Final Blog Post

I thought that the overall project was really difficult, but fun at the same time. It was rather difficult because we had to really analyze Kamehameha Schools and pinpoint a major problem on campus. Our group brainstormed for a week or so and was finally able to identify a complication at school. The project was also fun because we were able to run a five-minute warning on both high school campuses for almost a week. Being in charge of a major undertaking like the warning bell was truly an awesome experience. Several things went well with our project. One thing was we were able to reduce the number of tardies on campus, which was our initial goal. We also were able to make Kamehameha a happier place because the students were able to hear some of their favorite tunes over the PA system. We even caused students to dance, which was totally cool. Another positive thing was that the hallways were much clearer, and all the credit goes to our implementation of the five-minute warning. Along with the good things were things that did not go as planned. One thing included the five-minute warning turning from a whole song to a 20-second clip. This was because Mr. Ako was in a meeting at the time of the first warning and said it was a bit of a distraction. Another thing that did not go as planned was the late implementation of the warning. We had scheduled with Mrs. Martin to have our proposal out by May 9, but it was postponed because of AP testing. From this project, I learned that I can’t please everyone in this world. This is so because a certain number of individuals complained about the music selection from time to time saying that they wanted their requests over the PA system. I believe it was hard to please everyone, especially when you are apart of a campus of 1600+ students. Through this experience, I did whatever I felt was best for the vast majority. All in all, a vast majority of students enjoyed the music selection and said it was really good. To make this a better activity, I would say that the school service students should manually run the five-minute warning instead of us. This would be better, so we wouldn’t have to personally go into the office five times a day to run the PA system warning. It would really save us a lot of stress and trouble. To make Ho'oulu iā Kamehameha a better project, I would say that the students should have more days than just a quarter to work on their proposals and implementations. Maybe give them an entire school year, while still doing physics activities at the same time. I honestly do believe we were doing science. This is so because the five-minute warning implemented music and music includes sound waves. Sound waves are directly related to physics, which is in part science. Also, our group was collecting data during the implementation portion of our project by asking teachers to record the number of tardies before the warning was set up and even after. Data collection is directly involved in the science process, so we were definitely participating in a science-related activity.