Every year in PLP we go on a field school. This year’s was very different, once I stepped on that bus, there was no going back. 55km of hiking later, I’ve arrived home.

This year we went to the Rocky Mountains. We had to answer our driving question, How has the geography of the West shaped who we are? We have been thinking about that question for a while, and even interviewed people to ask their opinions on it. We made up our own questions and made an “investigative video” based on what we learned from the strangers. (You can see it in my multi touch book!)

The 5 themes that we were learning about are, Location, Place, Human-environment interaction, Movement, and Region.

I learned that in the Rocky Mountains, they have bridges that go over highways so animals can safely walk across it! ⬇️ (Human Environment Interaction)

Another cool thing I learned is that the Rocky Mountains have many near-extinct animals that they take care of, for example, snails! They love to live in natural hot springs (sulpher). We ended up going to the hot springs and seeing them! (Region)⬇️This is the hot springs in the cave. There are snails in here but they are really hard to spot. This place is very cool to tourists but even cooler to anyone that knows about it. Way back when, there were two men, gold mining. However, they didn’t find gold, the men found a hole that smelled weird so they dug down and found this cool, natural hot spring. They thought it was super cool so they made it their business. Every day many people would come by to take a dip in the water for a small charge. However, they closed down in 1992.

To wrap this trip up, we went on loads of hikes, went to tons and tons of national parks, and even saw a bear! If I were to rate this trip on a scale from 1-10, I would have given it an 8, if there was a little less hiking I would have liked it more.

Here is a link to my multi-touch book, it includes an in-depth reflection on this trip. ⬇️