Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Did You See That Coming?
As we move into summer's final month, you are no doubt deep into writing your Extended Essays. I have always found writing an illuminating form of investigation, no matter how certain I am of my subject at the outset. Share with us, please, a moment of discovery, of redefinition, of shifting perspective, of surprising connection, from your writing and thinking and learning process. Give us a bit of context (your topic, your final research question, and how this moment fits into the work as a whole), explain the moment, and then offer a Knowledge Question that incorporates a way of knowing. Please post before you eat dinner on Sunday. I will write to you next from the shores of Lake Huron.
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So far working on my Extended Essay I have completed the experiment part of the assignment. This is what you can call the research part. My topic is the affect of electro-culture while growing plants.
ReplyDeleteResearch Question: Does electroculture in the form of an electrical current affect the germination, growth in height, number of leaves and mass in different plants?
I decided to use peas, beans, and radishes in the experiment (all fairly quick growing plants). I have yet to write the essay, but I have collected all of my data. It was very important I was detailed while recording my data down, because that is what I will be analyzing throughout the lab report.
During the final day of the experiment, I knew I was going to have to record down the final measurements (total germinated, height, weight) so I had to make sure I got a scale and a ruler. When I was recording the information the scale I was using was working decently, but after a few measurements the scale stopped working. I tried to fix it but I started to get frustrated. In order to not mess up the experiment I managed to finish measuring the beans so they were all measured on the same day (the data would have been biased if I had measured some on one day and the rest on the other). The next day I was able to get another scale and carry on with my measurements. Before I got the scale, I was very scared that my entire experiment was incomplete and not going to be able to be used.
Knowledge Question: To what extent can knowing and planning ahead affect an outcome negatively?
My learning and thinking process is straight forward for this project because with a lab it is straight forward. I have a guideline for how an IB lab should be written out and that is what I plan to follow. I am excited to start writing but I know it will be tough to begin.
For the most part, I haven't come across anything crazy except that my hypothesis was disproven and this is exactly what a lab is all about. I was a little bit let down though because I was 99% sure that electro-culture would help the germination rate of the three types of plants I was using.
I look forward to completing my EE! :)
Tina writes: The topic of my extended essay is about Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Mao’s China. I focus on the time period when Hitler and Mao were in power in their states: for Hitler, it was the Third Reich, from 1933 to 1945; for Mao, it was from 1949 to 1976. Although they were both totalitarian leaders, they had very different if not opposite ideologies. My final research question is to compare and contrast the role of women in a family under Hitler and Mao. I read all the sources I have about the women in Nazi Germany first, and then tried to look for some additional texts about Chinese women in China. As I was reading the books, I found out that the major role of women was different in Hitler’s Germany and Mao’s China. Although there were some overlapping areas, these two regimes tried to impose different roles on women as a gender. Hitler preferred the traditional role of women; he believed that women’s area of strength was at home. In fact, I found many sources which emphasize the duties of women at home bearing children and doing chores. On the other hand, Mao attempted to blur the private and the public spheres in the traditional society, and asked women to come out of home. Even though women played an important role at home due to the expectations from the society, Mao emphasized women employment and their participation in the public sphere. Indeed, in order to strengthen their regimes in these two states, Hitler “invaded the private sphere” while Mao “expanded the private sphere”. Because the Nazis encouraged the traditional role of women, there are certainly more texts that are useful to my topics. For the role of women in a family under Mao, I have to use more of my own knowledge, and analyze it with the sources I find. Along with my researching process, I saw various points of view about the government policies enforced by Hitler and Mao. They all have evidence to support their views. Those views helped to raise up a question in my mind. When I think about a person in history, he or she would have a first general impression in my head, usually positive or negative. However, when I think more deeply or get to know more about this person, this first impression may be questioned by myself from some other perspectives.
ReplyDeleteThus, I came up with this knowledge question: To what extent is history a subjective matter?
My Extended Essay is in Biology and specifically anatomy and physiology. The final question I came up with is “To what extent does sleep affect the cardio vascular fitness of adolescences?”. When reading the post this week I thought back to the beginning of summer when I first started thinking about writing my EE and how intimidated I felt. At the time I was comfortable with my topic and content with my question, but I still felt unsure about the actual writing part. I knew this would probably be one of the hardest times in my entire time in high school, and that I could either leave all my work till the last minute or try and take it one day at a time and do my best. To try and shake my uncertainties I decided to read back through my notes from during the school year in order to rediscover my motivation. I was still ready to give up and leave the work till another day, but instead I decided to seek some inspiration from a friend. I can always count on Caroline for some words of wisdom, so I texted her and told her about my frustration and she replied to me and said “get some thoughts on paper and mold them. It’s like creating a statue; you need the block of marble before you can carve into it.”. I took her advice and started writing.
ReplyDeleteBefore talking to Caroline I had no idea what I was going to write, but by simplifying the processes I was able to rationally gather my thoughts. I still do not understand how my anxiety/emotions stopped me from writing because I could rationally tell myself to ignore my personal expectations to be perfect, but when Caroline told me simply to write I listened and was able to write without the same stress.
Emotions create beautiful things, like art. They can also be road blocks (e.g. fear) that cause repression of emotional expression. In my case reason did not help me to dismiss my fear of failure, but a simple metaphor from a friend did. As Caroline sparked my imagination, my writing seemed simple and expressed exactly what I wanted to say.
This got me thinking about emotion and how different people view it, which reminded me of how our court system is expected to operate. As far as I know judges and juries are expected to use reason and not emotion when coming to a conclusion. So, I came up with this KQ.
KQ- In what kinds of situations is emotion a hindrance? When is it helpful?
My moment of illumination and discovery actually took place this morning when I was in deep discussion (or some might say argument) with my dad, trying to convince him that the infinite set of odd numbers was not larger than the infinite set of prime numbers. At this point, I understood the difference between actual infinity and potential infinity, the concept of one to one correspondence, and how an infinite set which appears to have a greater cardinality than another actually doesn't.
ReplyDeleteMy topic is the existence of multiple infinities, and my final research question is: how does Cantor prove that multiple infinities exist? My extended essay is roughly divided into two main section; one proving that infinite sets which can be counted by a one to one correspondence are equal and the other proving that that there are an infinite number of sets which cannot be counted by a one to one correspondence and are therefore not the same infinity.
After reading a section in Smullyan's book about Cantor's theory and infinity for the 100th time, the concept of proving set equality using one to one correspondence suddenly made sense. Reading the section, I realized that common sense was obstructing me from fully grasping one of the main points of my extended essay; that infinite sets which are denumerable (able to be counted by a one to one correspondence) are equal. In the discussion with my dad, I was able to not only finally understand, but also link all of the previous seemingly-indirectly connected ideas.
Common sense tells us that the set of prime numbers (Set P) is smaller than the set of odd numbers (Set O) because Set P is a proper subset of Set O (meaning that all of the elements present in Set P are also present in Set O, but not all of the elements in Set O are present in Set P). However, we are making two grave mistakes. One is in substituting actual infinity for potential infinity and the other is in looking at the elements in a set in terms of value and not cardinality. My father pointed out that as odd numbers grow larger and larger, the ratio of prime numbers to odd numbers grows smaller and smaller. This means that when the set of odd numbers reaches infinity, the ratio of prime numbers to odd numbers becomes zero. The important terms to note here are “when the set of odd numbers reaches infinity.” The set of odd numbers can never actually reach infinity. That is one of the differences between actual infinity and potential infinity. Reaching infinity implies that infinity can be achieved which is what is meant by the term “actual infinity.” However, it is paradoxical because we are considering the infinite to be finite. Potential infinity is what Cantor’s theory deals with; an infinity that is potentially endless when one value can repeatedly be added to the other without getting any closer to infinity. Set O can never reach infinity which means that the argument is irrelevant.
Also, instead of trying to link Set P to Set O and thinking of tying elements of the same value with each other, we should attempt to denumerate them with the set of natural numbers. Since each of the elements in Sets P and O can be counted and associated with one member of Set N (natural numbers) then Set P is equal to Set O. In other words, because every single element in Set P corresponds with every single element in Set N, and every single element in Set O corresponds with every single element in Set N, then every single element in Set P corresponds with every single element in Set O.
This discussion allowed me to finally link different types of infinities with cardinality and one to one correspondence. Only when I was explaining it to someone else was I able to fully grasp the concept of it myself.
And thus, I succeeded, for the first time ever, in convincing my dad instead of the other way around.
My resulting knowledge question is:
Is common sense logical or illogical?
I chose history for my broader Extended Essay subject area and chose to focus in on the work and life of Theodor Geisel in conjunction with the U.S. during World War Two. My final research question, after much deliberation and a few sleepless nights, shaped itself into: "How did the transformative issues of World War Two influence Theodor Geisel's legacy?" While writing my essay, I came across various moments of knowledge and understanding, but not one which compared with the moment when I finally formulated my research question. I feel it only fair to dedicate this post to that moment, as it gave me such clarity into how my essay was to be organized and outlined. In late June I was ambling around the many floors of the UMass library, looking for a new source that I had seen in their catalog which looked promising. Up until this point I thought I had my research question fully formulated. My plan was to focus only on his political cartoons and examine their portrayal of wartime America. As I started reading the source, which I finally found after too much time spent finding the right floor and finding the right dusty call number, I remembered what had originally drawn me to the topic and why I chose him in the first place. I realized that my research question didn't do anywhere near justice to my subject and that I myself wouldn't have enjoyed reading an essay based on this research question. I sat myself down and brainstormed for a while. All different types of research questions made themselves known, but none of them stood out as encompassing all that I wanted to write about in my essay. Finally I realized that the reason I was rejecting so many research questions was precisely because I knew what I wanted to write about, what I wanted my essay to look like and how I wanted it to be organized. So I backtracked. I wrote my thesis instead and let the question come immediately after.
ReplyDeleteWhen I highlighted for myself the main things I wanted to illustrate in my essay, the rest came easy. If there’s one thing that IB History has taught me when writing essays, it’s that the research question is pivotal in outlining and writing an essay. The different command terms and prompts in each question are the key to writing a successful piece. Changing a ‘how’ to a ‘why’ changes the entire body of work. Switch out an ‘assess’ for an ‘evaluate’ or even a ‘compare’ and you have three completely different pieces of writing. These command terms and the specific wording and phrasing of a research question utterly pre-determine the perspective, components, and topics addressed in an essay, and they hold the answer for writing well. The research question is always right while you may not be. I think that after having come from a class which reinforced this so completely, I shied away from creating my own research question, knowing that it would either catapult me to success with my EE or send me hurdling into uncertainty and a shaky essay. This fear wasn’t unfounded. In truth, the research question may well be the most important part of any essay. It is the ruler with which the essay will be measured after submission. I knew what I wanted to say, but what did I want to answer?
Finally, after outlining my essay, it came to me. I’m happy with it now, and happy that the process of finding the right fit made me think so hard into the organization of my essay – exactly what it was supposed to do. What this moment also made me think about was how tightly language controls writing and, in turn, thought. My research question is the fence for my essay, holds the reins on where my essay can and can’t go, should and shouldn’t. It struck me at this moment, more than ever before, how important language is as a way of knowing.
My knowledge question, therefore, is as follows: How strictly are our thoughts monitored by the words we know to express them?
Dance
ReplyDeleteMartha Graham and her approach to dance through Greek Mythology.
I have always been a dancer, first for physical therapy and then just because it became a part of me. When I was 11 years old I started competing at dance competitions with my studio. I thought that all the older girls were so great because they could do so many turns and they were really flexible. Every year the senior age groups would do similar dances because that is what they were expected to know how to and be able to do. No matter what studio you were watching the seniors always showed off that similar routine.
My moment of discovery through out the research for my extended essay came as a redefinition of dance. I have always thought of dance as the same moves preformed the same way but in a different pattern, by different people making the steps different with their own styles. However even the variations in their personal styles the dances were still just like every other. Reading about the techniques of Martha Graham opened my eyes to the way the body can move through dance. The body is not constricted to certain movements but is free to create its own. Martha Graham’s technique uses every part of the body in different ways than other choreographers do. She uses the spine as the center that everything else extends and spins off of. Dance is a movement of the body, without any restrictions or limitations.
How does a different definition of something change the way you perceive it? How is this beneficial to the expansion of one’s knowledge?
Research Question:
ReplyDelete“How does Sartre show that humans are condemned to being free through the theme of existence and essence?”
Background:
In the play No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, there are three characters: Garcin, Estelle and Inès, who find themselves in hell. Sartre believes humans are beings-for-themselves. By this Sartre means to say humans have the ability to make choices and develop themselves, rather than beings-in-themselves, which can only live as they were created. They are what they are and cannot transcend to become anything else. Beings-in-themselves are simply existing. Beings-for-themselves should have essence. The overall theme in this play is that hell is other people. In society, where there is constant judgment, there is also suppression of the individual. Estelle and Garcin rely completely on others to define who they are. This is what Sartre identifies as “bad faith”. Estelle wants to be told she is beautiful and since there are no mirrors in this room, she begins to feel that she doesn’t exist because she cannot see herself. Her existence relies on her being and not her self. Garcin died by running away during a war and being shot. He wants to be told he isn’t a coward and when the door to leave opens, he cannot leave because he depends on Inès to tell him he is not a coward. Inès is the most self-assured of the three. She doesn’t need anyone to tell her who she is. On the contrary, she is the one who the two look to, to reassure them of what they think they are. But, Inès is ceaselessly attempting to win over Estelle. Through endless mental torture, Garcin comes to an epiphany: Hell is other people. We must, as humans, accept the responsibility that comes along with making independent choices. This responsibility sometimes grows on to become dependency on others to define who one is. Thus comes the difficulty of maintaining essence rather than existence. In that way, we are condemned to being free.
I used to think that atheists are just as stubborn and naïve as those who are religious. Then I read more on Sartre and his reasoning behind why he chose Atheism. It made sense to me. His thought was that “man is nothing else than what he makes of himself.” Since there is no God to design man, man has no blueprint, no essence. His essence or nature comes not from God as Creator but from his own free choice. There's profound insight here, though it is immediately subverted. The insight is the fact that man by his free choices determines who he will be. God indeed creates what all men are. But the individual fashions his own unique individuality. God makes our what but we make our who. God gives us the dignity of being present at our own creation, or co-creation; He associates us with Himself in the task of co-creating our selves. He creates only the objective raw material, through heredity and environment. I shape it into the final form of myself through my free choices.” This was a moment of discovery because it helps me understand a perspective I couldn’t. It told me that if I don’t agree, chances might be because I don’t understand.
KQ: In what ways does accountability impair one’s ability to live freely?