Field Study – Quinn’s Thoughts

Stories of Hope (In the Southern US)

June 8, 2023June 8, 2023 quinnLeave a comment

We recently got back from a truly unique field study experience. I went to places, and experienced a culture I never thought I would. Over 10 days we visited 4 states in the “Southern US”. I put quotes around that as whether or not we were in the southern US was a major subject of debate during the trip.

A stunning view of the cascade mountains on our flight out

The trip started off not so bright, yet early at YVR. We all met at a time I don’t want to see my teachers and classmates, and they probably dont want to see me. By about 4pm we had finally arrived in the lone star state. Immediately I was shocked by how green everything was (I thought Texas was a dry and dusty place). I also was also kind of shocked by the lone star symbol found on every single bridge pillar across the Interstate.

Throughout our days in Texas we headed north visiting presidential libraries, delicious bbq’s, borderline cult compounds, and the foreign land of Buc’ees. Now you may be wondering, what could PLP possibly be doing visiting giant gas stations (or cult compounds) in Texas? Honestly at times I was asking myself the same question but it was all somehow connected into our theme of stories of hope. In my last blog post I discussed what these are here.

A church standing on the former site of the branch Davidian compound

As our trip continued north we reached the vibrant, and extremely flat place called Oklahoma City. Tragically in 1995 this city was struck with tragedy. A disgruntled army veteran named Timothee McVeigh set off a 2 ton fertilizer bomb in the back of a red ryder truck. The explosion caused huge damages on a US government owned building, and ultimately led to the deaths of 168. This story touched me as we saw the resilience and strength the people of Oklahoma found in community.

The trip continued north east from OKC where we visited Tulsa. After Tulsa, we left the 8 lane interstate highways, and headed for an area better described as the “backwoods” of the US. Arkansas & Missouri were quite different from anything I had seen before. Now I understand Texas and Oklahoma a little bit, as they reminded me of Alberta. However as we left the prairies and headed into the Ozarks, and Eastern Woodlands, the culture began to shift a bit. It was more what you’d expect when you told someone you were in the southern US. We saw a 67ft statue of Jesus, and the “White Christian, Las Vegas”, Branson Missouri.

Despite being an area which gets frequently described as “redneck”, “hillbilly” or “Christian nationalist” we did discover some stories of hope, and shockingly incredible art. I made the connection between the ability for art to build a community up here, and how it worked to shape the resilience of the OKC community at the national memorial site.

On another note, we did get to have a brief stay in California and say hello to Paula deen while heading home.

All of these experiences helped me refine my thesis for my final video. This isn’t my best work I have created in PLP yet. I think there is many things I would of done differently (handing this in, in may would’ve been a good start). After discussing with my classmates and teachers, it is clear that many of us feel this way. I think this FAIL will help me maximize my learning in the field school next year. As well as giving me some ideas for my current exhibition project (which you should check out if your in North Vancouver on June 15th).

TPOL 2022

June 22, 2022 quinnLeave a comment

Hi everyone,

The year is almost over and summer is about to start. Before the year ends I have one key assignment. TPOL (Transitional Presentation Of Learning) this is similar to my MPOL (Mid year Presentation Of Learning) However TPOL’s are more focused on recapping the whole year and discussing how I can achieve growth in the next school year.

This school year was are third year in a row of adjusting to a new schedule, rules, and challenges. We finally moved past COVID which is so exciting! We also were once again allowed to compete against other schools in sports. One of my favourite experiences this year was being apart of the Seycove Junior Boys Basketball Team. We had a tough season but there was a few great games in there and I got a lot better. Another great thing about COVID restrictions lifting was the reinstatement of field schools. We had the opportunity to go to Loon Lake Lodge. Even though we barely left Vancouver Loon Lake was an amazing experience. I cant wait for more field schools next year (New Mexico 2022)!

One of my biggest goals this year was Consistency. I often get extremely focused and invested in certain assignments and completely neglect others. This became quite a problem early on in grade 10 and caused my average quality of work to go down. I have got better at this throughout the year however I still need to keep working on this into next year. One thing I need to focus on is making sure I deliver consistent high quality work throughout a project. This was evident in project Podcast. I would say episode 1 and 2 were my best episodes and episode 3 was my worst. I dont think the quality suffered to much but I definitely could have improved episode 3 and 4. Below you can check out episode 1 (top) and episode 4 (bottom) to see the difference. Next year I will focus on continually delivering consistent work throughout a project.

One goal which I achieved in the last semester is growth. This is evident in both my school work and extra curricular. My best work from this semester, podcast, zine and Portrait, is much better then my best work from the last semester, political party project, Romeo and Juliet and our memorial proposal. One place I really saw growth was the difference between my work for the winter exhibition and the spring exhibition (will be linked once posted). My presentations were more clear, my product was better, and our area was decorated better. All in all, I am quite proud of the growth I have achieved this semester.

Along with growth balance was another one of my major goals. This meant giving myself an adequate amount of time to practice my other hobbies. I got better at that this semester and it really helped me focus on my photography. I got a lot better at shooting wildlife, and started learning about studio photography. This balance actually helped my school work. Notably being able to include my photos in my zine, as well as use my knowledge of photography for my podcast. Even though I got better at balancing my school and extra curricular this semester. I have a long way to go if I am to achieve the grades I want next year.

This school year has been a strange year and I feel like both everything has changed and nothing has changed. I did well this year but I want to do much better next year as grade 11 is very important for your future. See you in September!

Loon Lake Advance 2022

April 21, 2022April 22, 2022 quinn2 Comments

Hi everyone,

Two weeks ago we just returned from an iconic PLP experience which we lacked for the past 2 years. Can you guess what I’m talking about? Of course I’m talking about an overnight field study. These are a core part of the PLP experience. If you have been around my blog for awhile, and when I say awhile I mean since October 2019 when I was just 5 foot 4 and COVID didn’t repeatedly torture us all, you would know we went to Oregon on a 7 day field study. This was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had learning in “school”. Anyways we went to loon lake retreat. It is located near golden ears park and Mapleridge.

So before I get onto the learning which unless you’re my teachers won’t be the most interesting part of this blog post. I want to give you a recap of the highlights of the trip.

The view from 1 minute outside of our lodge

04/04/22 around 11am we loaded onto the bus and departed Seycove Secondary. However we weren’t heading straight to loon lake. We were going to Popeyes for lunch. The food was great but it still didn’t compare to what we did next. We stopped at Raptors Ridge Birds of Prey. This was the highlight of the day and possibly my favourite activity on the trip. I love raptors and spend a lot of time observing and photographing them, especially Bald Eagles and Barred Owls. At this stop we got to see many different Raptor Species including a white morph Gyrfalcon. An extremely rare bird from the icy north of Canada and Greenland. We also got to see a Harris Hawk, the wolf of the sky. We learned many interesting things about Raptor Conservation and why they keep these birds on there property. Overall extremely interesting 10/10 would recommend if you like birds and are in Vancouver. Then we arrived at the lake got settled in, ate and did some learning. I also watched the March Madness Finals, extremely exciting but how did UNC lose. I was so disappointed. Caleb Love was truly awful. Please leave a comment below about March Madness or NBA playoffs. I would love to discuss those.

A Peregrine Falcon at Raptors Ridge Birds of Prey Centre

04/05/22 This was our first of two full days at the retreat (but in PLP we don’t retreat we advance.) This day included 6 hours of outdoor activities. After Breakfast we met up and got split up into our activity groups. My first activity was canoeing. It was my favourite activity of the day and was very peaceful. We learned strokes such as the Forward, Pry, Draw, and J strokes. These are all used to effectively steer a canoe. Something I didn’t realize was difficult or complicated until then. I really loved sitting out in the lake in the cool spring morning as the sun peaked through the clouds. After that we did Archery, it was cool but I already do it quite often while camping. Then after lunch we did high ropes. This was interesting and a great opportunity to push my comfort zone. Finally we wrapped up the day with climbing which was a great workout. Then we set our goals for the rest of the advance. Something I will touch on later.

04/06/22 This was a day of learning and working towards our goals. My goal which by the way was not a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely), my goal lacked all but relevant. It’s hard to put into words but it was about reflecting on my growth as a learner in order to stay on track towards growing as well as holding myself accountable for other goals. I had some opportunities this day to work towards it. However it was hard to make serious progress to a goal this long term in a day. I think setting a more achievable and timely goal would definitely have made it easier to grow on this advance.

04/07/22 Our final day. We spent the morning learning and packing up. Then we had lunch and drove to the extreme airpark. It was super fun and a great workout. After that we returned home sleep deprived and hungry.

A photo from a little photo walk we did. It was supposed to be a challenge but I would have won to easily so we didn’t vote.

So as previously hinted this trip was about advancing (cause in PLP we never retreat only advance) and you know what I advanced. Not in the way I originally planned to but it was remarkable progress. The two biggest ways I advanced was in my mindfulness and note taking. These might seem remarkably different but they both came as by products of my not so great goal. How you might be wondering? While I asked myself the same thing. But I’ve come to the conclusion it came from me starting to develop my goal while canoeing. Out on the water we practiced mindfulness and it really set the tone for the rest of the day. Then that night I began using our note taking app, craft to reflect on our experiences in the day. While doing this I came to the conclusion that being more mindful led to me having better reflections and notes. Those last two achievements lend to me feeling like I made a ton of progress growing as a learner that day. Now you might be able to see how my goal was linked to these two but I probably should have focused on taking better notes during lessons instead of other goal.

Loon Lake was definitely a great experience and acted a bit of a teaser for our bigger trip in grade 11 (New Mexico?) It also taught me so much more then I expected and truly helped me grow as a learner.

-Loon Lake was a blast

The struggle in Vancouver Waters

November 12, 2021 quinnLeave a comment

Hi everyone,

We just started a new project called the Ology of Apology. With this project we are lucky enough to go on six day trips around Vancouver. You can follow these trips along in real if you go follow the @plpseycove instagram account. For our first trip we went to a Sikh temple and the Punjabi Market. At the Sikh temple we visited an exhibit dedicated to the Komagata Maru.

If you don’t know what the Komagata Maru is I would suggest watching the video below. So at the exhibit we learned about the the history of South Asians and particularly Sikhs in Canada. After this we got to experience a sliver of South Asian culture at the Punjabi market. It was really incredible to see all these stores selling traditional Indian food and goods. One thing which really stuck out to me after learning about the Komagata Maru was that the Canadian and BC governments did not offer good apologies for these events even after 100 plus years.

Apologies are really important. Especially to a community like the South Asians and particularly Indians. They weren’t allowed entry into Canada even though they were apart of the British Empire. A good apology could help spark a change and prevent anything like this from happening again. Then discovered the terrible apology the Canadian Government offered the Sikhs. Even though eventually the Canadian Government offered a better apology its still is terrible that it took them so long to do so.

Originally I had troubles relating the Komagata Maru incident to my life. I mean it was 107 years ago and didn’t affect any one of my relatives or family members. But then after the trip to the Punjabi Market I realized how it was relevant today. We need to interact with many different communities to build a complete worldview. We should never exclude a group of people due to where they came from or the colour of there skin. The Komagata Maru incident really serves as a reminder of the danger of only interacting with people who look and think the same as you. I also began to think of how my ancestors would have been some of the people in Vancouver. Hearing the White Canadian perspective about this ship and while I have no clue about what their opinions on the ship would have been. I know that if they interacted with the Indian community they would see the problem with this incident.

Memorializing people and events of the past is a great way to help those affected as well as remind the public of the importance of not repeating our past wrongs. We need memorialize the courage and bravery of these men onboard the Komagata Maru as well as the Sikh community in Vancouver. We need to document the struggle of both the individuals and the community as a whole as a reminder of our past wrongs.

Oregon 2019

November 4, 2019November 15, 2019 quinn1 Comment

Hi Everyone,

From October 19^th to October 25^th we went to Astoria and Newport Oregon. It was an amazing trip. We went did many amazing activities such as, Zip-lining and going to different Beaches. We also learned many amazing things about sea life and tsunamis.

During this trip we had one major driving question. Being aware of your own thoughts, strategies, feelings and actions and their effects on others. I found myself in so many situations where this influenced me. One of the times I found this the most influential was on the quests. The Quests were like mini scavenger hunts around the different parks and towns of Oregon. We did the quests in groups of 5 or 6, my group was of six, there names were, Annie, Dries, Ryan, Erin and Julien. During the whole quest you had to be mindful of all those things especially your strategies and actions.

IMG_1690

Another instance, was in the yurts. Well you were in the yurts you had to be really aware of your actions. Say at 10:00pm at night you don’t want to be to noisy. The other place I’d like to talk about is the bus. On the bus you had to control your actions even more then on the quests or in the yurts because, there was your teachers and the rest of your class. Anything you do will affect 25+ other people. The hardest times to manage your impulsivity are probably on the beach. When I’m on the beach I just want to go in the water or go on the sand dunes behind the beach. Both of which your not allowed to do. The way I kept myself from doing those things is, reminding myself that the water is really cold.

The last competency we were being assessed on over the trip was working interdependently. This was the hardest competency for me as I sometimes have troubles with working in groups.

During are trip we took photos and wrote about activities and then put those all together to create a book with book creator. Here is my book.

Oregon Coast 2019

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

This is a Slider of the best photos I took on the trip.

This is the lighthouse at Yaquina Head in Newport, Oregon.
This is a photo of the Ocean at Depoe Bay Oregon.
This is a Photo of my friends and I at Beverley Beach State Park at Sunset
This is Julien, Liam and myself at Ziplining
This is a Cool Photo of myself on the lighthouse boat near the Columbia River Maritime Museum
This Is a photo of the ocean at the south jetty of the columbia river

On our trip we visited many different towns starting with Astoria and Warrenton, then Tilamook and Cannon beach area, then Newport and Finally Puyallup. My favourite place was Probably Newport but all the places were amazing.

Day 1

On day 1 we had to get to school by 6:15am! It took about 10 hours to get down to Astoria although we had a lunch stop at Clark’s restaurant. The first thing we did in Astoria was go to the Astoria Column. After that we went to the beach and looked at the wreck of Peter Iredale. That night we stayed at Fort Stevens State Park. Day 1 was a day of managing your impulsivity which mostly happened on the bus

Day 2

Day 2 was probably my favourite day. We started the day off going to Fort Stevens and learned about many military related things. After, we went to Dairy Queen and then High Life Adventures where we went Zip-lining! Zip-lining was super fun. I was a little bit nervous at first because I had never gone Zip-lining before, but I quickly realized that I had nothing to worry about. Dinner that night was at Nisa’s Thai Kitchen which was super good. We once again stayed at Fort Stevens State Park. Day 2 was another day of managing your impulsivity and also managing your thoughts and strategies which we had to do on our first quest.

This Is one of the Ziplines at High Life Adventures

Day 3

On day 3 we started out by going to the Columbia River Maritime museum. After that, we went to Pig’n Pancake for lunch which was at Cannon Beach. Then we went to Cannon Beach and It was incredibly stormy so we didn’t stay there for long. After Cannon Beach we bussed to Tillamook. In Tillamook we went to the Tillamook Creamery. That was really cool. After we bussed down to Newport where we went for dinner at Izzy’s. That night we started our 3 day stay at South Beach State Park. Day 3 was once again managing your impulsivity at cannon beach and on the bus.

Day 4

On day 4 we started out with Quests. After the Quests we had Fish’n Chips for lunch. Then we went to the Hatfield Marine Science Center where we learned about Sea Life. Dinner that night was at the Chalet which I had to make an Advertisement for (that is another project I should have a blog post about it later this week). Once Again that night was at South Beach state Park. On this day we had to manage are thoughts and strategies and how they effected other people during our quests. We also had to work interdependently.

Day 5

This day was also really great. We started the day off by making ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicles) at the Hatfield Marine Science Center which was really cool and challenged us to work interdependently. Then we went to Yaquina Head which was amazing! Cobble beach had so much cool sea life and the quest we did at Yaquina Head was also tons of fun. After, we went to Beverly Beach State Park, it was stunning! Dinner that night was Chinese food. This was our last night in the Yurts at South Beach State Park.

This is sure a stunning sunset at Beverley Beach State Park

Day 6

On Day 6 we had to leave Newport. We started by just going to a place in Newport where we did a quest and looked at Sea Lions. Then we went to Depoe Bay which was really cool. It had this great Socks Shop. After, we back to Washington to go to John’s Incredible Pizza Company. It was a buffet and Arcade. Then we had to leave to head to Leave to go to are last spot we stay. Ike Kinswa State Park.

Day 7

This Day finished off our incredible trip. We started it off by going to the North West Trek. We saw many cool animals such as Bison, Wolves, Cougars, Beavers, River Otters and many more. Finally for our last meal of the trip we ate at the Golden Corral, the most unhealthy buffet ever! The food was great but the chocolate fountain was even better. Finally to finish the trip we bussed back to Seycove. This was a phenomenal trip! As this was the day we bussed back we once again had a long bus ride and we had to manage our impulsivity over it.

One last thing I would like to say is thank you to our awesome teachers for making this trip possible!!!!!! We all really appreciate it!!!