Heath:
Having health almost every Friday was both interesting and informative. Interesting in the sense that peoples reactions to different topics could be surprising or predictable; informative because I learned answers to questions I might not have normally asked (I didn't ask a lot of the questions). However, the two major take aways I got from Health were: that my school really is a safe space, and that sex education is even more important than I originally thought. Reflecting on the first take away, going to a HTH school for about 70.5% of my life (yes I'm a nerd, I did the math) I've known that I could find staff that I could talk to or who were willing to help me. I've rarely not had that sense. However, having health this year definitely increased my sense of a "safe space" referring to the staff. My biology teacher gave straightforward answers to any and all questions and sometimes did so in a way we could relate and told stories which made the awkward situations a little less so. In addition, he never judged people based on the questions they asked, even if they could possibly be considered to be odd by some. I think this really speaks volumes and in addition to this and the fact that I really like his class, I consider this teacher to be one of the best I've had.
Moving on to the second take away, going into this year I was (and still am) supportive of having sex education in schools. The two main things that got me to realize that we need it even more than I thought can be attributed to two things: statistics and peoples questions. During health, one of the things we learned was that in places with little or no sex educations, the number of teens with STD's and teen pregnancies have gone up. This was not surprising to me, but at the same time very antagonizing. Not because nobody had told me these statistics, but that these things happen because of ignorance. But not any kind of ignorance that makes it necessarily teens faults, because this specific decision on wether or not to have sec education in schools lies in the hands of adults. Therefore, those adults who may or may not be the head of the schools or in a position in Government, or just a parent, a significant amount of the blame in the rise of cases of STD's and minor/teen pregnancies can be attributed to them (legally, administratively, and politically speaking). The second thing that increased my awareness for the need of sex education were the questions people asked. Actually, it wasn't the questions, but rather the amount. in my experience, HTH does a pretty good job about exposing students to sex education. However, the very fact that people asked so many questions (to clarify, I didn't mind that there were so many) means that even HTH could be doing better at informing students. Maybe some questions can't be predicted, but even so, the less questions that are asked likely means that students are more informed.
Moving on to the second take away, going into this year I was (and still am) supportive of having sex education in schools. The two main things that got me to realize that we need it even more than I thought can be attributed to two things: statistics and peoples questions. During health, one of the things we learned was that in places with little or no sex educations, the number of teens with STD's and teen pregnancies have gone up. This was not surprising to me, but at the same time very antagonizing. Not because nobody had told me these statistics, but that these things happen because of ignorance. But not any kind of ignorance that makes it necessarily teens faults, because this specific decision on wether or not to have sec education in schools lies in the hands of adults. Therefore, those adults who may or may not be the head of the schools or in a position in Government, or just a parent, a significant amount of the blame in the rise of cases of STD's and minor/teen pregnancies can be attributed to them (legally, administratively, and politically speaking). The second thing that increased my awareness for the need of sex education were the questions people asked. Actually, it wasn't the questions, but rather the amount. in my experience, HTH does a pretty good job about exposing students to sex education. However, the very fact that people asked so many questions (to clarify, I didn't mind that there were so many) means that even HTH could be doing better at informing students. Maybe some questions can't be predicted, but even so, the less questions that are asked likely means that students are more informed.
Final Lab(download file to see presentation slide, or click on the slide):
For me personally, I liked working in a group for the final lab. One of the things that I liked about it was that I was informed about things that I didn't know the answer two. No I didn't cheat, my group mates helped me understand the answer to a question. This I think highlights the core point of education: learning stuff. The groups setting allowed me to learn and understand things I didn't know or understand before hand, and possibly never would have learned or understood in a typical test setting. In addition, it allowed me to work with people I don't normally work with which was fun in of itself because it turned out the two people I haven't worked with much this year were good group members to work with. The one thing I will say that was a little difficult was deciding and piecing together how and what we would do for our experiment for the lab. This was mainly because we all had ideas so it took a little to come to a compromise, but we eventually did.
Overall, I think I did pretty good. I did accidentally interrupt a group member a few times which I apologized for, and I did not know the complete answer to two questions. However, I felt that i was able to work well within the group and communicate and collaborate with my team members. Just as well, our team as a whole worked well together. Even though we did disagree at a few points, we were able to come to compromises and assist each other when needed.
Overall, I think I did pretty good. I did accidentally interrupt a group member a few times which I apologized for, and I did not know the complete answer to two questions. However, I felt that i was able to work well within the group and communicate and collaborate with my team members. Just as well, our team as a whole worked well together. Even though we did disagree at a few points, we were able to come to compromises and assist each other when needed.
heart_rate_lab.gslides |