ER GCE Portfolio

       This term in our elective 'Intro to Calculus' class we moved on to learning about the reverse power rule and the antiderivative.  It was kind of eye opening and trippy when finding out that the you can get from the derivative and anti derivative and back using the two power rules.  It was just simply interesting that they both go into one another in somewhat of a loop.  It was difficult following all the different formulas but once you had them memorized somewhat it was quite simple and ingenious.  For our action project we were given two numbers that we had to turn into a function of are own.  We took that function and graphed it so we could first create an estimate before doing the definate integral formula to get the exact area of our function. Here's how it turned out. After finishing THE LAST 'Intro to Calculus' AP I feel both relieved and ready for Junior year with a solid foundation in calculus.  I feel like the best way to finish off this AP is to e

In our humanities class called Drama we entered a unit titled: Matriarch. This unit we read continued our streak of reading famous plays that had a massive impact. This unit we asked the question of what is a matriarch? As we made guesses of our own as to what this word could really mean we began to read a book that we could use to put the word into context. The book we read is called ‘A Raisin in the sun’ by Lorraine Hansberry. ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ is a play about a black family living through a segregated Chicago sometime in the late 1950s. They struggle through much as a family and even more through the way they were treated racially. The book hints at many issues of the time including: societal gender norms, blockbusting in black neighborhoods and Uncle Tom’s’      While reading this book we also attended workshops at the Goodman Theatre right down the street from GCE. We came here to learn from people whose job it is to understand, interpret and consider these contemporary

                  This week in our STEAM course called 'Cure' we took a very different route and delved deep into the question: How do our OTC and prescription medications do what they do? First, we took a look at the inner workings of different compounds and chemical equations. At this point, we learned to balance chemical reactions, name ionic compounds, and identify organic and inorganic compounds. Next, we learned that many medications work by halting a certain chemical or process to provide results such as pain relief. We explored this idea by further researching the effects anti-inflammatories and antihistamines have on the body. We learned that both are inhibitors that block a reaction of a bodily process by either shutting it down completely or taking up room within it thus blocking anything else from doing the same. The most interesting part of this was an experiment we did to simulate the shutting down of a bodily process. We did this by trying ‘Miracle Berry’ which i

      This unit in our humanities course Drama we asked ourselves the question: What does it mean to be called a doll.  At first this seemed like a pretty simple question.  More than likely you would have heard a gruff man with a funny accent call some woman a doll.  like "You look pretty as a doll" or "Hey, be a doll and grab me a _______."   This old phrase would be one to stick with us all throughout our unit.  Usually you might characterize a doll as pretty, young, unintelligent or completely without a will of its own only to be played with.  If you pictured barbie the idea moves to a doll for little girls which is controversial because of the hyper realistic beauty standards it insinuates.  Basically any way you cut it the phase is a bit of a red flag.        This question was the best thing to get us thinking as we began to dig into the play 'A Dolls House' by Henrik Ibsen.  This book was set in 1870's Norway during a tumultuous time for women wher

  This unit in my Spanish 2 class we talked a lot about food and cooking food. One might think that's strange for a Spanish class but it was quite on topic because topics like preterit tense of -ar, -er and -ir verbs or tú commands fit well in the format of (insert drumroll) a cooking tutorial.  As we learned these things we practiced everything separately before putting all together.  We enjoyed practice by COMMANDING people to go here or do this.   ER - 2023 "Spanish Menu" In conclusion this was a fun way to put everything together, cook a fun meal and learn more spanish.  The hard part for me that I really struggled with was writing the script because the commands are still a bit of a pain for me.  I overcame this with a little help and advice that set me on the right path towards understanding and perhaps mastery.  

 The last few weeks we have been learning and drilling the basics of calculus.  We learned about using the derivative and power rule to uncover the proper function to graph. This was definitely the most difficult AP ever.  I thought I had the main concepts down well enough but figuring out the steps was like pulling teeth.  To get though it all I had to receive some help but once I got it I felt a bunch better about the whole concept in general.