Quarter 1

The activity that I will be doing this reflection on is my Renaissance Passport. In the Renaissance Passport, we had to take the role of a man or a woman during the Renaissance Era and we were required to research our person's occupation, what his/her personality would be like, their nationality and other things along with it. I took the role of an astronomer from Italy who believed that the planets and Earth revolve around the Sun and not the Sun and the planets revolving around the Earth.

The purpose of this project or activity was to enhance our knowledge of the Renaissance age or era and what the personality of the people that lived during that era were. We also researched on what many people during the Renaissance Era did and how they did it. This would improve our understanding of what life was like back then and which nations were mostly impacted during that age. Also, since the role that I took was that of an astronomer, I learned about many different astronomers like Galileo and such, this would also apply to people who took the roles of different people like inventing, cooking etc.

I learned a great deal more about what life was like back during the Renaissance and what the people did and also which nations were affected by this huge advancing age in science. The nations that were mostly involved in it were Italy, England and many others too. I have also learned that life was tough for some astronomers like Galileo because they had believed that the Earth and all the other planets revolved around the Sun and not the other way round. This resulted in the Church's anger and they were inprisoned like Galileo. I learned that the term "Renaissance Man" came from the fact that during the Renaissance, many had a lot of occupations like how Leonardo Da Vinci was an inventor, painter, sculpture, thinker and many other things along with it.

If I could have done anything differently, I would have changed the whole layout and the whole template of the passport. I would have tried to make it look a little more authentic like a real Italian passport with a logo and the same color. I also could have used a different type of paper to make it more colorful.

My goal this year in Social Studies is to enhance my understanding about history and other things of the sort. This project or activity has had a definite impact on this goal and it certainly has made me develop a better understanding of what has happened during the Renaissance Era and what inventions and ideas were created that we use even now, in the 21st century.