Oregon
Last week me and my class did a field study in Oregon.
Do you want to hear about it?
If yes continue reading.
I’ll start at home. At first we got into the bus at 6:00 am Saturday morning. It was a long ride and two hours in we got to our breakfast stop, Vancouver. The bus drive through the Rockies was scenic but boring. Then we drove to the USA border. We went through just fine and on the other side and so we drove. An hour after that we met up at a rest stop to go pee and stretch our legs because we hadn’t gone pee for three hours and the leg space was pretty bad in between the seats and the luggage. Then we went on… and on, and at about 1pm we were at lunch. The food was good, but could’ve been better. And so we went. We drove and we drove all the way to the mouth of the Columbia river which separates Washington from Oregon. There we got out of the bus and got a little rest. After that we got briefed in the bus for our first tourists location, the Astoria column.
At the Astoria column we got to throw wooden (more like cardboard) airplanes off the top. The some of ours flew over 300 meters! It took me one minute and fourteen seconds to run up but that was with about fourteen people walking the other way and another ten going up. (You can’t run when you pass because there’s only ten centimetres or less of foot room on the right side of the stairway.) I had also already ran up it the minute before so I was also already tired. After that it was time for dinner but the teachers had to buy it first and so we got to go to Costco. We didn’t get to buy anything though. But the teachers got us pizza for dinner and breakfast for the next few days. After Costco we went to the beach and ate pizza. Once we were done we got to climb onto an old what I’m assuming is the frame of a ship. It was fun but a bit scary when almost ten of us climbed four meters up on a rusty metal frame which already was quite broken. At the campground we stayed in yerts which are minimalistic cabins made with wood framing and tarps. The next day we ate a breakfast which was not as good as it could have been had the teachers only let us eat bread with butter, cream-cheese or jam instead of muffins with cereal. After that we went to a fort called Fort Stevens. At Fort Stevens we got a private tour through the underground half of the base which was normally off limits to the public. In there we learned a lot about the welfare, uses and why the bases were built.
The base that we were in was actually built by the North in the American civil war for black people not being slaves. It was used to more or less for just telling the South that the Columbia river was part of the North and slave free. After the Civil War it was more or less abandoned. Until World War Two! In WW II it was upgraded in a massive war effort that put bases all over west and a bit of the east of America. They even set up forts as up North as Canada. there it was used to regulate and control the passage of vessels going up the Columbia river. It was one of the only forts that was fired at by the Japanese but the people in it were ordered by their general not to fire back. The fort was used from then until the Cold War as a place to regulate the traffic flow of the ships. Then in the Cold War its purpose changed a lot now it was being used as a satellite station so that the USA would know right when the USSR was firing any kind of missile over the Atlantic Ocean. If you were to even say radar in the town you Would be put in prison or a month at least for sure. Then we went to Dairy Queen. It was so bad for two reasons. First, all their food was processed chemicals and second, it was way too sweet. Then we got to go to one of the funnest stops on the trip,High Life Adventures. High Life Adventures is a zip lining place in Warrenton Oregon. It was really fun and in total we got to go on nine different lines. There was a line that went over a lake and almost all of us got wet. Fortunately for us there was a campfire at the end and we all warmed up there. Then it was dinner for dinner we went to a place called Nisa’s Thai. The food was great and had tons of meat in it. The morning of the next day we went to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. It was very fun with the amount of stuff they had and all the learning opportunities we could go through. They also had a gift shop but the gift shop didn’t have any good gifts. So we drove on. We stopped at a place called Pig’n’pancake. The food was great and we continued happily with full bellies. Then we went on and stopped at a beach named Cannon Beach. The weather was so windy and bad that we couldn’t bring our iPads and therefore didn’t have anything to take photos with. Then after our short stop at Cannon Beach we continued driving down to Newport and stopped at yet another tourist location called the Tillamook Creamery. The Tillamook creamery is where the cheese for Tillamook cheese is made. There they have free samples too. The free samples weren’t bad but also weren’t the kind of cheese I’d enjoy. They were also worse than 90% of all the cheeses I’ve ever eaten in Europe. After going to Tillamook cheese we drove further on South. And we drove… Until we came upon a magical place. No. We came upon a place which is even better. An ordinary small city! And the name of the city is Hatfield Oregon! In Hatfield we did something called a quest. A quest is a puzzle which you solve by getting a piece of paper and then searching the area for clues. For the quest we didn’t solve it because we only had around an hour and no clue where one of the clews was. So we came back and asked and the teacher told us a big clew but by the time she was finished telling us about it, it was already too late. Once everyone had come back the teachers told us that we had some time to work and that we had to be with them by 11:30. And so we worked and played until 11:30. It was time for lunch. For lunch we ate fish and chips but quite a few of the others didn’t finish up so I got their fries. It was good but way to much salt. After the fish and chips we were off to the Hatfield Marine Science Center. The first activity we did at the Hatfield Marine Science Center were the crab races. The races didn’t really show us anything but they were fun to do and make videos of. After the crab races we also got to see a bunch of sea life do its thing while the speaker told us how it did it. The next activity was about whales. We were led to a different room and a new speaker told us about all the different kinds of whales and their two main groups. The toothed whales which eat other undersea fish and the belegen whales which eat krill and other small undersea life. After doing that we assembled a whale skeleton. It was easier than a puzzle and with a few misplaced pieces which the speaker who knew a lot about sea life told us were supposed to go into different spaces. Once that was finished it was getting dark and time to go. So we went for dinner. It was good but tasted like ready to go food. So I stuck to the good stuff only. It was still a lot as I had ordered one if not the biggest meal and before eating had gone to the toilet. So when all the others went I stayed and ate up. Good for me some others stayed behind too and I got to finish up. Before we drove to our campsite the teachers needed to get food. So instead of Costco because there was no Costco there we went to a Fred and Meyer which is a bigger and better Walmart. At the Fred and Meyer I bought five Hot-wheels but didn’t have the money with me so I took a loan from a teacher. The cars were two McLaren Siennas, a Tesla model 3, a Pagani Huaira, and a McLaren 720s. It was great. Then we went to bed.
The next day we went yet again to the Hatfield Marine Science Center. But this time it was for something different and really really fun. We were making an ROV. It was like building a toy RC car out of Lego bricks. So we built a frame out of PVC pipes and attached rotors on the inside. But the best part was driving it. I drove it at top speed while picking things up with its magnet and when the other group which we were sharing our tub with got theirs in I hoarded the silverware and played a bit of GTROV. But then we had to go. Luckily we only went 500 meters to the actual visitors Center and luckily for me the Hatfield Marine Science Center had a lego destroying tsunami machine. So I played with that the whole time. Once that was over we went to a Mexican restaurant and ate there. After eating we went to a place called Yaquina Head. At first we went to the visitors center and fooled around there. About a half hour in I found that they have free wifi. So like anyone I went on their wifi. There I also bought a fake lego blue whale and I’ve been savouring its building for the last week. After the visitors center we went to the beach and there I made a few time-lapses of the waves. They’re pretty cool. After the beach we went and did a quest. This one was easy and straightforward. We solved it easily. Then after the quest we went to a Chinese restaurant which is really just what Americans think is Chinese food. Once we had done that it was still bright out and we went to the beach where I made a dam and re-routed the water into my own artificial stream. Then we went back to the campsite and went to sleep.
The next morning we got up early only to find out that we were going to be travelling more or less the whole day. And so we drove out and I did homework until we got to Depoe Bay which is “the worlds smallest navigable harbour.”. There I bought the worlds smallest RC car in a gift shop but I bet there are smaller. Then we drove on. Our next stop was for food. We stopped at Johns Incredible Pizza Company. The place was huge. It was an all you can eat buffet which was also a casino for kids. You cash in your money for tickets which act like chips and then after playing the games some of which were plinko and slot machines. They also had a blackjack table, I think. Then in the middle were theme park rides. We got to go on one of them one time and it was half automated and half manual so of course we made it go as fast as we could. One of the people with us almost barfed. Then it was time to go. We slept at a wildlife park north of Portland Oregon after a three hour drive there. After that we packed up and drove on for another really long time to the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. There we got to see lots of cool animals like bison, bears, deer, mountain goats, moose, elk, and eagles. They also had a statue of a moose dressed up as Elvis Presley. After another long long drive we reached Golden Corral, the third last stop of our trip. It was an all you can eat buffet and they had hamburgers. Then we drove on to the border, our second last stop and drove on home.
Here’s a book that shows you all the cool school activities we did if you want to read it!
Now onto our competencies. The four we were most centred to were working independently, being persistent, managing impulsivity, and finally questioning and thinking about our work.
Firstly, working independently. For the trip it was harder than usual not to chat with someone while doing or in between work. This is because we were in gridlock with each other for almost the whole trip, rarely going further than a meter away from each other. But I worked and I worked independently. If I needed help on something or couldn’t get a vital piece of footage I would ask for help from my classmates, but not more than what I needed.
Now onto persistence. I persisted throughout the whole trip working long hours in the cramped economy seats of the bus. Along with persistence comes when I did the work. When we were at the tourist sites I would rarely write more than three or four sentences. This is because I would look at the notes I wrote down at the tourist sites and would do all of the work on the bus. It worked rather well although on one day we weren’t in the bus for more than fifteen minutes and I had to do the work in our yert. For this I persisted on doing my work every day for the whole trip and I got everything done right on time.
Number three, impulsivity. More closely, managing impulsivity. I do a few things by impulse. Sitting down, picking up money off the ground, staying closer to the group rather than further, being curious. But I also have to manage other impulses like going into a cool looking place to have a look or climbing trees. I managed my impulses well enough and only remember one time where I did something on impulse or in other words without thinking. It was at a wildlife park and I wanted to get a bird to fly so I yelled at it somewhat like when you want to scare someone. It didn’t work and all I got was some comments from the teachers about how we shouldn’t disturb the wildlife. I learned my lesson from that one.
Last but not least questioning and thinking about work. On the trip we did a lot of work and for it we had to think about it and question it. Since we had lots of time on the bus that’s what I did for just about half of the time when I wasn’t working on something else. It was easy to question different things that people have done like “Why does the bad tasting, low quality cheese made from Tillamook cheese sell so well?”or “How is this not just gambling for kids?” At Johns Incredible Pizza Company. There were also things like “How people could hunt down a whole species to under ten of them left and then re grow the population to over one thousand?”and “Why is the intertidal zone so important for other biomes?”
