Reflection 12/18 by Priscilla Fret

During the school’s first expedition, things were sort of chaotic. There was so much to be done, and it was new to everyone, so it was really a trail-by-error experience. We’ve been preparing for this for over a month, and I believe it’s paid off. My class really pulled together and for the most part, did the work when they were told. When we got our subject, we researched them and did notes in a t-chart. Then we took a verbal test on our notes to see how well we knew our topic, afterwards doing a brainstorm of what we could put on our model. It was a lot of work.

I learned a lot about the history of cancer. For instance, it was once thought that viruses, bacteria, breakdown in immunity, and mutations in specific genes to be the causes of cancer. However, it’s been proven that only mutations in specific genes is correct.

I really didn’t know much about the different stages of cancer. I knew that some were “not dangerous” such as benign tumors, but that’s not true, either. Just because they’re not cancerous doesn’t mean they can’t cause harm. If left alone, benign tumors can grow in size and weight, and can put pressure on vital organs and create problems. However, the tumor can be easily removed with an operation.

During the making of the expedition, the biggest challenge I believe we as the eleventh grade faced was time, especially the biology students. We’d been studying different types of cancer and treatments for a while, but only at the last minute was everything put together. In biology, it was toward the last two weeks or so that we chose a definite subject and began to work on research and different roles in a group. Things were changed around a lot, and it was really about cramming as much research in as possible and compiling it into an informative, if not extensive, research model.

If we were able to continue the expedition, I would like to expand our audience. Most, if not all of the people who are coming to the school for the big event on the nineteenth are students and their parents. I’d like to have other people in the area who are interested to be able to come. In other words, the word could be more widespread and more people could find out about it and attend.
In the expedition next year, I would really like to see what I said above. Since this was the first time, the teachers would have in mind what went well and what could be improved, and the students would as well. They could build their expedition on our feedback from this year, and it would be really successful.