Our science project was to make a game that contains information about either two of the four which is the structure of an atom, the relationship between atomic number, atomic mass, protons, neutrons and electrons, the energy in Electric Shells and how valency correlates with stability and ions, and the patterns in the periodic table which is the periods, electric shells, groups, and valence electrons. Our group chose to remake the game ‘RISK’. How to play the game is, you play with a world map and you have atoms all over the world. You have to find an atom that can form ionic bonding with your atom. To play it, you have to know the ionic bonding rules and understand. We played it with Theodore to check our knowledge and understandings in the atoms.
I actually knew most of this before we started the unit because I’m 14 years old and am supposed to be in high school. But, because I came from Korea and my English isn’t that good, my parents decided to put me down a grade. So, I already learned this part while studying in Korea. Through this assignment, I found out that the teaching system in Korea and here is a bit different because in Korea, we learned much more and went much more deeper in the same time so it was so tiring… The new thing I learned is that back in Korea, we didn’t have a two kinds of groups in the periodic table like A and B, I just learned that there were 18 groups. I think now I’ve done this part twice, it helped me to fully understand this part better. I think this project also helped my classmates learn the material because this project was like a final check if you understood everything what you learned in class.
We did face some problems while creating the game. At first, we didn’t read the instructions properly so we were making a wrong game. So we wasted a few days of the time. But, Lois quickly suggested the game RISK and we started to make it on the new game RISK. Because we wasted a bit of time, we were in a hurry but things didn’t really work out well because printing the world map wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. However, we somehow managed to print it with a A3 paper!!! We searched for the periodic table and the world map in the internet to print out. We cut cardboards and pasted the world map on it. We actually had a hard time gluing because at first, we were using glueguns and didn’t really work out well at first.
I feel proud of our game because we actually even gave up our lunch time to finish this game so it’s a bit meaningful. Its strength is that it really tests your knowledge about ionic bonding. There is no weakness! but if we have to choose one, it would be that it takes a bit long time to be setted up. Also, I found out that ISD is a good place to work on projects like this.
This assignment revealed that I am a good learner and I concentrate to the class a lot because I learned this part months ago and I still remember it by heart. As a partner in group work, I think I participated a lot as a part of the group. I’m not really sure how our game is similar or different to others because I don’t know what other people made. But I think our game is the most unique one because it deals with ionic bonding in a world map.
If I am supposed to do another project like this, I will try to read instructions more carefully and be more timed so I can do other things after and have more time to think carefully, not rushing. I will also try to watch the video clips that Ms. Merryweather posts on the classroom to get more informations. From Theo’s game, I learned that I do fully understand the concepts of atoms, periodic table and ionic bonding.