April Extra Blog: Final Project Presentations

The end of the school year is quickly approaching. Both independent components are completed, research is coming to a close, and there is one presentation left.

The upcoming weeks will consist of preparation of content based on my independent components, research, interviews, and mentorship. All of these sources will help me put together my hour-long presentation. Even more pressing is my activity, which is supposed to reflect and teach about the answers to my essential question.

I find that it's difficult to come up with an activity for orthodontics. Putting braces on a model would be expensive, and it isn't like my audience can simply make retainers. So far the best I have come up with is an activity with clay. One blob of clay would be fresh, having been kept in a plastic bag. The other blob of clay would be dried and hardened after being left out and exposed to air. The clay would represent dental age, and the students participating would learn about it by trying to change the form of both blobs. My activity would represent my third answer (treatment timing).

Independent Component 2

LITERAL
(a) I, Marisa Ruiz, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 33 hours of work.
(b) My mentor, Dr. Banh, and his assistants all helped me complete my second independent component.
(c) Here is a log of the 33 hours of work I completed for this component.
(d) My independent component consisted of shadowing and observing my mentor, along with his assistants.
INTERPRETIVE
Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work. Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work. 

This component helped me confirm that the answers to my essential question make sense and provided more evidence to show they are true.

My observations have shown me doctor-patient interaction, the variety of orthodontic appliances used in many cases, and the regular dynamic of an orthodontic office. All of these things and more helped give me more evidence to back up my answers to my EQ.

[Unfortunately, I was unable to take pictures of the patients and the observations I made because of privacy reasons, especially since most of the patients under my mentor's care are under eighteen years of age. I do, however, have plenty of pictures of the loads of files I have had to organize before I observe.]

APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.
This component helped me answer my essential question because I was able to see an orthodontist in action, treating a patient.
This component gave me extra perspective on the key components in satisfactory treatment by observing a professional in the field of orthodontics.