Project Reflection
Doing group projects in the past year and a half year here at Animas has been a very helpful skill for this project. Since this project focused mainly on group work it was important to have the skill of teamwork. In this project I felt more like a group leader, which helped our group to stay organized. Organization in our group was more like separating the writing work for the take action proposal. If we finished with our individual writing section we helped each other with their portion, we also critiqued each other's work. Having done this project in groups made it easier to put more time and energy into the work we were doing.
The two most significant things I did during this project was writing the introduction section of the take action written proposal for our group and being a group leader. I was in charge of writing the introduction of the take action written proposal. I made sure everything got done by being a group leader. I contributed to the success of this project by having a finished and refined take written proposal and an infographic. The final product of this project was having a group take action written proposal and individual infographics. About sixteen of the best infographics were picked to be showed in our exhibition, it was very important for everyone to complete their portion of the work so that their work had a chance of getting picked to be in the exhibition. One person in each group got to show their infographic at our exhibition and along with the infographics was the group's written proposal.
Our group interacted well with each other, and worked well with each other. We made sure that we each did our part of the written proposal. In the start of this project we decided as a group what ecosystem we wanted to reacher and write about. The group choose to write about the subalpine ecosystem we were all interested in doing an animal that lived in the ecosystem. With that each of us chose our favorite animal within the ecosystem, after that we voted as a group on the animal we were going to write about. The group didn’t have any challenges, both of my group's members put positive energy into their work. I especially like my group because one of my group members enjoyed writing, it was nice to have someone in the group that enjoyed to write.
In the beginning of this project I made the assumption in my head that this project was going to be really hard. I tried to comprehend this project all at once instead of letting the pieces come together as I we went along with the project and the work. At the end of this project I learned that I over thinking about everything only made the project harder for me.
Doing this project opened my perspective on predator prey relationships. There is a balance of nature. There is the bottom up dynamic (prey controls predator) and the top bottom dynamic (predator controls prey). If this cycle get interrupted say for example, the lynx die out then the snowshoe hare population would increase and eat the vegetation. Then the vegetation produces secondary defense compounds, so there is less appetizing and nutritious food for the snowshoe hare. When the hare population grows they start dying very quickly, the lynx continue to feed on the snowshoe hare but run out of prey eventually. I did not realize how much the lynx and snowshoe hare depend on each other, and how delicate the balance is between the predator and prey.
If I could do this do this project again I would put more time into the introductory section of our groups written proposal. I personally would have liked to put more depth into it, such as defining more about the adoitc and doitc factors. I introduced what each of the abiotic and biotic factors were but I did not go into very much detail on how they impact and what they impact. It felt like it would have helped the readers to have more context on how the factors impacted the snowshoe hare and the lynx.
I have learned the importance of having a group leader. It helps having someone to keep the group organized and on task, it makes it easier on everyone in the group to each have certain tasks to work on. This can help me in the future with working in other group situations that I come across in my high school, college, and professional career. I think that teamwork is especially important because no matter where my life takes me, I am going to encounter people that I will need to work with in order to accomplish a common goal.
Prior to attempting this project I wish knew more about making infographics. Before this project I had never made an infographic before so I wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to look or how the layout should have looked like. I over thought a lot on having enough information on mine, I also did not want to have much text because the text needed to be more visual and easy to follow for the audience. I feel that if I would have had more experience with infographics I would have had an easier time creating my infographic.
One of the very first activities we did was the ecosystem exploration. We did research on three different ecosystems; montane shrublands, montane forest, subalpine forests. For each ecosystem we research the elevation, location around Durango, species of vegetation, and common species. Within each of the ecosystems we found one plant for each one a found the latin name, physical description, origin and range, and how the plant reproduces. We also picked one animal for everyone ecosystem and researched the latin name, physical description, origin and range, habitat, diet, and how they reproduce. I have always been a visual learner, and having a article to gather the information correct information made the project more enjoyable for me.
Having done this project will change how I do my researching in the future. While doing the research on the lynx and snowshoe hare population, and finding data graphics on the population rate over the past few years took me longer than I was expecting. During the researching part of the project I was having a hard time using keywords to find the articles and graphics I needed. In the future when I am researching I will double check to make sure that I using a minimal amount of words as possible, and only use the main words that I need to find an article.
Doing group projects in the past year and a half year here at Animas has been a very helpful skill for this project. Since this project focused mainly on group work it was important to have the skill of teamwork. In this project I felt more like a group leader, which helped our group to stay organized. Organization in our group was more like separating the writing work for the take action proposal. If we finished with our individual writing section we helped each other with their portion, we also critiqued each other's work. Having done this project in groups made it easier to put more time and energy into the work we were doing.
The two most significant things I did during this project was writing the introduction section of the take action written proposal for our group and being a group leader. I was in charge of writing the introduction of the take action written proposal. I made sure everything got done by being a group leader. I contributed to the success of this project by having a finished and refined take written proposal and an infographic. The final product of this project was having a group take action written proposal and individual infographics. About sixteen of the best infographics were picked to be showed in our exhibition, it was very important for everyone to complete their portion of the work so that their work had a chance of getting picked to be in the exhibition. One person in each group got to show their infographic at our exhibition and along with the infographics was the group's written proposal.
Our group interacted well with each other, and worked well with each other. We made sure that we each did our part of the written proposal. In the start of this project we decided as a group what ecosystem we wanted to reacher and write about. The group choose to write about the subalpine ecosystem we were all interested in doing an animal that lived in the ecosystem. With that each of us chose our favorite animal within the ecosystem, after that we voted as a group on the animal we were going to write about. The group didn’t have any challenges, both of my group's members put positive energy into their work. I especially like my group because one of my group members enjoyed writing, it was nice to have someone in the group that enjoyed to write.
In the beginning of this project I made the assumption in my head that this project was going to be really hard. I tried to comprehend this project all at once instead of letting the pieces come together as I we went along with the project and the work. At the end of this project I learned that I over thinking about everything only made the project harder for me.
Doing this project opened my perspective on predator prey relationships. There is a balance of nature. There is the bottom up dynamic (prey controls predator) and the top bottom dynamic (predator controls prey). If this cycle get interrupted say for example, the lynx die out then the snowshoe hare population would increase and eat the vegetation. Then the vegetation produces secondary defense compounds, so there is less appetizing and nutritious food for the snowshoe hare. When the hare population grows they start dying very quickly, the lynx continue to feed on the snowshoe hare but run out of prey eventually. I did not realize how much the lynx and snowshoe hare depend on each other, and how delicate the balance is between the predator and prey.
If I could do this do this project again I would put more time into the introductory section of our groups written proposal. I personally would have liked to put more depth into it, such as defining more about the adoitc and doitc factors. I introduced what each of the abiotic and biotic factors were but I did not go into very much detail on how they impact and what they impact. It felt like it would have helped the readers to have more context on how the factors impacted the snowshoe hare and the lynx.
I have learned the importance of having a group leader. It helps having someone to keep the group organized and on task, it makes it easier on everyone in the group to each have certain tasks to work on. This can help me in the future with working in other group situations that I come across in my high school, college, and professional career. I think that teamwork is especially important because no matter where my life takes me, I am going to encounter people that I will need to work with in order to accomplish a common goal.
Prior to attempting this project I wish knew more about making infographics. Before this project I had never made an infographic before so I wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to look or how the layout should have looked like. I over thought a lot on having enough information on mine, I also did not want to have much text because the text needed to be more visual and easy to follow for the audience. I feel that if I would have had more experience with infographics I would have had an easier time creating my infographic.
One of the very first activities we did was the ecosystem exploration. We did research on three different ecosystems; montane shrublands, montane forest, subalpine forests. For each ecosystem we research the elevation, location around Durango, species of vegetation, and common species. Within each of the ecosystems we found one plant for each one a found the latin name, physical description, origin and range, and how the plant reproduces. We also picked one animal for everyone ecosystem and researched the latin name, physical description, origin and range, habitat, diet, and how they reproduce. I have always been a visual learner, and having a article to gather the information correct information made the project more enjoyable for me.
Having done this project will change how I do my researching in the future. While doing the research on the lynx and snowshoe hare population, and finding data graphics on the population rate over the past few years took me longer than I was expecting. During the researching part of the project I was having a hard time using keywords to find the articles and graphics I needed. In the future when I am researching I will double check to make sure that I using a minimal amount of words as possible, and only use the main words that I need to find an article.
Infographic