Q1: What were your contributions today to your group? How was your energy level throughout the day? 

Personally, I determined the number and types of pollutants that we are going to investigate on and did my research about these substances in the case of chemistry. Also, I helped with communication with advisors about questions we met during the research. I think we communicated effectively today.  I think I was in a good mood and a good status today but energy level dropped a little closing to noon. (Lily)

I was in charge of the biology part. After researching published papers and online websites about which air pollutants can have significant effect on human body, I helped to specify the pollutants we would discuss (SO2, NOx, O3) at the beginning of the day. Then I began to analyze our data in the perspective of biology and tried to explain the biological mechanism of lung cancer. I distribute most of my energy between 8:00 to 11:00 on researching, analyzing, and writing our script for the final video. In the afternoon, I wrote blogs and prepared presentation with my group mates, since these tasks are more relaxing… (Emma)

Today after we finished our discussion of the pollutant that we are going to choose, we each separately did our own research on our area of interests.  As we have finished the discussion of the plans, I made the flowchart to show the overall thinking process. I also researched about the approaches that the US has taken to effectively reduce the air pollution. Overall, these three days are really tense, and I feel a bit more stressed compared to yesterday. In the morning, I finished the flowchart and analyzed the data, in the afternoon, finished the blog and prepared for the meeting. (Johnson)

Q2: Which area did you put the most motivated today? 

I think I was most motivated gathering data and resources for the video plan. I was motivated at going through different resources and making decisions about what we should include and what we should not include in the final video. (Lily)

Researching for the relationship between SO2, NOx, O3 and lung cancer. Although we have not learned the gas exchange system in biology yet, I thought it was interesting so finished reading the relevant chapters on biology book. I also found several published papers that could be used as our experimental references for our investigation. (Emma)

I feel most motivated today making flowcharts. It’s basically a visual representation of the thinking process that we have gone through these two days, and it makes my understanding to this research question more logical. It took me a few hours to complete the flowchart. (Johnson)

Q3: Which area did you feel the least motivated? Why? 

However, things get harder when I need to compile those resources and sort out the information I need. I need to collaborate with my groupmates and communicate frequently to know what they are working on to make sure that we are focusing on the same detail. Also due to the time limitation of the final video, I would have to limit the amount of information that I put in and make it as concise as possible. (Lily)

Writing the script for the video. Writing it was not boring, but I found it difficult to decided which information should I include so that my analysis would neither be too broad nor too complicated. (Emma)

I think dealing with data is the least motivated part. Because there are tons of data associated with air pollution and lung cancer it is quite stressful to look through them and establish model between the pollution data and the lung cancer data. (Johnson)

Q4: What are some ways you could have persevered through these times? What are your own personal goals for the final day?

If I met some problems during research I would ask questions to my groupmates first. Usually they will be able to give me good answers from other perspectives to help me solve it. If my groupmates could not answer the question, I would then go for our advisors. Personally, I hope we could be more effective tomorrow and complete our work with quality on time. I hope we could start early on making video and poster so we try not to rush the deadline. (Lily)

I was not distracted throughout the time I carried out research, which I thought was really important to improve my efficiency. Also, we asked more questions and communicated our confusions more to the teachers than we did yesterday, which I thought was really good to our progressing. For the final day, I wish I can finish drawing the diagrams, charts, and cartoon pictures (which will be used in our final video) in the morning. In the afternoon, I hope I can finish my ppt, record my script, and edit my parts into video. (Emma)

I keep myself motivated to persevere, because I regard the Group 4 project as a great way to incorporate different subjects together to research about a real-life issue. I have done similar things in grade 9, of which we combined Biology, Human geography and Economics together to do a 20min long video. I found it very interesting, so I really enjoyed the process. For the final day, I really hope that we can come up with some meaningful results and present all our hardworks into the video and the poster. (Johnson)