Category Archives: Humanities

A Vision For Tomorrow

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As is the PLP tradition, every winter we have the Winter Exhibition, a night in which students of all grade level complete a different project and put it on display for the community. And as is another tradition (grade 8 exhibition), we had a week to complete this project. But this year, the teachers tried a new thing. Instead of starting a completely new project for the exhibition, we were working with an idea that we had been for a while, ‘Why Does It Take A Crazy Person To Change The World?’. And when I say a while, I mean a while. As Luca put it, we had all ‘overstood’ this topic. We had been learning about this for several weeks, and it came full circle. 

To start the unit, we created a short PechaKutcha presentation, a term I will explain later. These presentations were based on people from Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign. This, as we now know, was a precursor to what we’d be doing at the exhibition. 

As I mentioned before, here’s where I’m going to explain what that weird word is. So, a PechaKucha is a form of presenting where the slides auto play, which you may not think would be an issue. The real issue was, each slide lasted for 20 seconds, and there were 20 slides. 20×20, seven minutes in total. The first ones we did, mine on Jim Henson, only had 9 slides, and lasted for about 2-3 minutes (if I remember correctly, like I said it was a long time ago). 

Another key part of this project was our Seattle Field school, which I (will) explain in more detail in another post. But as an overview, we studied people (before the trip) and visited places (related to said people) to gain a better understanding of our question. All these deliverables, including an essay and a video, helped us ‘overstand’ this topic. 

As little or much as this may seem, I believe it was really important for us to have all this knowledge going into our exhibition. Because as you’ll see, our knowledge was what got us through to the other side. 

Okay, now that we got through the history lesson, we can go to the spectacle that was the exhibition. Our task for the exhibition was to take all that we learned over the Cray Cray Yay Yay unit and create a PechaKucha presentation on ‘Why Does It Take A Crazy Person To Change The World’. Along with creating these 7 minute presentations, we also had to set up our room, which happened to be the back of the library, but I’ll come back to this later. 

Creating our PechaKucha presentations were, not difficult, but challenging. We were tasked with using all of our own images and have most of them be from Seattle, which, at the time, I thought was mental and going to ruin my project, but I think really made it stronger. I had a solid connection to the picture, I knew exactly what was in it and what the purpose of it was. It did take a while for me to choose images that actually fit, and it was a bit stressful. But we had several drafts and lots of feedback, so I am pretty proud of how it turned out. 

That was more of the maker side of things. Now, let’s talk about the ‘dire events’ that befell us on our journey, and their reason; the script and speaking. The script was one of the most difficult parts of our presentation. And we weren’t even supposed to have a script; only bullet points. In my first draft, I did try this. I didn’t really work out, though. I found myself saying ‘um’ to often, and seeming like I didn’t know what I was saying. So I did write a script to practice with, which was beneficial in the end. The controversial part of this was we had several plan-changes, which many people took very seriously. In the first round, we were allowed to have our iPads up with us when we were presenting in front of a podium, with presenter notes open, so we knew what to say. Next, we weren’t going to have a podium, and our iPads had to be on the ground, with our notes there. Finally, we had no notes, no nothing. Just us, up there, with a monitor on the ground showing what was being presented and our memorized ‘notes’ in our heads. Many people had problems with this, said that the teachers were being unfair, changing their minds. I do understand where this is coming from, seeing as the last revision was just days before the exhibition. But I found as I practiced my script, I got a better understanding of what I was saying, and articulated my words. 

The hardest thing that I found was the public speaking. I’m not a great public speaker, I get very anxious standing by myself in front of people. In the days leading up to the exhibition, my stress kept getting higher the more I thought about it. But as soon as I got up there and started speaking, that all melted away. I knew what I was saying, and I was passionate about the message I was getting across. Everything kind of fit together once I started speaking. And as far as I know, it went great. I didn’t say um a lot, and I used hand gestures. I really think I conveyed my message, which I’m super proud of. 

The last thing I will talk about was the room, which earlier I touched on. So, as you probably know, at the Winter Exhibition, each class has to set up a room to present in. Most times, you have to set up places where to display each persons project, and it gets kind of crowded. But for us, since we were presenting one at a time, we didn’t have to do that. With Jessie as our unofficial leader, we set up the Crazy Café, a lounge-like setting with comfy chairs, stools, tables, and even coffee and tea. It was an amazingly chill room, great for de-stressing pre and post presentation. For PLP 10, the exhibition was a huge success!

Overall, I thought this project went really well. I’m really proud of my PechaKucha, I think it went really well. I also got to work on my group work skills, when setting up the room. One thing I think I would do different next time is add a little more diversity into my work. It would’ve been nice to include at least one woman. Another thing is my photos. As confident as I was, if I’d known in Seattle that we’d need these photos, I would’ve probably tried harder to get those photos. But I’m proud of my work, and excited about how many people I actually got to tell my ‘crazy’ story to!

He’s Crazy

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We have recently started a new unit. It’s definitely interesting. It is called…

Cray Cray Yay! Yay!

What a name, right? Anyways. The driving question for the unit, well, this project in particular, is ‘Why was this person thought of as crazy and how did they change the world?’ This mini project was a fun one, and I learned a lot.

First, we watched Apple’s Think Different Video. The people in this video, and others who were featured in the campaign, changed the world because they were different. And different can be crazy. 

https://youtu.be/cFEarBzelBs

From the people in the campaign, we each chose someone to do a keynote presentation. But this wasn’t a regular keynote, oh no. This was a pecha kucha. A pecha kucha presentation is a presentation where the slides change only every 20 seconds, and usually last for about 7 minutes. For us, we had 9 slides, 20 seconds each, the whole thing lasting only 3 minutes. Now, that was really hard. To fit a person’s entire life into a 3 minute presentation is hard. But, we did it.

The person I chose for this was Jim Henson. Jim Henson was an amazing man, who completely altered the film industry. This is his story. 

Creative Commons License IGypsyWoman via Compfight

Jim Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi on September 24, 1936. From a young age, he had an interest in puppets. He was heavily influenced by radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, Burr Tillstrom with his puppets Kukla and Ollie, and other puppeteers. While attending high school, he made puppets for a television program called the Junior Morning Show. 

He followed his passion into university, where he created Sam and Friends with his future wife. These characters were the forerunners for the muppets, and even included a prototype of Kermit the frog. Did you know that the word Muppet is a combination of marionette and puppet? 

As his work with puppets progressed, he started to experiment with puppetry on television. He worked with having the performer off camera, using rods to control the puppets, and precise mouth movements. He even changed what puppets were made of. Instead of wood, he started  working with foam rubber and different fabrics. 

As he developed his Muppets, he started to get more recognition. He began making commercials with his muppets. In 1958, he and his wife created Muppets Inc. in New York City. There, he hired Jerry Juhl and Frank Oz, who became critical to the latter years of the muppets. 

InspiredImages / Pixabay

In 1969, the Children’s Television Workshop had an idea for a show with puppets. They acquired Henson and his muppets, and through that, Sesame Street was born. Characters like Grover, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, Oscar and Big Bird were first featured. Even Kermit was on Sesame Street. 

Once Sesame Street took off, Henson started to see where his muppets could go. He tried to start a television program in America, but the producers thought it was crazy. So he pitched it to Lew Grade, who loved it. They moved to England and started the Muppet Show.

Ribastank / Pixabay

 

3 years into the muppet show, Henson and his team created The Muppet Movie. This was a huge success. Once they realized the success that the movies could have, they stopped making the TV show and focused on films. Muppet movies, like Muppets Take Manhattan, or the animated show Muppet Babies, were plentiful. He worked on other things as well, including Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, and The Storyteller. He even worked on The Empire Strikes Back, with the creation of Yoda.

In the 1980s, he entered into discussions with Disney about acquiring the Muppets. Nothing came of these first talks, because of Henson’s unexpected death in 1990. His children took over the company, and ran it for some time until the Disney discussion began again. In 2004, it was official. The Muppets were Disney.

Jim Henson’s legacy is still seen today. As well as the many muppet movies produced recently, the Jim Henson Creature Shop has continued making muppets for other films. Farscape, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and MirrorMask are a few.

Jim Henson changed the world of puppets, and had a huge part in the introduction of them into the media, so for that he was crazy.

All of the people who changed the world were different. They had an idea, one that wasn’t normal. An idea that didn’t fit into the societal norms. Something that had never been thought of before. To ignore all that, and change the world, well, that’s crazy. 

Essay Writting

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As I mentioned in my Movie Trailer Project Thing, for this project we had to read books and create a video. What I didn’t mention was that the video was part of a larger purpose. The true purpose for this project was to WRITE AN ESSAY!!! Not just any essay, either. An in class, synthesis essay.

A synthesis essay is an essay that uses many different sources to support your thesis. For this particular synthesis essay, we had a few specific things to draw upon. Firstly, we had our choice books, which I mentioned in a previous post. For me, that was Don’t Get Caught.

 

 

 

We also read another book, called Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It was an autobiography about her childhood in Iran during the Iranian revolution. It was a very interesting story about different perspectives, and I thought it was really cool.

 

 

For this essay, we also had to have a third source. I chose the book Go Show the World by Wab Kinew. This story tells us about different First Nations people in history. We actually got to go meet Wab Kinew and I got his book signed. Anyways, I wanted to chose this book because I thought it was really cool how he told the stories of people that are largely looked over in history.

I think the most important step for preparing for an in class essay is the planning stage. While making the outline I felt like I really got to understand my thesis, and the point I was trying to make through writing this essay. Another important part was the details. For the essay, we were able to bring in a piece of paper that had facts, quotes, and the like. While putting this together, I found more direction in for my essay.

The most difficult step was probably worrying about forgetting your outline. We were not able to bring our outline into the essay, and a lot of us, me included, were worried that all of our preparations would be for not. It turned out that by working so tirelessly in the outline, and in making all the revisions, I had my outline pretty solid in my mind.

It is important to practice essay writing in school because in the future, there will be many instances in which we will have to write essays that have a great determining factors. For example, when applying for jobs and universities, it may be required to write an essay to determine wether or not you will be fit for the opening. Also, practicing the writing process is great for would-be authors. The outline that we made for this essay could also be used when writing a novel. Not exactly in the same form, but similar. As we continue to practice these skills, we will progress as learners, and as people.

Click on the image to view my full essay!

Writing an essay was hard. We had the preparation, the actual essay write, and then the revision process. I was pretty happy with how my essay came out in the end, but i still had a bit to revise. There were lots of little things, like tenses and words I could’ve ommitted. This was a long process, and I know that this won’t be the last. In the future, I plan to have more ideas formulated before hand, for the body paragraphs, so that I don’t fall short. I noticed in this essay that I finished with lots of time. Next essay, I hope to still finish with time to look my essay over, but also have more supporting points.

Movie Trailer Book Thing

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Reading is fun. I truly believe that. In grade 10, we have to learn how to read for fun. And, as I explained in my other post, I read Don’t Get Caught by Kurt Dinan. So after we read the book, we had to do the project, which was a movie trailer for our book. There were several steps to this project. 

First step was an individual trailer template. It was very interesting, because our teacher was on another PLP trip. And our sub didn’t exactly know what was going on, so we came up with many different ideas for what this was. I figured that it was, well, I’ll show you instead. 

It wasn’t great, but I think it got my point across. If I were to to this differently, I would have drawn stick figures, or diagrams, or something more visual than what I had.

Once we finished this, we had to create a group trailer template. In my group, which was Daniel, Lucas, and Jamie, we divided up the tasks and put it together. 

In our second draft, we took the critique we got and made it better. We added more shots, and added specifications. Also at this time we had to figure out who was playing whom.

This was a very difficult part. We had an idea, but we ended up completely switching it. We had Tamara as Kate Malone, Lucas as Dave Wheeler, Jamie as Tim Adleta, and Daniel as Maxwell Cobb. I played Ellie Wick. Based on character description, it didn’t really fit, but our video turned out alright. 

Click the pic for the full script!

The script was interesting. I wrote the script, and due to how we structured the video, I wanted to use direct passages from the book. Don’t Get Caught is written as if you are in Max’s head, so it was pretty easy to work with. One of the things that bothered me was that the descriptions on some of the characters is limited, so you don’t really know that much about them until the book progresses. 

Our first draft wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t terrible. We had a critique in class, and the basic things we needed to fix were the missing shot, fix some audio things, and move the reviews around a bit. We had a week to revise and refilm, but as this project was part of a larger project, we didn’t have tons of time in class. We did get it though, and I’m actually really proud of how this turned out. 

I have a lot to reflect on with this project. If I were to redo this project, I think I would have taken more of a leadership role. I tried to direct our group a bit, but it didn’t turn out so well. I would also have to say that for some of our assignments, the work probably could have been distributed more equally. But overall, I’m actually pretty proud of our group. It may sound strange, but we’re kinda like the water tower five. Yup, that sounded weird. 

Now these videos will haunt us forever. Because they won’t just be on our blogs, no. Our school has ‘reading group’ copies of these books, and our teacher put QR codes linking to our videos on the books. So Seycove will forever be reminded of our PLP 10 class, through this! Oh god, I hope no one I know watches this. 

Book Choice, First Predictions and Challenge!

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Grade 10. Wow, I’m old. Anyways. So, for my first blog post of this year, I will be talking about a project we just started in humanities. The driving question is ‘ How do authors use text to teach us more about ourselves?‘

Beginning this unit, as you’ve probably guessed due to the question, we had to read a book. But, because in grade ten we are supposed to ‘read for enjoyment’, which I do anyways, we had several options in which book to choose. The books are as follows:

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Don’t Get Caught by Kurt Dinan

The book that I chose for this was Don’t Get Caught. It’s about a kid who is looked over in high school. Then one day, he gets a note from this group called the chaos club to meet at the local water tower. I won’t say anything more, just in case someone hasn’t read the book. 

For a prediction in the book, I think that the chaos club is going to get really mad and accidentally give themselves up. 

Every Tuesday and Friday in class, we have these mini book challenges. For the first one, I worked with my group Jamie, Lucas and Daniel to create this video to show some important parts in the first 5 chapters in the books! Here’s the video.

Bye for now!

Peter Verigin and the Doukhobors

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https://youtu.be/CpFNgdIrz3A

Yup. So that was that.

We started off this unit by reading Chester Brown’s ‘Louis Riel’, a comic-strip biography. Each part, pertaining to the fact that the book is split into 4 parts, we were to do a summary. Now most of these summaries were written, but our third was a video. So here it is. 

While reading this book, we were also learning about the Métis people and the red river settlement. The red river settlement was a settlement of Métis people. Louis Riel lived here, and the red river rebellion was what brought him to power. In his life, Louis Riel accomplished many things, and brought attention to some of the problems facing First Nations people.

At this time, the Canadian govt. was trying to get as much land as possible, to avoid annexation with the USA, and to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. They also just wanted more white people in Canada.

Numbered Treaties

The Canadian govt created several different treaties with the First Nations people. These insured the Canadians that they got the land, but were completely unfair for the First Nations people. Some language on the treaties they didn’t understand, and they mistook Xs for the cross, and took it as a sign of peace. Learn more about it here!

BC

In 1867 Canada became a country. But, BC wasn’t. At this time, BC was an independent colony of Britain. It had become populated after the Cariboo Gold rush, which brought tons of people, money, and camels to BC. After the gold dried up, many people left, but many also stayed, populating BC with white people. (I put this here because BC was already very populated with First Nations people, but they came anyways. There was almost a war to. Learn about that here!)

What they had to decide, was wether or not to join Canada. There were three main views on this; join with Canada, stay independent, or become part of the United States. Eventually, they decided to join with Canada, but they had many conditions. One of the promises that the Canadian government made to British Columbia was that the rail road that John a McDonald had previously promised would end in BC. The rail road was also supposed to be finished in 10 years, with a two-year start date. This did not happen as the construction of the CPR began in 1881. The last spike was driven in Craigellachie BC on November 7th 1885. Learn more about this here!

While on our trip to Calgary, we actually got to visit Craigellachie. It was so cool to see where so much history happened. Also, a bunch of trains passed while we were there.

Power

Now, in PLP fashion, while all of this was going on, we were working on a project. Using our driving question, 

How do disparities in power alter relationships?

Now, in PLP fashion, while all of this was going on, we were working on a project. Using our driving question, 

We had to, well, do a thing. First, we chose topics from categories such as the CPR, Red River Settlement, and Manitoba. I chose from the Immigration category, and I chose the Doukhobors. I wanted to do the doukhobors because they settled in the area that I used to live in, and that sounded cool to me. 

Second, we had to research our people. We were supposed to choose one person to focus on for this, so I chose Peter Verigin. He was the leader of a large group of doukhobors during the time when they came to Canada. I won’t say anything else so to not spoil my video. 

Next, we were to write a story based on our research. Lucky for me, I had written my research in a story-esk form. So all I had to do was tweak it a bit. 

These seem like a lot of steps, I know. But the final product is so worth it, so stay with me.

After the story, we had to make a storyboard. A storyboard shows the shots you are going to do for your video. I used Sketches Pro, a really cool drawing app for this.

I did end up changing a lot of this, but anyways. 

Then we animated. Oh my goodness, this took a long time. 3 weeks we spent animating. I used an app called FlipaClip, which helped, but it was still a long time. I’m very proud of how this turned out though. 

We had a viewing party on Monday, where we watched all the videos. It was really cool to see everyone’s topics, and the approach they took to animate this. 

This was a really cool project that I would definitely recommend. I learned so much about the doukhobors, and their tragic story. If I were to go back, I think I would have bought an iPad Pro. I drew most of the slides with my fingers, and it took so long. But I had a lot of fun, and learned tons. Not just about the topic, but about animation. I have so much respect for animators now!

SLCs the fourth: TPols

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In regular school, people have parent teacher conferences, where the teachers fall the parents all about how were doing. Our teachers believe that the only people who can tell our story is us. So, we have 2 ‘student lead conferences’, or SLCs, throughout the year. At the end of every year, we have the Transitional Presentation of Learning. It’s absolutely terrifying, so yeah!

Question 1- What skills did you use and what skills do you want to continue to develop?

To answer this question, I wanted to choose an example from Maker. To be more specific, Destination Imagination. 

I honestly don’t think I learned more from a project than this one. A lot of that was due to our group, though. We worked really well together, and I think that totally contributed to our success. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have any hiccups along the way. We had so much to revise after our first performance. We almost redid everything. But it was a building block. 

As you may know, I have always had some issues with working in a group. I have been trying very hard to work well with others, and I think this project demonstrates that the best. I know I still have lots to work on in terms of this, but every group project gets me closer.

Question 2- What project did you most enjoy? Why?

To answer this question, I’d choose the WW1 project in Humanities.

I had a lot of fun during this project. This was because I got to reaserch my great grandfather, and see what kinds of things he did in the war. Doing a project on him, I really felt motivated to do my best work, to honour him. In every draft I had, I was motivated to do my best. After every critique session, I went back and revised. This is some of my best work, and I am very proud of how it turned out!

Question 3- What was especially satisfying to you about the process of working on projects?

To answer to question, I want to choose the Cloning project from Science.

In this project, we had to clone different plants. I found this project really cool, and I learned a lot from it.

Our first clones were dandelions. After planting, we had to wait and see if they sprouted. Soon, we realized that our dandelions hadn’t made it. But we didn’t dwell on that. We kept moving forward. We planted our garlic plants. These went amazing. It was really amazing to see how we had created life, from just a clove of garlic. It’s always amazing to see the final product of all the hard work that we do.

Question 4-   How do these projects connect to the adult world outside the classroom?

For this question, I want to choose an example from Math, specifically the polynomials project.

In this project, like a lot of our math projects, Mr Gross gave us a vague outline for the project, and we had to come up with a project. (That’s not supposed to sound bad). We also worked in partners, whom were chosen for us. I was working with Luca OG, whom I’d never really worked with before. So that was something.

For the actual project, we had to come up with a question, and make a presentation for it. We chose ‘How are polynomials used in architecture?’. This is directly related to the outside world because architecture is something in the adult world.

We did the project, and presented it. It was after that we got critiqued. I kinda found that weird, but whatever. Anyways. After we presented, Mr. Gross gave us feedback, and we went back and revised.

For grade ten, I have a few goals. First, to prioritize my work, so I can do better work and not be stressed. Finally, I hope, next year, to continue to work on my group work skills.

The Great War Actually Really Sucked

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The years leading up to the First World War, tensions were running high in Europe. The arms race was high in the minds of govt officials, and it was just a matter of time until war broke out. The tipping point was when Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria, was assassinated by the Serbians. This created a domino effect, and the First World War began.

Image by Tamara S.L.

To start this unit off, we had spring break. Ha, no. We had homework over spring break. TBH, it wasn’t that hard. We just had to read a book. There were three options, and I chose ‘Generals Die in Bed’ by Charles Yale Harrison. It was a really good read. I definitely would recommend. Anyways, we didn’t read these books for fun. We created book reports. But these weren’t regular book reports. These were creative book reports. We had a bunch of different options on how to do this, including movie trailers, drawings, and songs. I chose to do poetry. But like, I went a bit crazy with this. I made an entire book with images to fit with each poem. I had a lot of fun with to. Here’s the book. L

Once we’d finished the book, we started getting closer towards our big project. But then there was this big disruption called OTTAWA! We went with Encounters with Canada on a week long trip where we learned all about Canada’s involvement in WW1. The main event we focused was The Battle of Vimy Ridge. This battle was the first time all of the Canadian regiments fought together. The Canadian’s took the Ridge in a span of a few days. My great grandfather actually fought during this battle! Anyways, the trip was super cool and I made a lot of friends!

When we got back, we continued to learn about Canada’s involvement in the war. One of the ways we did this was by reading a graphic novel called Shattered Ground. Shattered Ground is an online interactive story about a boy who finds his great grandfathers First World War journal. As he reads the journey, we find our about the journey he took through the war. It’s super cool. While we were reading, we also had to complete chapter summaries. It was a good way to reflect on each chapter. 

So at this point, we were just waiting for our main project to begin. We knew our driving question, which was ‘How Did World War 1 effect Canada’s identity?’. We started with a brainstorming session. We made a list of questions about WW1. There were questions like ‘What were the requirements of the medical professionals that helped during the war?’, and ‘How did conscription change the fate of the war, at least for Canada?’. Then, we got into groups and answer some of the questions. 

Next, from these questions, the teacher came up with 22 different topics. We each chose one, and got to researching. This was when we finally got to know what the project was. We were to create a comic book about Canada’s part in WW1. The topic I chose was Conscription. 

I chose conscription as my topic for a few reasons. First of all, I though conscription was awful. This was the govt forcing people to fight. But as I looked into it, I realized that it seemed to almost be a ploy to get Borden’s govt re-elected. And anyways, only 24,000 conscripts actually made it to France. 

So I made the first draft. It was interesting. I worked really hard on it. 

I got a lot of critique. So I went back, and continued to edit and revise. The second draft was a lot better. 

Then we had a huge group critique session. I got a lot of awesome critique from this, and was able to make my last, best draft. Then we had to present. 

In PLP, we like to present for an audience. So, our teacher contacted a local school, and we got to go present for a bunch of grade 6 and 7 students. It was a really cool experience, and I got to talk to a bunch of kids who are going into PLP next year. 

All in all, this was a really cool project. I learned so much about my great grandfather, and about Canada as a whole. I also learned a bunch about taking critique, which is something I still have to work on. Canada is so awesome, and I feel so lucky to live in this amazing country!

Ottawa- Part 2 of our Journey East

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In grade nine, because of the curriculum change, we learn about WW1, and Canada’s impact on the war. As you may know, Canada’s biggest influence, in World War 1, was during the battle of Vimy Ridge. This is why, for our field study, we went to Ottawa to learn about Vimy Ridge.

Encounters with Canada is a program that sends kids from all around Canada to Ottawa, where they participate in a week-long camp. Each wee has a different theme, to cater to more people’s interests. The battle of Vimy Ridge took place on April 9th, 1917, so the week we went was during the battle.

As I fore mentioned in my Destination Imagination Blog Post, the day we left for this trip was also the day of the Destination Imagination Provincials. This presented logistical challenges, with transporting all of our stuff, and whatnot. We had to leave early from the tournament, to catch our flight. It was 2:00am EDT by the time we actually got to Ottawa.

Our day started early the next morning. Well, actually, we didn’t do much the first day. Some people were still arriving, so they couldn’t start the activities yet. This gave us lots of time to work on our books, which was the project based on this trip.

As you may recall, when our class went to Oregon in grade 8, we had to create a ‘Oregon Book’. Each day, there was a page to fill out. So when we went to Ottawa, the teachers made a book for us. Except, everything was a lot more vague, because they had no clue what we were doing in Ottawa, other than learning about WW1 and Canada.

So in this post, day by day, I’ll be explaining what we did, and what we learned. At the bottom will be the full book, where you can watch all the videos and sounds and stuff!

Sunday

We pretty much just got hoodies and hung around the centre. We also played with a parachute.

Monday

Monday was the 101st anniversary of Vimy Ridge. We got to witness the commemoration ceremony at the National War Memorial. It was really cool to see how even now, the people who died are remembered.

We also did ‘Vimy modules.’ In groups, we did different activities pertaining to Vimy. There was a huge map of the ridge that we got to walk on, a monument making thing, and a propaganda poster thing. It was super cool.

Then, we did these different activity things. I did yoga!

Tuesday 

Tuesday was a really cool day. We got to go to the Canadian War Museum. We had a tour, did activities where we could hold artifacts, and had a bunch of free time to look around. 

Wednesday

Wednesday was, I think, the coolest, most Canadian day I’ve ever had. This was the day when we went to parliament. 

It was so awesome. We got to see the library, 

go inside the peace tower, 

and do so much more. It was amazing!

We also went on a walking tour of the different war monuments in Ottawa. It was all so cool.

Thursday

During the Cold War, Prime Minister Diefenbaker commissioned a underground bunker in case of a nuclear attack from Russia. It is now a museum, and we got to visit it!

It was really cool to see how prepared they were in the event of a nuclear explosion. Also, it was in the middle of nowhere, which makes sense, but it took a while to get there. 

When we were down there, we did this really cool activity where we were the different ministers and we had to figure out what to do because ‘the US had just been bombed’. I was the minister of communication, and had to come up with a press release. It was awesome.

When we got back, we also got to do the coolest thing ever. We got to talk to veterans. My group talked to a World War 2 veteran, and a Navy Logistics officer. It was amazing to here their stories. 

Then, we had our own commemoration ceremony at a war gravesite. We put candles on the soldiers headstones, and had a minute of silence. 

Friday

Friday was the end of the week, so we did a lot of wrap-up stuff. We had three-hours of free-time downtown, so me and a person I met went shopping. 

Then we did a bunch of wrap up activities, and had a really nice dinner. 

Finally, we had a dance. It was interesting.

Saturday

This was the day of all the tears. I met so many amazing people on the trip, and today we all said goodbye. It was really sad. But I’m so glad I went on this trip because I made connections from so many people from across Canada.

We had a lot of free time before we left on our flight. So, our teachers decided to take us to Quebec. Not just Quebec, but the Canadian Museum Of History. It was super awesome, and I now I can say that I’ve had poutine in Quebec!

This is my book.

 

My Never-Ending Group Project II

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After our last adventure in Destination Imagination, I was kind of worried for the Destination Imagination Provincials. We knew we had a lot of things to fix, and other things to work on. So we got on it.

We ended up completely redoing our set, our spectacle, and tweaking pretty much everything else. But we worked hard, and really got things done.

This performance, more than any of the other ones, had a lot more to do with logistics. April 7th, the day of the performance, was also the day we left for Encounters With Canada in Ottawa. That made everything more complicated. I had to carry my suitcase around with me everywhere.

We had to make sure all of our stuff was easily transported, because after our challenges were over, we had to leave for the airport. We made the set collapsible, and fit all of our props into one box, except one big thing. Anyways….

This time around, the Provincial tournament took place at Johnston Heights Secondary School, in Surrey. So, as fore mentioned, transportation was a big deal. Also, we didn’t have any idea of where exactly we were presenting. So in planning, we just had to go with the dimensions that the official challenge book gave us (8ft x 10ft).

On the day of the tournament, the school was packed. 95 teams, from BC, Alberta and the Yukon. We had to set up our stuff in a hallway. And then, we waited.

Our presentations were all early in the day, because we had an early-ish flight. For our team, our instant challenge was early, at 9:30. We’re not supposed to talk about what we did during the instant challenge, but I can say how it was, if that makes any sense. We did good, and worked together well as a team. I think that’s one of the best ICs we’ve done as a team.

Our central challenge was at 12:50, so we had some time to kill. We watched several other Fine Arts performances, including ‘Basically G.O.A.T.’, our grade 8 Fine Arts team. Lots of them were very good, and it was nice to see some of the competition.

When it finally came down to our performance, we were all super anxious. It was a pain to get our set down to our presentation area, but we got it done. And our presentation actually worked! We had no utter failures, no missed lines, it was awesome!

As a group, I think we learned a lot. I learned how much you can get done, in a short period of time, if you really put your mind to it. I also came to the realization that group work can be fun, if everyone tries their hardest. I can very much wait till next year though.

 

 

 

I told you it never ends.