Sa-Shai Daniels' Portfolio

This was a physics project about light. My group focused on how UV light reflects off of mirrors. We learned about different types of mirrors and how they can affect light. Some mirrors will intensify and focus light more than others. For this project we made up experiments based on the topic of our choice. My group wanted to know if UVA and UVB light would reflect in different ways. The first step in this project was developing research questions, and then choosing the one our group thought would be the most interesting. Next we designed an experiment to assist our group in answering our chosen research question. After we collected data we created a power point that described our entire experiment. Lastly, we presented our project to some of the upper-classman. 

 

This was a fairly hard project so there were many challenges. My biggest challenge was revising the project. Putting together an experiment and doing it is simple, but trying to improve on what you've already done is a lot more difficult. I think the reason that this was so hard was because I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and I often try to fix every detail. It gets to the point where I start to look for mistakes that my not even be there. I overcame this challenge by having my group help me point out the flaws in our work; it was easier to do the revisions properly when I had my group members helping me out. After I knew what was wrong it was easy to fix the problems without being obsessive. 

 

One of the most important things that I learned during this project was that, when it comes to a science experiment you really should do as many trials as you possibly can. My group did a lot of trials, but we could have done more had we used our time more efficiently because of this our data wasn’t as accurate as it could have been. I know now that whenever I’m doing a science experiment where I need to do multiple trials, I should make sure that I use my time well and do as get through as many trials as possible. 

 

This project was long and hard, so the quality that I think I used the most would be persistence. Persistence is all about never giving in to the temptation of giving up. There are always times when I feel like giving up, especially when the project is as stressful as this one was. When the time we had to do the project was almost up I thought there was no way that we were going to get done in time for presentations. Instead of giving up I pushed the doubt out of my mind and instead focused on the task at hand. This project was hard but it really helped me to improve both my work ethic, and how I handle stress.