November 11-17

What I Did This Week

            I worked on my product this week (the calendar). I got two more calendar months done: April and August. I also decided to change the color scheme of the entire calendar because the previous one (the dual-color one) looked too childish. The background will not be varied anymore from month to month, but will all be the same color: a medium green color to symbolize the environment. Also, the first row of each calendar page (the row with the days of the week on it) will be the one that is varied. The color (a solid one) will go with the environmental issue and picture of the month. For instance, August’s topic is Reducing One’s Carbon Footprint, so the top row will be black because the picture is of a black footprint. Screenshots of the calendar pages that I have already finished (August, December, February, April) are below.

I also lightened the grey area of the other rows so that it will be easier for people to see the various appointments that they have written in the boxes. To see whether the paper I planned to have was the right kind and size, I went to the print shop and had one calendar page and a picture/information page printed. The pages seemed like they would be thick enough for the calendar, and the size was good too.

Difficulties I Faced

            As stated before, the background of the calendar pages was overwhelming the page. It took attention away from the supposed main focus of the page: either the picture or the calendar dates, depending on which type of page. Also stated before, the grey parts that one is supposed to write on were too dark and as a result, if someone tried to write their appointments or other events inside the box(es) they would not be able to see their own writing. The font was an additional issue. This is because it was quite curly and “looked like Comic Sans” according to my supervisor.

How I Solved The Challenges/What I Learned

            It was somewhat easy to solve the challenges stated above. I changed the background to a more pastel color that was not too bright and complemented the picture an calendar dates somewhat. I also brightened the color of the grey so that it would be a bit whiter and people could write down their various appointments without any difficulty seeing them. In addition, I changed the font from the curly one to an Oldstyle font, called Minion Pro. I think the calendar overall looks more professional now. What I learned from these difficulties is that bright colors are not always good, and that consistency is key to a good calendar. Bright colors can (and most likely will) overwhelm the page, taking the focus away from the intended main focus of the page. In terms of consistency, if the components of the calendar are not consistent for all the pages, the calendar as a whole will not look unified. This is why I made the background for all the pages the same color instead of different colors that reflect the respective topics, which was my initial idea. This is also the reason why I used the same font in all the pages.

November 4-10

Organizational Skills

            This week I mainly focused on taking the photos for my calendar pages. If I am not wrong, I believe I have seven so far: ecological balance maintenance, wildlife conservation, energy conservation, renewable geothermal energy sources, reducing one’s carbon footprint, biodegradable plastics, and plant conservation.

Wildlife Conservation

Plant Conservation

Ecological Balance Maintenance

Biodegradable Plastics

Reducing One's Carbon Footprint

Energy Conservation

Geothermal Renewable Energy Sources

            I have not touched up any of them except for the energy conservation one (the wreath ornament on a Christmas tree with Christmas lights in the background) and the ecological balance maintenance one (the three howling wolves).

Communication

            I communicated with some friends this week about the Personal Project: how much work it actually was as we did not expect there to be this much work. I also talked to my sister about possible title page layouts, but I was not able to actually get to creating a title page for my calendar. She drew a picture of a possible layout, and I redrew it in a neater way inside my notebook. It is shown below.

Information Literacy

         I learned that even if one plans to do something (such as in my case, take a photo of something to use for a calendar page), it will not necessarily work out. Originally, my family and I had gone to a fish hatchery in Yellowstone to get pictures for my Ecological Balance Maintenance calendar page, but I was not able to get any good pictures of the fish or their eggs because there was constantly a glare from the sunlight. Plus, the pools that they were in did not look too good either due to a lot of algae and other aquatic plants residing at the bottom, making the water look dirty. It was also difficult to take the picture about the carbon footprint, because I had to dip my foot in black paint in order to create the footprint. I had to make sure the footprint was in the right place on the newspaper, and had to find a newspaper article that was relevant to the environment, because I initially wanted to take a picture of a newspaper headline with the footprint in the background. Even though I took multiple pictures from various angles, none of them came out well, so I resorted to taking a close-up picture of the “carbon” footprint. This came out better than the other pictures, so I will use that. I am glad that I have already taken more than half of the pictures I need for the calendar; I am planning to take the rest of the pictures in the next few weeks or so, and also during the Christmas break in December.

October 28 - November 3

Organizational Skills

            I was not able to do much work on my project this week because this was the week of the spiritual retreat for my grade, as well as the students from grade 9 and 12 (it was amazing, by the way). As we were hiking in the mountains (that is where the retreat was), I came across a pretty flower that I took a picture of. I was thinking about using it as one of the calendar pictures, in the Plant Conservation section. There are also some other flowers I took pictures of on the retreat as alternatives so I would have some selection. None of these have been edited in Photoshop yet, by the way.

Communication

            There was a Personal Project meeting with my supervisor last week. I was told by my supervisor and the other students in my group to change the title font of the calendar and the background color as well because it looked a bit childish. Apparently the font was too curly and looked a bit like Comic Sans, which I definitely do not want. The background, on the other hand, was too bright. As I was making it, I was not actually sure whether to use this background because I also noticed that this was so.

Information Literacy

            There was a parent meeting for the 10^th grade parents on 

Friday, which was the day my classmates and I got back from the 

retreat. My mom went to the meeting, and afterwards told me

about the Progress Exhibition next PP meeting. Apparently it is a

“big deadline”, for which I have to get a lot of work done. I aim to

finish at least half of my calendar by that time near the end of 

November. Initially I was thinking that I would just relax and only 

do a bit of my Personal Project because the Progress Exhibition is 

only to exhibit one’s progress (hence the name). A particular point 

in the Project, such as 50% done, is not actually specified. After 

hearing what my mom had to say about the Exhibition, I realized 

that I should try to get as much done as possible before the 

Progress Exhibition so that I have more to show for it, as well as 

less work to do over the winter break. During the supervisor 

meeting last week, I was also told that my pictures for the calendar 

may not be professional enough, and they might need some degree 

of similarity, such as the same filter on all of them or something 

like that. This is so that each picture of each environmental issue 

will relate and be unified with all the others.