Right now, it is the end of the first trimester, and I have made a lot of really good progress with my genius project. Here is where I am at. I am almost done with my genius project, as I am on the final step of the project. All that I need to do is host my actual beach cleanup event. That step, however, is nearly done, since I already have the set amount of people that want to go. This trimester, I feel as if I had made the most progress with my project. I would say that during this trimester, I took the genius project seriously, which drive me to finish my project. I'll tell you what I did this trimester. I basically started from scratch, as to where I started my genius project from the beginning. I've accomplished everything in my genius project up to the actual event. I was actually given a lot of good information as well, which helped me recruit more people to my genius project. The ideas that I received allowed me to target certain people and recruit them by using volunteer forms. Basically, throughout this trimester, I accomplished the most in me recruitment process. My next steps are rather simple. I need to get everyone together, usually through google forms, and host the event on an upcoming weekend. I feel as if I will finish my genius project pretty soon, definitely before third trimester and the genius project TED talk that is due then. Overall, I feel pretty good about this project, and it has been a good challenge and journey so far.
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Going into the professional in the room day, I was pretty nervous. I felt like I couldn't really gain anything from it. Afterwards, however, I felt pretty good about the information I got. I talked to and worked with three professionals throughout the three times they visited. The professionals helped me with the only thing I was really struggling with, which was getting the information out to other people, and to give them an incentive to come. At first, I was thinking about bringing donuts as an incentive, but my professional, who was Mrs. Edwards, recommended that I do something that would benefit lazy students. She recommended that I reward students with volunteer hours, which would hopefully attract students that still needed to do their twenty hours to graduate. She also recommended that I either send out a google form, or ask our school's ASB group to broadcast my Genius Project. The second professional that I worked with was Ms. Hunter, my English teacher. This meeting wasn't much, as I just checked in with her, since I was almost done with my Genius Project. My last meeting with a professional in the room, however, was really helpful. The professional gave me an idea about how to target specific people that could benefit from attending some of my cleanups, specifically those that are procrastinating and still need their volunteer hours to graduate. She said that I would be able to give out the volunteer hours myself, after gaining the authority to do so from the office, and ask the certain people that need the hours. Overall, my experiences with the professionals in the room was good, since they really helped me with certain problems in my genius project. It's been a long time since I've talked about where I am currently at for my Genius Project, so here I am. For those who may not know what my genius project is, I am going to host a couple of beach cleanups at my local state beaches in hope to better the environment. I have changed my idea a little bit since the beginning of summer, in which I am going to be finishing my genius project with another person, that way we can hopefully get a bigger group of people to come to the events. The rest of my project matches up with the ideas that I had at the beginning of summer (those ideas being how many people are gonna attend an event, as well as how the events are only going to take place on the weekends). As to where I am at in my genius project, the answer is not far into my timeline, which stated that I would have hosted an event at the start of the school year. Currently, I am at the beginning stages of my timeline, where I explained how I am getting a group of people together that want to attend the events. This doesn't mean that I am that far behind, however, because I have gotten a small group of people that are willing to attend an event. I am fairly confident that in some given time, I will have easily caught up with my timeline, which is to host three beach clean ups by the end of my senior year. I feel relatively good about the genius project, at least in the sense that we are given enough time to accomplish some of our goals. I like how we are given dedicated class time every week to brainstorm and work on our ideas and projects, especially because we can get help from other classmates and the teacher as well. Today in class we watched Angela Duckworth's TED talk about student success and their motivation. She talked about how some students that are smart get bad grades, while some students who aren't as smart get better grades. She tried to relate students' grades and motivation to the audience as well. She talked about how students aren't succeeding because they aren't motivated in school. Angela went over her data and told everyone, on average, which students did what. Finally, to wrap up her introduction, she told everyone what grit was and explained its importance for kids to succeed in school. Angela's words do really influence me in the way I think about school, even though what she tried to relate grit to didn't resonate with me. However, her words did influence me in the way I think about this project. She told us that you need to be motivated to do something correctly and enjoy doing it. This made me think about what I was doing with my project and if I was really motivated to do it, which I am. This also made me realize that I need to get started with my genius project and not procrastinate until the start of senior year, that way I don't become super stressed out about it. As of now, I don't think that I am going to change or update anything with my genius project, but if I do update anything, it would be the timeline. If I were to change the timeline, I would probably hope to make it so that I host my cleanups sooner than I would have originally.
I attended the Genius Project Forum, which was where students gathered in a small group, usually containing juniors, seniors, and a teacher, and gave their speeches. The event was on April 26, 2018. Everyone in the group, including me, had to give either their speech or pitch, and then the rest of the group would offer ideas on how those people could improve their speech. Watching those speeches and pitches was interesting, as it gave me better ideas to adapt my speech. My takeaway from the Genius Project Forum was how I need to walk around the front of the room, so I look more lively and less stagnant. Also, I learned that I need to memorize my speech better, that way it could sound more serious and impact, without someone constantly saying "um". The person I was most inspired by in my group was Lucas Weaver. His speech seemed well practiced and he delivered it rather well. What I took away from his speech was how important it was to keep the environment clean, as well as to use the environment as much as you can by going on hikes. With my project, I am currently working on the first step, which is gathering enough people to attend one of my events. Over the summer, I need to advertise my idea better to get people to seem interested in my idea.
This coming week, our English class is going to be presenting our Genius Project pitches, and we have to be ready to present by the end of this week. The date has really snuck up on us, because we had a week long break in the beginning of the trimester; however, I feel ready enough to present my pitch to the class. What I'm looking forward to most in my pitch is the closer. I feel as if my closer ends with a statement that connects to a universal theme, and makes people feeling guilty and wanting to attend my cleanups. I'm confident enough in thinking that my closer is going to be the strongest statement that I make in the whole pitch. The only thing I'm worried about in my pitch is my hook, which seems to me like a weak intro. I feel as if my hook won't do its job in hooking people into my pitch, and I feel stuck, because I can't think of a better intro to my pitch. My pitch preparation, however, is going great, as I am ahead of the schedule. The only thing left for me to do is memorize my pitch so I won't have to read off any flashcards. What I am hoping to get out of my pitch is a group of people that are interested in attending some of the cleanups. I am hoping that my pitch will affect and inspire at least a couple of people to do good things for the environment. I am always hoping for some feedback, and I hope that some of my classmates could offer me some information that might better my project. I'm hoping that they will offer me some information that makes people more interested in doing beach cleanups, so I could have more people attend. I have to start my genius project on something I'm passionate about, and I somewhat have an idea of what I would like to do it on. Since I've lived my whole life in Carlsbad, I've had the opportunity to visit the many beaches that blanket the west coast. As a little kid, I had attended a life guarding program called Junior Life Guards, which I attended with my siblings from the age of 9 to the age of 15. I even volunteered as an Aide there, helping the younger kids learn about the beach, as well as preserving the beach for the future. As a result, I have ended up spending many summers at the beach, whether it be with my family or with my friends. As beautiful as the many beaches of Carlsbad are, I often find trash scattered across the sand, or even half buried underneath the sand. I get a bit annoyed about this because sometimes i end up picking up the trash and throwing it away myself. I've always been a little aggravated about people littering on the beach, so I have decided to base my genius project around beach cleaning. So far, I have two main ideas: 1.) Organize regular beach cleanups to clean up specific beach sites 2.) A community group/website where everyday people can sign up with others for beach cleanups These two ideas are still only ideas, but they are a start. Hopefully, over the next week or so I'll be able to decide on which idea I would like to pursue. I will update you on my progress in my next blog. |
AuthorMy name is Dalton Miller, a student currently enrolled at Sage Creek High School. Archives
November 2018
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