Thursday, April 6, 2017

Methanol is the cleanest fuel because it burns clean.

Friday, February 17, 2017

Stem Day

        With big STEM, we had a day at the Santa Rosa Airport and were able to use our thinking skills and get our hands dirty by building something that would propel an egg forward and protect it safely when it hit the ground.
 Through the series of pictures, it shows how we slowly went through the process of building and failing. The background story the students in AXIS STEM told us was that we were suppose to create something to safely get materials to the military with out it braking and it had to have a manual release. The point of this project was to get our brain working and try to find a creative way to safely get the egg as far as possible.















Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Self Assessing

These questions are to help assess yourself and give a better structure.


• Are you satisfied with your learning?
• Are you satisfied that you demonstrated your knowledge and skill?
• How does your work compare to the expectations on the rubric?
• With which parts of the assignment (project, performance, etc.) were you most satisfied?
• How closely does your work on this assignment (project, performance, etc.) reflect your learning?
• Why do you think this assignment worked for you?
• Were there any parts that didn’t work?
• How did you do the assignment/project? Be specific.
• Were the strategies that you used effective in helping you reach your goals? o What learning strategies were helpful? Explain. o What would you have to add to learn more, do better, etc.?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your effort?
• Did the amount of time, effort and strategies used help you reach your goal?
• If you were to do this over, how could it be improved?
• As a teacher, what can I do to help you?
• What can I do to increase the value of this assignment/project, etc.? For teacher reflection:
• What was the objective/standard I was hoping to teach?
• What assignment/prompt/project/activity did I choose to teach the standard/objective?
• How successful was the lesson? o How do I know? What evidence do I have? o What percentage of students reached the goal or standard? o With which parts of the lesson am I most satisfied? o With which parts, if any, am I not completely satisfied? o How will I reteach and/or retest any unsuccessful students?
• How effective was the feedback that I gave to the students? How do I know?
• What did I learn from this lesson that I can use in future lessons?

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Mental Health Unit

        Your mental health takes over a big part of your life because your mentality is part of what controls it. Unless your Health class in high school goes into this topic, people are not really enlightened on it.In the past eight weeks, N.E.W School has dug a little deeper and really shown us how your mental health takes part in your life. We have guest speakers come in from time to time that help inform us on what is really going on in not just ours but other peoples head. Sometimes these guest speakers come to us or we watch them on websites like TED talk. Some of the things these guest speakers have talked about are depression, anxiety, PTSD, and how these mental illnesses have lead people to homelessness.
        The second guest speakers that came to our class are two counselors from my school and they came to talk about depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety are kind of like Mario and Luigi. Sometimes they work together and sometimes they work alone. Depression and anxiety affects 32% of teens and 8.3% are severe impaired. Some of the symptoms for depression are depressed mood and irritability, decreased interest or pleasure in activities, significant weight change or change in appetite and more. The difference between depression and sadness is that sadness is a normal human emotion and can happen because you feel bad about something that happened. Depression can come from brain chemistry, hereditary, environment, stress and others. The percentage of it being hereditary is 30-50%. Anxiety and depression affects every 2/3 girls and every 1/3 boys.
        One of the last things we did for the mental unit I did in class was watch a TED talk about PTSD. A man by the name of Sebastian Junger talked about his PTSD after he came back from fighting a war. His PTSD was short-term but some of the things he experience with PTSD was that the subway was way to fast, there were to many people around him and it was very load. What Junger had said was that if one person dealt with PTSD and was put in surroundings that made it worse, that person would eventually go crazy but if a lot of people were traumatized and put together, the percentage of PTSD becoming worse would go down. For example, when 9/11 happened, the whole city of New York was traumatized, (along with everyone else) and the crime, homicide and the suicide rate went down.
        To tie both of these in, I left the guest speaker for last for a reason. As my mental unit project, my friend Mikaela Myers and I raised money to buy and make homeless packs to give out for the holiday season. Our goal was to bring awareness to our school and outside community about the problem of homelessness and in order to do that we had to bring awareness to our class. A lady named Jennielynn Holmes came to my class to talk about the problem of homelessness. Some of the things she mentioned was that quite a few homeless people suffer from PTSD and are veterans. Not all reasons for homelessness is because of mental problems but also physical problems. 7% is due to physical problems, 31% is due to job lose, 10% is because they lost their house and 15% because that person got a divorce.

        After hearing these three speakers come and talk to the class and us really getting to hear what they had to say really enlightened me. It has made me open my eyes and understand people on a different level. Instead of turning the other way when seeing a homeless person, I turn and give them a smile or what I have to make their day. I'll give them these wonderful homeless packs my classmates helped create. With knowing a little more about anxiety and depression, it's helped me understand myself a little more better. Everything I've learned in these classes the past eight weeks have really opened my eyes to the outside world and to think before judging.


Monday, January 23, 2017

Is depression serious?

Potentially fatal:
-adolescents with major depression are up to 30 times more likely to die of suicide.


Aetiology of depression:

Genes and environment:

Gene- 30-50 % of the liability to depression is due to genetic factors

Gene - environment correlation: increased genetic liability for a life time trauma.


Developement and depression>;

2/1 = girls/boys




PTSD:

When one is traumatized and put into a modern area, one might go "crazy".

After listening to a TED talk by a speaker named Sebastian Junger, he said after coming home from war, he felt so alienated with modern society, he couldn't handle it.

When 9/11 happened, everyone was traumatized,  therefore, the crime rate when down, the suicide rate when down, the murder rate. That's because everyone went through this trauma and came together and supported one another.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Suicidal Prevention

What is mental disorder?

-Affects a person's thinking, emotional state. and behavior

It disrupts the person's ability to: 
-work or attend school
-carry out daily activities
-engage in 


What is Anxiety?

-normal reaction to stress

Involves: 
-persistent or severe fear 
-worry that is difficult to manage 
-interferes with a persons quality of life 

Symptoms 
-Must be present for 6 months or more 

emotional:
-feeling tense and jumpy
anticipating the worst 
irritability
restlessness
watching for signs of danger
feeling like your mind had gone blank

physical:
pounding heart
sweating



Causes of Anxiety:

Biological:
-Heredity/Genetics
substance abuse
Medical condition
brain chemistry

Environmental:
Abuse 
Trauma
high stress
violence

Life :

Significant loseses/ Major disappointments
divorce in Family
Stressful situations
unresolved family conflict
Extremely high expectations of yourself
high expectations for you put on by someone else


Teen Anxiety statistics:

Average age of onset is 6
32% of teens will experience anxiety, 8.3% of those have severe impairment
80% of those with an anxiety disorder won't receive treatment
untreated anxiety also puts adolescence at higher risk of perform poorly in school




Depression 

Depressed mood
lost of interest
pleasure in daily activities for two or more weeks

Symptoms
Depressed mood/irritability
Decreased interest or pleasure in activities
significant weight change or change in appetite
change in sleep 
loss of energy



Difference between sadness and depression

Sadness:

Sadness is a normal human emotion, all people experience it
usually triggered by different events
Feeling bad about something in particular


Causes:
Hereditary
Brain Chemistry
Environment
Stress
Medications
Alcohol/Drugs


*Depression can occur without any of these causes

Treatment:

Psychotherapy and/or medication> most effective is this combination


Treatment is Necessary:

Problem at school
Running away
social isolation
Drug/alcohol abuse
internet addiction 
Reckless behavior 
Violence
low self esteem
self harm behavior or suicide


SUICIDE

Suicide is intent to kill oneself
Suicide is 2nd leading cause of death for 10-24 years old
Those who die by suicide are frequently,  undiagnosed, untreated 


WARNING SIGNS
-Talking about death
-giving important things away
-self harm 
- Becoming happy out of the blue
-Threats to hurt or kill him/herself
-Making a plan
Strong wish to die/preoccupied with death
-Anxious and depressed, not sleeping
-Abusing substances



QUESTION

-Strait out ask
-Ask how they are feeling 





Tips for Asking
-Don't wait
-Be persistent even if the person is resistant
-Talk to person alone
-Let person talk openly
-Give yourself plenty of time
-Have resources available



24 HOUR HOTLINE
North Bay Suicide Prevention
Hotline of Sonoma County
1-855-587-6373
Suicide Prevention. Crisis Intervention. Toll free