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.