Impact! A PLP Spring Exhibition. This was my third ever exhibition experience, and my first exhibition where I created something in collaboration with the other grades. For this exhibition, the grade 8’s and 9’s were separated into 5 different sections, meant to tell the story of PLP. Then, the guest would see the 10’s, 11’s, and 12’s presentations. The 5 sections for the 8’s and 9’s were Introduction, PBL Pathway, Beyond The Classroom, Technology For Learning, and Conclusion. I was in the Conclusion group. The driving question for our section was ‘What is a PLP Learner?’ This exhibition will answer this question and showcase our work with documentaries(you can see my blog post on that project here).  

The first thing we did is brainstorm ideas. At the start, each of the 5 sections were split into two groups, and we joined together later. The people in my group were Alfie, Nolan, and Xander and the people in the other group were Brooke, Max R Hannah, and Julian. These were what our brainstorming whiteboards looked like. 

After brainstorming, we filled out a pitch form. One of the main things in this pitch form was the answer to our story to tell questions, ‘What is a PLP Learner?’ Our answer to the question is ‘A PLP learner is a hardworking, creative and collaborative individual who contributes thoughtful work that extends past school. A PLP learner is not afraid to fail, and constantly strives to improve their work.’  You can look at the rest of the pitch form here.

Impact Spring Exhibition Pitch Form 2022

After we received feedback on our pitch form and refined it, we created a folder in basecamp where we would share our final products with the grade 8’s. During this exhibition, the grade 8’s were basically our minions. In the basecamp folder we had 2 things. Those 2 things were annotated photos, and an annotated map. Here were our things.

The station that I was in charge of was the instant challenge station, named ‘Chamber of Challenge’. In this station, guests participated in a Destination Imagination style instant challenge that the PLP students do at the start of grade 8. This instant challenge requires four people. Each person pulls a sting that is attached to a rubber band. That stretches the rubber band. They than use the rubber band to stack 6 cups in a pyramid shape. My job for the creation of this station was to attach the strings to the rubber band, and create the rule sheet. The rubber bands looked like this, and here is a copy of the rules.

Challenge: Use materials to stack cups like the example provided.

Time: You will have up to 2 minutes to use the materials to stack cups for score. You will be scored at the end of 2 minutes or when your team asks to be scored.

Set-up: On each of the challenge tables(labeled with Guests & Students) there are 6 cups and one rubber band with four strings tied to it. 

Procedure: Using the materials on the table, you are to stack the cups in the way demonstrated. Each person on your team will take one string. You will coordinate with each other to pull and release your strings to stack the cups. You will receive score for each cup that is part of the stack. The cups may not be altered in any way. You may not use anything besides the materials provided. The cups may not be touched by anything besides the materials provided. If you are unsure about what you can or cannot do, please ask the hosts. 

Materials:

1 rubber band with 4 strings attached

Scoring: You will receive

1. 15 points for each cup that is part of the stacks (90 points maximum).
2. 1 point for each second remaining in the time.
3. Up to 25 points for how well your team works together.

RULES FOR INSTANT CHALLENGE

1 . A minimum of two team members must participate in the Instant Challenge .

a . Destination Imagination encourages all team members to participate in the Instant Challenge. Instant Challenges are designed to be solved by up to four team members .

2 . During your Instant Challenge time:

a . Your team or Team Manager may not bring any devices, including, but not limited to, cameras, cell phones, iPads or tablets, computers or timing devices, and wrist watches. Your team can ask the Appraisers for the time remaining at any point during the Instant Challenge.

b . Your team may not use any items in your Instant Challenge other than items provided by the Instant Challenge officials.

c . If you or your team members have questions about your Instant Challenge, you are welcome to ask them.

3 . If the Appraisers feel that your team is working under an obvious misconception, they will attempt to clarify the Instant Challenge without aiding in the solution.

4 . Any team member who chooses not to participate will be seated out of the way where they may observe your team working on the solution .

5 . Evaluation of the Instant Challenge is subjective and may not be appealed.

Here are some photos of this station during the exhibition. 

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The rest of the stations in our section were as follows. After doing the instant challenge, you could go to a self assessment station run by Nolan, and self assess on how you did in the instant challenge. After that, you would go to a station run by Hannah and Luca, and write what you think a PLP learner is. The next station was all about our documentaries. We had our documentaries playing on a projector and some of our best work from the process of creating our documentary on a wall near it. This station was run by Alfie. The next station was in the hallway going to the gym. It was called the Hall of Hard Work. We asked the grade 8’s to print two pieces of work. One should be something that you are very proud of, and the other should be one you are less proud of. We then positioned the work along the walls of the hall going from emerging work, going to developing, then accomplished, and finally extending. Here are some photos of each of these stations during the exhibition.

This exhibition was fun. It was an experience that was quite different from the other exhibitions we had and I enjoyed it. It was interesting having the exhibition have something that was separate from any other project we were doing. Working with the grade 8’s on this project was very fun, and I think that this was definitely in my top three favourite exhibitions. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and have a great day.