Description of Work/Assignment: The first project we did in Chemistry this year was a comic explaining physical and chemical changes. The comic was three pages long and had to follow a storyline while explaining what physical and chemical changes are, and give examples. I chose to do a rather basic story that followed a woman throughout her day; specifically, her interactions with her son and at the hairdresser. The examples of physical and chemical changes I used were making an egg (chemical), cutting hair (physical), dyeing hair (chemical), and making coffee (chemical and physical).
Which 21st Century Skill do you feel this assignment addresses, and why? I used Thinking and Problem Solving Skills to figure out how to write a story that made sense but also included the required information. I wanted the story to make sense but I also knew I needed to include the full definitions of both physical and chemical changes.
What are you most proud of from this assignment, and why? I’m most proud of the fact that I figured out how to include both chemical and physical changes in one example. I didn’t want to have too many pages, so I figured out that making coffee was both a physical and chemical change. Grinding the beans is a physical change, and roasting them is a chemical change.
How did you develop and/or improve upon your 21st Century Skill with this assignment? I improved my Thinking and Problem Solving Skills in this assignment because I used them for something that wasn’t related to science or math, which I haven’t done as much.
What was most difficult about completing this task? The most difficult part of this project was drawing the illustrations for the comic. Drawing is definitely not my strong suit, and drawing people is even harder. I still don’t love the illustrations I did, but they turned out better than I thought.
How could you improve this work? If you could start over, what would you do differently? If I could redo this project, I’d probably just spend a lot longer on drawing the characters so that I could be more proud of how they turned out. I’d add more details to the background, too.
How does this relate to what you have learned in the past? I’ve drawn comics for school before, and my experience has been pretty much the same; I’m not satisfied with the drawing bit but the story normally comes out okay.
How can you apply this to future learning? In the future, I’ll remember this project and spend more time on the illustrations, specifically the people.