Describe the importance of self-motivation and perseverance in a team setting. Describe the importance of teamwork and collaboration. Describe the importance of reflecting. Remember to give specific examples from these last 3 days.

EMMA: I think self-motivation and perseverance can help keep our efficiency on track. Although we are worked in a group, we had to do our tasks individually after we set our goals and divided our works. Each individual must be concentrated on their tasks so that we could have enough time integrating and revising our works together. For example, we designed that we should begin making video and poster on the third day, then I must finish all the biological explanation in the script for our data on the second day. Because of this, I was able to spend almost most of the time between 9:30-11:00 today on making our poster.

The teamwork and collaboration can help a group improve efficiency and reduce possible mistakes. For example, after choosing the area of interest on the first day, we had some difficulties in specifying our research question. We knew that we wanted to study air pollution, but were not sure which specific air pollutants we want to study. The teamwork helped us to solve this problem: as a biology student, I read our biological textbook and conduct research on external sources such as published papers, aiming to find out which pollutant or pollutants have the most significant effects on lung cancer. After that, I told my results (SO2, NOx, PM) to Lily (chemistry student), and she conducted found out some evidence that further verified the validity of my results and explained the results in the perspective of chemical reactions. Based on our research, we finally decided to study SO2 and NOx, and Johnson (CS student) was able to found the relevant data and create model for our analysis. Compared to the situation when we had not decide which air pollutants to study and all of us were searching aimlessly, our research was more focused and targeted on the second and the third day.

Reflecting was really, really important since it helped us find out where we can improve to make the next day better. We had big difficulties in finding topic on the first day, because we didn’t know how to find good database and how to select a topic that is suitable for research. All of us were just searching and searching and getting no valuable results, instead of communicating our confusions with the teachers, who were experienced at G4 projects. We missed the deadline for approval and after we were asked to talk with Ms. Shuo, we found out that her advice was really helpful and we quickly determined our topic after meeting with her. At the end of first day, all of us agreed that “asking questions more frequently” was what we should improve most, and we wrote this idea into the reflection part in our daily presentation in Day One. On the second day, we asked Dr. Chun and Ms. Shuo a lot of questions (such as what exactly does historical or current trend requires us to include, what are the exact mechanism that air pollutants react with substances in our body…) if we cannot figure it out by ourselves, and their suggestions were really helpful and our efficiency was greatly improved.

LILY: Over the last three days we have been working as a group to complete a project with each member expert in a certain field. Online communication was a big barrier that we have to overcome to complete this project. We went through the process of brainstorm, database research, content research, information gather and final production. 

 In the brainstorm and research stage, we met a few problems of efficiency and decision making. We first settled our general topic to be about pollution and then went for research of data, but we were struggling to get the appropriate data because the topic was too general to help us pin down the exact ones that we need. We changed our topic from land pollution to water pollution and lastly to air pollution due to the available databases that we found. This taught us about the importance of determining the sequence of tasks when doing a project, when the resources are limited, we should determine our investigation area according to the resources, if not we may take a long time to gather the evidence for our research.

 Also, another reason that we choose this topic is that our team members are all interested in this topic and our area of experts all have places to research on related to pollution. This way we can encourage ourselves when we meet problems and troubles, and we will have the motivation to keep on working. For example, when we found out that land pollution is not suitable for doing research, we could quickly shift our topic to water pollution, and when we found out that there was no appropriate database with water pollution and we used a lot of time, we could still shift our topic to air pollution.

 We were collaborated and communicated well during the research process. Even though this might be the first time we are working together through internet, we could still help each other using our own knowledges and resources. For example, initially, Emma provided a website that contains many databases of different topics to open our minds and help us search for an appropriate topic. Whenever a group member found an useful website online, we would immediately share it with the group and discuss our ideas with them. When I went through each website and searching for data related to water pollution and found out there weren’t much data related to it, my groupmates discussed it with me together immediately so we decided together that we should change our direction to avoid waste of time.

 During the last three days, we were required to do written and live reflections every day. This form of reflection helps me conclude very well for what we have done in the day and reminds me of the progress of our project. Also, reflection is also a kind of prediction, it can help us set up the goals and targets for the next day. For example, on the first day, Mr. Vivas told us in online reflection that we need to specify the kind of pollutants that we need to discuss about, so the targets that we set for the next day would be to be sure about which particular substance would we investigate on. In that way we related the pollutants (SO2, NOx, etc) to the disease of lung cancer and came up with our final research question.

 Overall, I believe that the group 4 project trained my ability of teamwork and collaboration. It reminds me that it is important to often reflect on what we are doing and set appropriate goals for the future.

JOHNSON: These three days have been really tensed and tough. One of the difficulties is that  we are doing this teamwork distantly, and it slightly makes the communication and efficiency not as good as face to face communication. I think there is quite a lot of workload in the G4 project, brainstorming the topic, searching for reliable and appropriate database, choosing appropriate pollutants and research about the relationships with lung cancer. Each of these process takes a lot of time to accomplish and it contributes to most of our first two days. For me personally, I think self-motivation and perseverance is really important. I started to analyze the data on the second day, I choose to use a software (Matlab) that I am not really familiar with before. It takes me several hours on the second day, and I still couldn’t figure out how to write the code to make appropriate plot diagrams and regression lines. I think I panicked a bit, but I know that our later research is highly dependent on the data trend we find, and we have to use it to predict future data. This is the time when I almost give up, but thinking about the importance of these data, I motivate myself and carry on the work. 

Secondly, the group 4 project is meant to promote teamwork and collaboration by making a group filled with a representative of a science subject. All of us have to devote our own knowledge from the subject to help moving on this research. If any of the group members get lost or not working persistently, the whole research will fail. For example, we are doing a research question about how the pollutants impact the lung cancer in the United States. Though I don’t know the situation of the other groups, our topic is highly chemical and biological related. I do not have much knowledge about these molecules and the reactions, so the theoretical explanation requires students from chemistry and biology. Similarly, for the flowcharts and data analysis, I can use my knowledge from the CS class. Each of us has specific roles and responsibilities, only with effective communication and collaboration, this project can move on.

For the reflecting part, we made a mistake on the first day. We spend too much time deciding the topics and still not having a clear thought. We asked for help from Mrs.Shuo, and her advice immediately helped us to narrow down our topic. So, we reflect about this on the second day, and we decide to ask questions more frequently. We asked a lot of questions associated with molecules and reactions and it largely speeded up our process of research. For example, thanks for their help, we were able to narrow down the pollutants to NOx, SO2, and PM 2.5. So I think the reflecting process is really essential in a teamwork. Because this is the first time for the three of us working together, it’s the first time we distantly working on a project and the first time to do a project incorporating different subjects. There are a lot of difficulties, and we improve everyday by finding more efficient approaches. For example, throughout these three days, we tried wechat audio, zoom meetng, Tencent screen sharing, Shimo document to make sure we are doing things as efficient as possible, and that benefits a lot.

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)

Q1: What category and sets of database did your group decide on? (We combined all our answers in the first question)

We chose to analysis the pollution of a few substances of the US over a few years and its relations with a specific kind of disease (lung cancer). The links and screenshots are provided below:

1. Emissions of air pollutants in the US, 1970 to 2016 (https://ourworldindata.org/outdoor-air-pollution)

2. rate of lung cancer in the US, 1999-2016 

(https://gis.cdc.gov/Cancer/USCS/DataViz.html)

Q2: What do you think can be the implications of your analysis specifically in your field? In the world? 

In the field of biology, I could analyze the relationship between air pollutants and lung cancer, trying to explain how does certain pollutants affect blood vessels, blood circulating and metabolism.  (Emma)

I think our analysis can help to find out the different sources  of these pollutants. I can specify down to the basic chemical mechanism of the formation of these substances and find ways to cut them down from the source. (Lily)

As for computer science, the main task is to analyze the data of air pollution in US and lung cancer. If necessary, programming and modelling might also be used to examine the trend of the disease and pollution, thus predicting the future situation. Other than that, the technological and moral side should also be analyzed. It’s necessary to research about the particular actions that countries have employed to effectively control the air pollution, and whether or not these actions are morally correct. (Johnson)

As for world implication, this analysis can alert people of the effect of air pollution on their personal health. In this way, people can have better awareness of protecting the environment, meanwhile, also protecting themselves.

Q3: How do you feel about your group mates and the expertise that they will be bringing into the group? Are there possible conflicts? How does your group plan on resolving conflict?

I think my group mates are excellent, and we all have deep understanding in our subjects. Our cooperation is nice and peace: although we experienced difficulties in forming our research question and finding appropriate database at the beginning, we solved this problem after doing more research and talking with our advisor. (Emma)

I think my group mates are knowledgeable in their fields and good at exploration about possible topics that they could done in their fields to support our study. They can use their knowledge to expand different aspects of our research and come up with possible research questions. There are not much conflicts in the discussion within our group but we have met some problems with data at the beginning of the research. We were hesitated about which data were the to choose and use to connect with our topics. For future discussion, we will need to make our decisions faster and assign works to each member clearly. (Lily)

Our research question is a great combination of the three subjects, thus each of us can analyze this question from different angles, chemistry, biology and computer science. Their knowledge about diseases, pollutant molecules will be extremely beneficial for our analysis of the correlation between air pollution and its effect on diseases. There wasn’t any conflict yet, we just spend quite a long time to decide our final research question. For example, we discussed about what pollutant and what disease specifically to choose, we both researched online and later on exchanged our opinions to come to a final solution. If there are any possible conflicts in the future, we are going to have a phone call to discuss our opinions. (Johnson)