Planning (criteria B)

Action Plan and self management skills

The first thing I did for my project was gathering information. On the 2nd November 2016 I started
searching news and information regarding cancer both globally and in Iran specifically. I also
discovered different places which had cancer patients and ongoing cancer research. These included
Shiraz institute for cancer research which was in Shiraz School of medicine and Amir Oncology
Hospital.
On the 4th November I was assigned by my PHE teacher to create a cancer awareness poster to be
put up in the corridor for student and teachers sight. The time I was given to create this poster was
duration of two weeks. On that day I started my action plan by gathering information. My plan
consisted of research, rough sketch of poster, taking action (starting poster),using and managing my
time wisely in order to finish by due date. By the 4th November I had gathered information which I
wanted to include in my poster such as the formation of Cancer, Cancer meaning, Cancer
Prevention, Causes of Cancer, Cancer support flags.

On the 6th November I started my survey plan using information I had gathered from my poster
although alongside that I had researched more such as about news, myths and superstitions about
cancer. My aim was to create a survey suitable for 10th grade students from different parts of the
city. This was planned to be done in order to test cancer awareness and knowledge of different
Education standard schools. The survey was made available in two languages Farsi and English.

The survey plan was finished on the 9th November(the survey plan was typed up on Pages,
Mac).The survey was a total of forty-four questions although a certain number of questions were
repeated in order to test the reliability of the survey answers.

On the 11th November I had finished my poster and was ready to hand it in the next day.When I
handed it in on the 12th Nov. I had to present my poster to my PHE teacher. After, my poster was
put up in the school corridor.On the 12th Nov. I also felt confused about my Global context and the
ATL skills which I needed to consider. I was not very sure about my outcome but after talking and
getting ideas from my supervisor and IB Personal Project coordinator, I was able to come to a
conclusion without changing my topic. My outcome was the percentage of aware and unaware
Iranian students.

On Tuesday 15th, I went to visit Amir Oncology Hospital was specialised for cancer patients. The
hospital was quite big and modern but as soon as you enter you notice how gloomy it actually is.
The hospital had parts which were not constructed yet and was being made. The hospital interior
was designed with many dark colors such as navy and grey. I asked the reception about the hospital
and the patients it withheld and the receptionist told me that the hospital was specialised for all
cancer and ranged from child patients to adult patients of different ages.

On Sunday 25th Dec. I had finished and finessed my Survey which was to be handed out to four
Iranian schools. The schools I had chosen were found on Google Maps. The schools consisted of
Nader Kazemi School, Afsar Moadel School, Emam Reza School and Oloom pezeshki (Medical
Sciences) School. My survey was completed and ready but because the survey was supposed to be
given to four farsi speaking schools, It needed to be translated to farsi. With the help of my teacher
Mr Neinavaee I was able to translate the introduction of my survey.
For the rest of the survey I used an online translation website (www.aryanpour.com) although some
translations weren't correct or did not make sense therefore I translated words that I did not know
but words which I knew I used prior knowledge to compete the sentences.

On the 22nd I had a meeting with my supervisor and IB Personal Project coordinator; we discussed
the progress of my Personal Project. We came up with the idea of writing an article based on my
results and comparisons which I would gather from my survey.
On the 5th Feb. I started writing my article however I had yet to gain my result.

On the 8th Feb I went to visit the chosen schools to hand out my survey. After visiting all four
schools I was very disappointed because the schools did not agree to hand out my surveys because
they said that it’s not permitted and that cancer might be a sensitive topic to some students.
Therefore I couldn't hand out my surveys due to this I was recommended to hand out my surveys to
Iranian teachers. My goal changed after this sudden change instead of finding out how aware 10th
grade students are, My goal changed to determining awareness among Iranian teachers.

By the 12th Feb. I had handed out a total of fifty surveys to male and female teachers. After that I
started looking back on my research and other websites in order to find an answer to my knowledge
based cancer questions. Continuing after that I separated the knowledge based questions with the
opinion based questions. In total based on the right answers the scores were out of 49. Using the
scores that I gathered I created Pie charts and tables.I used tables because I wanted my readers to
precisely be able to compare the data in the table and I used pie charts because I wanted to show the
relationship between my data.

I managed my time effectively over the course of my project at different times. I organized my time
by planning my schedule and tasks in order to have a steady rate of improvement and process along
my project. I was able to manage my tasks by setting as many meeting with my supervisor in order
to quickly fix any errors or problems that I faced along my project. I preserved and maintained my
motivation by looking at my project from a positive perspective. I remind myself that my survey
could possibly change people’s outlook about cancer and awareness of cancer.
A reflection of my project was based on my poster which was made because the information that
was included were useful and were able to help in my survey progressing.
Journal Book extractions (Planning)
Journal Book extractions (poster production)
Journal Book extractions (production of poster)