solve these problems. If there are anymore of his video's I would love to see them.

Keeping Creativity

When you're a child you care less about what other people think, you take risks and you aren't scared to be wrong. Ken Robinson discusses how education is hurting creativity, and a system to help that creativity grow.


This topic went along perfectly with what we were discussing in class. They way Mr. Robinson talks about this kept me interested, he didn't just lecture, he included humor. It makes this homework bearable that's for sure. One of the things he said that really got me thinking was, that the kids that are starting school this year won't be retiring until 2065. How are the subjects we are teaching them now going to help them in their lives. There is no way we know what life will be like then, we don't even know what it will be like in five years. How is our education going to change, or is everyone going to have to learn these new things on their own? Like Ken said the "the unpredictability for it is extraordinary." Another idea I found interesting is that he wants dance to be taught in school every day like math. Its creative, its learning, I agree, why not? Once children start to grow up teachers and adults forget about things like that, the only thing they think about is their heads according to Ken, and I find that completely true! Sure people play sports and do other activities, but that always comes after school. If your grades aren't high enough, then there are no sports. Whats your take on this? Are the subjects we learn in school really the most important?

One Day (revised)

Everyone remembers September 11th, but what about the 21st? Jeremy Gilley has worked hard to create one day of peace, that day is September 21st. You hear about world peace all the time, it's what pageant girls say in the interview part of the pageant but what about taking action and making things happen? That's exactly what Jeremy did.


This video inspired me, Jeremy's whole attitude was amazing. He thought if it didn't work, it didn't work, things would stay the same no harm done but Jeremy was not going to give up. Watching this video really made me think of what I can do on this day of peace. Making up with someone I don't exactly like just isn't big enough. I want to make a change like Jeremy did, maybe not something that big to start, but something that will help either way. What are you going to do on this day? No matter if its big or small, everything counts.One of the last things Jeremy said was "If you put one drop, one drop of something in that water, it will change it forever." Is this really true? Is the whole world going to change because of this one day? To me I don't see why not, violence went down 70% because of one day. Jeremy received a letter from the Taliban pretty much saying no one would be hurt on this day, they were going to sit back and see what happened. As a result 1.6 million children were vaccinated against polio. I was truly inspired and I hope you were too. Jeremy kept saying that he got everything on video, if you find any more of his videos or talks I would love to see them.

One Day

Everyone remembers September 11th, but what about the 21st? Jeremy Gilley has worked hard to create one day of peace, that day is September 21st. You hear about world peace all the time, it's what pageant girls say in the interview part of the pageant. But what about taking action and making things happen? That's exactly what Jeremy did.


This video inspired me, Jeremy's whole attitude was amazing. He thought if it didn't work, it didn't work, things would stay the same no harm done. But Jeremy was not going to give up. Watching this video really made me think of what I can do on this day of peace. Making up with someone I don't exactly like just isn't big enough. I want to make a change like Jeremy did, maybe not something that big to start, but something that will help either way. What are you going to do on this day? No matter if its big or small, everything counts. At the end of this video Jeremy said "If you put one drop, one drop of something in that water, it will change it forever." Is this really true? Is the whole world going to change because of this one day? To me I don't see why not, violence went down 70% because of one day. Jeremy received a letter from the Taliban pretty much saying no one would be hurt on this day, they were going to sit back and see what happened. As a result 1.6 million children were vaccinated against polio. I was truly inspired and I hope you were too. Jeremy kept saying that he got everything on video, if you find any more of his videos or talks I would love to see them.