I used to not like school a lot and would tell my mom and dad that I do not want to go to school today but they said you must. When I came to the Dayton Regional STEM School I started to like school because I got to learn interesting things that I did not know. Then when I stepped into science class I grew in persistence. Persistence is never giving up, you try and try until you get your best work. I used persistence in many classes but science I used the most because of writing scientific explanations.  I got persistence from scientific explanations because I used to hate writing and used to give up a lot but when I came into science in the 7th grade, my friend told me we had to write a lot for scientific explanations. Then I knew I had to use persistence when writing scientific explanations and that is how I got very good at writing in general and in scientific explanations.

 

My first artifact is in the IQWST chemistry book. It was investigation 5.1 we had to make a scientific explanation about fat and soap. We collected data from a table. The table said to find the color, hardness, solubility, melting point, and density of fat and soap. Then we wrote a scientific explanation about fat and soap. The claim was how do you know scientifically that fat and soap are different substances? We had to use the data we collected to make a scientific explanation. The goal of the artifact was to get better at scientific explanations and how they look like.  This artifact shows growth for persistence because I got very good at it and can use data and write about it in words using more detail also I could gather more evidence and reasoning on this artifact I only wrote two sentences because I was very bad at it. Claim is when you are trying to say something, and you think it is true. Evidence is when you back up your claim. Reasoning is a so what statement and it ties in to scientific principles. Scientific principles are pretty much notes, but we use them for assorted reasons.

 

My second artifact is a learning set 3 test from the chemistry unit. In this test we had to write a scientific explanation on number 9 and 10 on the test. The questions for number 9 was give one example of an open system and closed system. An open system is when something is open and that things can go in or out. A closed system is when things cannot go in or out. We had to explain using claim, evidence, and reasoning. I grew in persistence in this question because I got a hundred on it, so it helped me a lot also it shows that I grew because on my last artifact I only had two sentences and this one I had a lot. The next question was what the law of conservation of mass is and I got 1.5 off on that one. The law of conversation of mass is when the total mass of the reactants equals the products. You can also see that I put a lot of detail on those. I grew in persistence because I tried and tried and then I got better at it.

 

To conclude I had two artifacts for scientific explanation. The first artifact was a scientific explanation in our chemistry IQWST book. The second artifact was an explanation for the learning set 3 for the chemistry unit. You could see that from artifact to artifact I grew and got better at it. You could also see that I got better at persistence because I did not give up on scientific explanations and I wrote a lot and got more evidence. You can see on the second artifact I tried and tried to get a good grade on it, so I grew in persistence. These scientific explanations will help you in the future because when you want to be a lawyer you must gather evidence for your claim, so you prove the other person wrong. It made me a better person at the DRSS because I grew in persistence and trying even if I do not get it.