This is the fields school post that goes with a post about the projects we created. If you want to read about the project, click below.
I Since last year we have known about our early field school that took place in early October. The field school was a road trip in the classic Seycove bus, and this trip had 2 major stops along the way. The first was Portland, and then we were to continue onto Hanford Washington, in the southeast of Washington. This is what the trip would look like.
Did I go on this trip? Nope. Why not? This tiny blind-ended tube, that is connected to the cecum, from which it develops in the embryo exploded. My appendix. The appendix is an organ that’s function is unknown, it is theorized that it is a storage area for “good bacteria” but if you ask me it’s a storage area for a lot of pain. Anyway, this post is not going to be about the trip for me, this is a research post about my appendicitis. And I’m just as happy as I am before I went into surgery. See how happy?
So happy. Anyway, happy drugged up Adam aside, let’s get into appendicitis and hopefully we both learn something. I’ll go through my description of the disease, causes and my experience, if you want a video that explains it well, click below.
Appendicitis is caused by a blockage in the lining of the appendix that results in infection is the likely cause of appendicitis. The bacteria multiply rapidly, causing the appendix to become inflamed, swollen and filled with pus. If not treated promptly, the appendix can rupture. It’s classified as a medical emergency due to how badly it can go in such a short amount of time. What starts as dull pain can become stabbing, and if not operated immediately can lead to rupture, and the pain of rupture rivals the pain of childbirth. So. I had a baby. Jokes aside if left untreated a ruptured appendix can often to Peritonitis. Organ failure and death. So it’s good I got it out FAST.
No field school. Very sad. My destination was changed to the hospital but I still wanted to make something fun. When would we go on field schools as a class, we always have mini-assignments, and this one is no acception. I’m sure if you to to everyone else in my class’ blog you’ll see some creations from the trip. None for Adam. Adam got an I.V instead. I felt left out. So. I made something. I made a book. This book is a comic about my journey from first pain to coming out of surgery. It’s comedic, I didn’t want a sob story, I wanted a funny book. Without further ado, here it is.
That was my field school. I know this post is a bit odd, but it’s what I could do for the assignment. I was given a field school assignment and I guess my field school, instead of being “The Manhattan Project” was the “Appendix Project.” Why did I make a book? Well, on our last field school we went to California. When on that field school our biggest assignment was to make a book that was day to day what we did as a class, and our experiences throughout the trip. I wanted to make a more comedic version of that. I wanted a version that showed my “trip” and my idea of what humor is, at the same time showing off one of my favorite apps on the iPad, Book Creator, and one of my strongest skills. Writing and storytelling. That why I made a nine page book about the hospital.
So this unit was introduced to as ‘The Manhattan Project… Project,’ that is not only due to Mr. Hughes’ strange but lovable sense of humor but also the fact that we were doing a project, about somebody else’s project. To go with these projects we went on a field school as well, you can read about that here.
Every PLP project has a driving question, for us to make a project around and to have in our minds throughout all of the activities we do. We had a long one for this unit. It was, how did the development of the atomic bomb affect the lives of those living in the Hanford area, and what role did they play in ushering the Atomic age? We started with a brief rundown/catchup. The Manhattan project was a research and development project during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. It was started in secret in 1939, and ran all the way until 1946.
The first assignment we did was all about getting us in the right mindset and time period for the time. We started by making a news reel that breaks the news to the American people about the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This started everything, it helped us start to understand how the world of the time would reacted to such impactful news, and what would happen next. I was put in a group with Izzy, Alex, and Claire. This mini-project made me very excited because I got to be a midwestern announcer. Confused what that means? Observe.
When this was going on we started to play an education game. I know. Weird. Basically this game is about people who lived in Los Alamos, the main location where the Manhattan project was built from. Even though this wasn’t directly about the people who worked in Hanford, where our project was centred, it gave us the building blocks of what working at the time was like. Personally, I found this super helpful. This is a link to the game in the App Store.
The reason we were learning about these people was because we were going to be making character cards. Similar to trading cards, character cards have an image, and some background information about the person. We had learned about what living and working in these ‘nuclear cities’ was like, now it was time to go more in depth on one important person. I chose Gerhart Friedlander. Gerhart Friedlander was the head chemist on the Manhattan Project. Friedlander was born in Munich, Germany. He fled Nazi Germany for the United States in 1936. After emigrating, he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a PhD. This is my character card about Gerhart, It looks very cookie-cutter but we were instructed to follow a strict criteria.
Then the PLP teachers went away. They went on a trip with another class for a whole week, so they left us with some work, not just some work though. A LOT of work. We were given a package. A work package. The theme of this package was the next major piece of history that followed the dropping of the bombs was the Cold War. So this was a package about why the Cold War began. The package was forty four pages, that included thirteen sections. Each of these sections included some kind of activity or chart, with everything from response paragraphs, to fill in the blanks, and even as simple as answering some questions. I won’t bore you with all of the tiny assignments we did. Instead I’ll tell you about the final two. The first was a summary paragraph. The thirteenth section, this paragraph was a 400 word max summary about what we had learned. Here is mine. If you click the black bar you can read it.
How did the Cold War start? I can’t give you an exact date, not even the most knowledge historians can, but I can tell you how the chain reaction that became the Cold War began in my opinion. As soon as President Truman dropped the two bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima he debuted a power that had been kept secret. A superpower. A bringer of death. “Two thirds of the people of the earth would be killed.” That’s what Albert Einstein said about the outcome of a war fought with similar bombs. The US held the biggest stick, and that gave them a lot of confidence. Confidence to speak out against one of the most brutal powers of all time. The Soviet Union. On March 5th, 1946 Truman gave his famous anti-communism speech. This had all kinds of low jabs at the Soviet leader, Stalin. Phrases like, “an “Iron Curtain” has descended across the continent,” or that major cities all over Europe were; “all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.” Those backhanded insults lit a fire under the USSR, and they responded to the USA’s work to bring Europe together and way from them by creating the Zhdanov Doctrine. A set of beliefs promoting stricter government control and anti-Western bias. This is the exact opposite of what America is doing with their new idea; the Marshall Plan. The goal of this plan completely rivals the Zhdanov Doctrine. It’s purpose is to give generous provision of free financial aid for the reconstruction of war-torn Western Europe. It is obvious that the US is trying to gain the trust and coherence of countries like Italy, France, Portugal and more. If they gain the companionship of those countries, when the US needs help in a possible war against the Soviets in Europe, that have allies. The Soviet Union and the United States, two nations that had never been enemies officially, had even fought side by side during WWII to defeat the Nazis, were now undeclared enemies in a war that would never break out in the open, but which would last for more than fifty years
The second large assignment was a Keynote. We were tasked with making groups, so I ended up working with my friends, Spencer, Sam, and Simon. We were to make a pitch to ‘President Truman’ about what we should do about the Berlin Blockade. We were to use our learning from the 44 page booklet to show the American perspective on the matter, as well as the USSR’s perspective, a brief breakdown of what the blockade was, and finally a solution that we backed up with evidence. The first thing we needed to make was a slide deck for our presentation:
The second thing we had to make was a script, this script was the exhibition of what we knew, our presentation skills and how we executed the whole ensemble was key to our success. Below if you click the black bar you can read the whole pitch.
So, Mr. President. We have a problem. As we are sure you are aware, since June 24, 1948 we have been involved in the conflict that has become known as the Berlin blockade. Germany is occupied by both communist parties and western style democracy. Stalin believes that we are trying to extinguish communism, and destroy the USSR’s way of life. So, he instated the blockage around Berlin. The Blockade blocked our Western allies access to Berlin. America now cannot use railways, roads and canal routes to get into Berlin to supply western allies.
But why are they doing this? Because of the Zhdanov Doctrine. The Zhdanov Doctrine is a set of beliefs instated in Soviet Union based around the core idea of stricter government control over the working class and a strong anti-western bias. This is their response to our Marshall plan, and the aid that the plan brings. The soviets way to impose their ideals on the Germans is the Berlin Blockade, which was a way to slow down the incoming democratic aid from the US. We cannot let them block out the help that we are giving.
Now let’s look at at our stance so far, and everything backing us. We are taking the futuristic perspective by reaching out into Europe and helping countries that are rebuilding after affects of Nazi Germany and the lasting effects of WWII. We are giving aid to those in need, so that they help us down the road. We also want to give the people of Germany and surrounding countries the right to choose and vote. The purpose of the blockade is to keep the capital of Germany communist, which could cause all of Germany to become communist.
So. What should we do? The blockade is a way to keep us away from the people and countries in need. We cannot let that happen. The pilots patrolling and trying to keep us out of Berlin have difficult jobs, and are put in awkward positions. With the hard winter coming this is only going to get harder so we need to stay strong and wait for this fault Soviet plan to inevitably fail. These are hard times for us, but we are making it work. We need to keep doing everything we can for Berlin and it’s people. Our spirit and resilience will not be matched, and it’s only going to get harder for the Russians. Then, they will fall.
Now. The final product. Wow, it was quite the journey to get to this final product. The final product was a video, the video assignment was “History in 5.” The assignment was to create a video that gave 5 interesting facts about the Hanford nuclear site that the field school visited. We were Tom included knowledge and ideas from all past assignments and first had knowledge, interviews and media from the actual field school. For this final project I was grouped with Willa and Calum. The first thing we had to do was a brainstorm. We broke it down to be as simple as a classic ‘once upon a time’ style storyboard.
This isn’t our only storyboard, yes it looks barebones but it had more that went with it. We had a lost of shots we needed, fought notes of interview questions and Moreno that went into this video. I just really like how this on peice of paper sparked my group into action to create this video. We also did something when have never done before. We made what’s called a keynote storyboard, it’s basically an advanced shotlisg of everything that we wanted in the video. So, enough talking about the video and let’s just watch it.
So, that’s it. I have a lot of feelings about this video, the process was truly something painful and at times frustrating. In the beginning our plan was strong, and our group was working well, as a group we had a lot of diverse skills, from editing, to writing, to storytelling. I had kind of stepped into a leadership/organizational role. So, when I was rushed to the hospital that really threw a wrench in the plan. What would I have done differently if I did it again? A lot. First of all I would have gone on the field school, and when on it get a lot more B-Roll as well as more dialogue in the actual locations. I was happy how the intro, editing, and titles turned out, but every time I watch that video all I can think is that how I hated missing the opportunities of recording on site. What did I learn? A lot. I learned that sometimes taking a dominant leadership role doesn’t always fit because if that person is away, the project can fall apart. I also learned about the importance of resilience. This field school happened over a month but we still are here talking about it, we should’ve taken every minute in between then and now. So, yes. I learned a lot of hard lessons.
Every winter and spring for my last 3 years in PLP we always do an exhibition. This can mean a lot of things, this past December we interviews the public, a couple years ago the now grade 12s made a play/interactive experience about WWI. No matter what though, at least once a year we do a blue sky project. We use a thing called the Launch Cycle. This is a 7 step process, this process guides us all the way from thinking of ideas, all the way to launching to the community.
In this post, I am going to guide you through my whole launch cycle, through all 7 steps, what I did, and what I thought of my overall project. So, to help us focus our ideas more, we were put into groups, and chose a UN Sustainable Goal to help us narrow our projects. I was put in a group with Spencer, Simon, Ethan, and Isobel. We we’re assigned the 11th goal, Sustainable Development. We then split up into smaller groups of 2, me and Spencer, and Ethan and Simon, and then Isobel worked by herself because she didn’t want to deal with our BS.
So, the groups of Simon and Ethan, and me and Spencer all decided to make one huge project. We would divide up the work into two smaller projects to make one big one, all about busses and translink.
We all take the bus now, and we are all also getting to the age when we can get our own liscences and cars, so we stop taking the bus. The problem with that is that when we get our own cars this increases road congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. So, we need to keep teens wanting to drive, and people who are hesitant to on the bus. To do that our two groups worked on two different solutions. Simon and Ethan made a chair for a luxury bus, and me and Spencer made two new bus routes, The A Line.
But, here’s how we did it. Explained through the launch cycle, launch cycle is a 7 step process. This process was emphasized for this project, and we were leaned on to make sure that we constantly were following it.
L- Look, Listen and Learn. This stage has happened for us over the past couple years. When we have been taking the bus all around the north shore, with various routes and destinations, we have seen it all. We sat down and talked about all of the bus routes, and thought about our problems. We realized that our little problems can only go so far, that we are trying to help the community. So for a couple weeks whenever we rode the bus we payed attention to the routes, stops, where people get on and off, and general vibe of the bus.
A- Ask a ton of questions. Because this idea is based around teenagers, what they feel the problem is, and what they want to happen, we asked teenagers. We walked around our maker classroom and asked everyone in our class their opinions, about what they didn’t like and what they wanted to see. We got a lot of repeating answers, which is good. It showed us what we need to do. This was just the start, we combined this formal questionnaire with the ideas we had gained from riding the bus and stopping.
From this we mad eyes our first rough map draft. This map had a route on it that did some of the most popular ideas that our classmates had, even though it was a rough draft it wasn’t good to get something down on paper. Looking forward this made it easier to make our other maps.
U- Understand the Problem. We realized at around this point that there was no way were were going to make 1-2 new bus routes, we can’t pay or tell people to pay for 2 busses for a random reason. We realized that we were going to have to change what was already there. We tried to find 2 routes heavily traveled in our area that needed improvement. We chose the 211 and 215 (formally c15). The problem with the 211 route is it’s lack of purpose, what it should be is an express bus. The problem that it has too many stops, and one odd cut into a neighborhood. And the problem with the 215 is that it doesn’t go all the way to the cove on it’s residential route.
N- Navigate Ideas. This is where we started to make an actual project, this is where we started to look at what we could actually do about our problem. We needed to start to make goals and start to achieve them. We took an old map of an ‘ideal’ bus route and added to it in red. The red shows where off of the express route a residential bus should go.
C- Create a Prototype. After looking at our route, calculating the time it would take to travel our residential route as too long, so we cut out the deep cove loop. This is our final two map plan. We wanted to have two different busses because we had two different purposes. One of our busses is meant to get out of deep cove and North Vancouver as quickly as possible with as few stops as possible. That’s the A1. The other bus route is focused on getting people as close as they can to their destinations, houses and schools. This is the A2.
H- Highlight and Fix. This stage was probably the most interesting part of our project, we actually did a pitch. We got a contact from our friend Robbie, last year he had done a project to do with transit as well and he had a TransLink contact. When we emailed her she said this to us.
See that link? That’s the Innovation Link, it takes you to a page where you are given the rules and resources needed to change the face of translink. Opened on June 6, 2018, it is an open request for information where anyone can share their ideas directly with TransLink with the possibility of that coming to life. On July 18, 2018, the contest closes and the winner receives a grant from $1,000-10,000,000. This made us realize that we were actually pitching a full business plan now. So, we adjusted our pitch, video and presentation to make our pitch to TransLink come to life every time we explained our project
Finally, LAUNCH! This is where we share the whole circle with the public. For us this came to life at the exhibition. We were put with some grade 8s and 9s into a group labeled ‘Sustainability Cities and Communities.’ Our driving idea was making cities and other human settlements as well, as their communities be more inclusive, safe, and enjoyable. To start making our area interesting what had become to be known as the “Transit Boys,” made a mural of the skyline of Vancouver.
That was a start so we made 2 more big aesthetic things, we used tape to make a road to guide guests, and a huge banner that showed what we were doing. This tied everyone’s project together, and to the ‘younge generations contribution to the city,’ with a lemonade stand.
That’s how we got ready to launch, but let’s look how we actually launched. We formulated a process. When a guest arrived at our project they started with Ethan. Ethan convinced them why driving is actually bad for your wallet and the environment. After that sadness, they would move onto me and Spencer, we pitched the idea of two new bus routes to help your wallet and the environment. Behind us was our video playing on repeat.
After our real business pitch, and the explanation of the grant, they moved onto Simon. Simon sat them down in his ‘Luxury Bus Chair,’ and explained to them about how their commute could be more productive and comfortable.
This blue sky felt like the right way to end our career of maker time. This was not just a little school project, this was a full blow business plan, pitch, and process. This was a project that grownups usually do, and it’s part of their profession. This project let us step into their shoes and show me that a career in business is absolutely not the right fit for me. Even though I understand the reward and idea behind being ‘businesslike,’ it isn’t me. I would much rather be dynamically working with a person or a group of people to personally benefit their lives in my desired career as a personal trainer. But, I still like the idea of a plan, pitch, present format. In the end, I liked stepping out of my comfort zone and into some dress clothes.
Science has its ups and downs, to everyone. Some people like things like biology, some people hate it. It isn’t all completely subjective. For me though, I for one love space. I really like the idea of space, how small we are compared others everything, so we did a project on that.
Kyle and I decided to take on the topic of size and makeup of the universe. Instead of just maybe making a map, or a diagram we wanted to make something for people. We wanted them to see the sizes of the pWe scaled down the size of every planet so that you could see them, and so that the spacing would fit onto the field at Myrtle Park. These are the planets.
We were lucky enough to find some foam balls that perfectly fit our scale, but that was only some. The smallest ones like Pluto we had to make out of clay, and make them less than half a centimeter.
We obviously were not the only group, everyone had their own topic on everything from radioactivity all the way to the Big Bang, so I made a mind map showing how each topic is connected, no matter how thin the connection.
In the end I really liked this unit. Not only because I got to work with Kyle, and that always ends being a lot of fun, but because I liked what we did with the project, we did it differently. We made the math, the model, and the whole project from scratch. We didn’t look at a model and copy it, we scaled everything down until it fit, and then made them all, and finally presented it in a way that was interactive and outside.
This unit was a long, difficult, multi layered unit. There were three main topics that all combined to make one big project. Those three topics were learning about the structure of and how to debate, reading the book Lord of the Flies and we learned about the worlds political systems, with a heavier focus on Canada’s system. This was a really cool idea to teach because when we were leaning about the politics and the debate techniques, we could relate the topics back to what we were reading about the island, and the life on it.
So, I’ll start where we did, with Lord of the Flies. We read the book. While we were reading we had to do a couple of activities to make sure that we understood the deep symbolism behind everything in this book. It may just seem like the kids were trapped on an island, and forced to survive, but it’s more than that. Each stranded youth represented a few things, and everything they did also did this. We did three sheets, one was a chart to talk about what we believed each character represents, one to express our opinions about what ideas fit each character, and one to compare objects to symbols.
Another part of what we did to do with LOTF was our concept journals. As soon as we started reading we did an activity in class where each table had a piece of paper with a topic on the top. With coloured pens we rotated writing ideas that fit into that topic. We used things from our current unit, our previous units, and current or historical events. These are photos of all of our topic brainstorms.
We took those ideas to make what we called concept journals. These were page long reflections that connected the topics with brainstorm ideas. These were made one at a time over three weeks, so I made three total. One on uprising, one on the Vancouver riots, and one on power and authority.
And, the most constant part of LOTF was our own islands. We were asked to make teams. We were left in a room, and told to make groups. In my opinion this process did not work. We failed. Why? Because was have too many personalities in this class. Too many personalities who think that they NEED to step up as leaders, even if that means just yelling. That was my problem, the people who wanted to step up and lead were drowned out by other people just yelling very similar things at the top of their lungs. I am a culprit too, at one point I tried to turn it around and take a central leadership role, but even then I was yelled over by one individual. This was not normal human behavior, normally one or two people would step up to lead but in this situation everyone wanted to be a leader, and instead of letting someone else lead our class decided to try and out-lead the other leaders. The only good part was how it was broken up. After all of the yelling, messing around and generally doing nothing, a leader was chose for a group, and then as a class it was decided who would benefit that leader by making a mosaic of talents. That was a small victory in a madhouse of yelling and problems that I had to leave because of the lack of respect for leadership and human nature. Yelling at each other louder and louder doesn’t work. But, in the end I wound up in a group with Ryan, Izzy and Will. And, all of the teams were an island that was competing using a points system. We did not win. (We were the piggy’s)
So, that was LOTF, we learned about island survival, symbolism, and politics. That’s what’s next. Politics. We started by researching a bunch of kinds of political systems, my group did Oligarchy, when I group of people work as a team of wealthy advisors to one head. This is seen in Russia.
This was just an activity to learn a little bit how there are different options about how the worlds politicians run their countries. But, what we really needed to know was how Canada works. So, we did an activity called “Who’s Who?” This was a good activity to help us learn some of the names of the many many people who tell us how to live our lives, this isn’t the graphic we made.
Yes, I did miss the Sovereign, the Queen. Good job Adam.
So far this unit that I am explains sound huge, and it is. I mean, look at the size of the post and I haven’t even gotten to the debate yet. Yep. Debate. We needed to debate, but, before we did we needed to learn how. First we watched a video that taught us the “7 Keys to be a Great Speaker.”
We now knew how to talk to people, perfect. Now we had to put that to the test. We we’re put agaings the team of Sydney, Sam, Spencer, and Michael to debate about ‘Be it Resolved that Power Leads to Corruption.’ My team was arguing for this. Here is a photo of what it looked like when we set up the debate, he and a a small table where the host would sit, two standing desks. One for each team, and a semi circle of chairs for the audience.
Her is what it looked like when we were ‘debating,’ we staged a photo of the two teams in an pic stare down with Ms. Maxwell as the host, not her normal job.
So, what did they think of our debate? Well, they wrote it down. It’s a little hard to read because when we were taking Ms. Maxwell and Ms. Willemse were drawing on it, trying to communicate without being disruptive.
Big unit, right? Yep. This was probably the largest unit that we have done in a while. This is mostly because of how we did so many things all under the topic of LOTF. I think that this was a very long, grueling unit. But we learned a lot, I learned about everything from how the different political systems work, all the way to how to debate. It was a lots but in the end, very productive and memorable.
So, here we go again. It’s that time of year where I stand in front of my teachers and parents and try and make a bridge between the teachers, me and the parents. And this is the one where I tell you why I should be in the program based on what I have done this year. I don’t want to bombard you with example of my best work, my highs, I want to show you the upwards slant that I have showed this year. This growth. I am going to show three examples. One example of an improvement that has happened, one that is happening, and one that needs to happen.
The first section is where I believe there has been growth. In my last TPOL, i talked a little bit about the Florida field study back in grade 9, and how poorly I took advantage. The problem wasn’t about what happened exactly, but what I did with the opportunities. There were so many amazing opportunities to make an amazing project, but I didn’t take them. This is reflected in the teachers memory a and in the work I did.
The goal that I set in that last MPOL was to do better in California, do do more, and to take advantage more of the opportunities that I was given. I’m not saying that I was perfect, I don’t think that anyone is, but I did get better. I am very proud of my California book, my podcasts, and what I did there. I think that I followed through on my goal, delivered, and can see growth.
Next is the improvement that is happening. I want to talk about math and science, and specifically the projects. At the beginning of the year I kind of threw off the idea of a “math project” I saw it as irrelevant. This can be seen in my effort and product in my solar panel project.
But, after getting verbally chewed out by my teachers and once I realized how bad these projects were, I knew I had to change. I’m not saying my math and science projects are know leading the class, I’m too humble for that. I am very proud of them however. The most recent example is our graphing project. In a project where the whole class was comparing rates of cell plans, Kyle and I asked and got approved to do something different that was more interesting, we compared the costs of buying and maintaining three different exotic animals.
The final and most fun topic for this blog and presentation is what I need to work on. This isn’t a project, but more a personal trait. That is control. Personal control.
Im not saying that I am a complete psychopath, but I’m also saying that I have a problem. Around consistency. Some days I feel like I am on top of the world and class, like when I made the whole website, was teaching every one in the class how to imbed links in the website, and all the while staying positive. The I have had days where I have to completely remove myself from the classroom due to anger and fear of lashing out at the class, or times where I have. I’m not saying that I want to change how I act every day, I already have fixed the behavior, what I need to do every day is clam down, check to make sure that I am ready to perform at my best, then start class. If I don’t feel like that, instead of lashing out, I need to slow down. Stop. And fix the attitude.
But, if you see the arc that has happened with my attitude, from my negativity, the way to my work ethic, I know that will follow suit. Along with the progression of my work quality and ethic, I know that I am a perfect fit for PLP 11.
Every grade 10 has to do a job shadow. If they are in PLP or not. Most people will take what is easy though, people their parents know, maybe a close family friend who has a job that they find kind of interesting. I didn’t do that. I got in contact with my boss/training partner/family friend/coach Mike to get in contact with trainers that he knows. After a couple times talking to him and looking at various websites we found one.
Mike has a strong connection with the brand Muscle Mlk, and the local representative for that brand he know quite well. He also knows that her husband is Chris Rothafelder, a personal trainer and owner of elevate fitness. His bio is below.
http://elevatehealth.ca/certified-personal-trainers/chris-rothfelder/
Chris is the founder and Co-owner of Elevate Training, Health and Wellness. Elevate is a personal training facility that is completely results driven. It is home to Chris and 5 other trainers, and they all train clients in this space, but all in their own way. Chris has 7 years experience as a personal trainer, he is a BCRPA certified personal trainer, and a BCRPA Certified Fitness Leader in Weight Training. He specializes in advanced TRX, BOSU, Twist SMART training, and advanced Swissball
So, once I had his contact we arranged a day where I could go to his facility and learn what happens in there. So, in early May, I went to Elevate Fitness for my job shadow. When I got there, I was welcomed, introduced to Chris and all of the other trainers there. Then immediately I got the rundown of the layout, the format and hat I would be doing. I have some photos that I will put in throughout the post, but this video shows everything.
After my quick tour I explained what I wanted to gain. I needed to learn what different kinds of schooling are paths being a personal trainer, and I needed some media to make this post. I couldn’t take any photos of the actual training that happened, because these people are paying $90/hour to be trained by a professional, not filmed by a 16 year old.
I took a few photos of what I saw as soon as I walked into the main training area though.
So, then I started my day. I was in the main room that I showed above and I was watching all of the trainers. It wasn’t just Chris, there was two other triainers working with clients at the same time, so I got to see how trainers can work differently. I could also alternate talking to and interviewing them. This helped me understand in depth what it takes to become a trainer and what you do once you are one.
So, to become a certified personal trainer you don’t have to have a post secondary education in anything, but I plan to have one in Human Kinetics or Kinesiology, when I mentioned that idea Chris liked it. He said that if you get a degree in something like that it instantly helps you jump up to the top of the ladder and immediately start training high end, high paying clients. You don’t have to climb to the top.
When I was in the gym I was told not to record, which makes sense. If someone is paying anywhere from $75-120 to get trained by a professional, they don’t want to have some 16 year old kid constantly interrupting to ‘make a podcast,’ so I over time took notes amd created an iBook about what I learned from these notes.
In the end I was very happy with my job shadow. Every trainer that I met was very similar to myself, I got along well with them, we all had similar goals, and I could see myself working with them. So, in the future this IS a career I plan to pursue,
This project started as a normal project. We had to pick three different cell phone plans, what you had to pay for how much data and what the overage costs were. But, Kyle and I decided to do it differently. We wondered, what would it cost to buy and maintain three different exotic animals?
So, that was our project. We had to pick three animals that we wanted to analyze. Our three different animals were a piranha, a donkey, and lastly a human baby. We had to do a lot of research. First we had to learn how much each of these animals cost up front, how much they cost a month, and what you had to do to maintain them and keep them healthy. This creative idea helped us stay motivated because we like the idea. We took a systems of equations unit and made it fun and exciting, this helped us stay motivated to finish ahead of schedule. Here is our full PowerPoint.
Thos project was a fun way for me and Kyle to show our creative capabilities, but also our math that we had learned.
Every year we go on a couple big field trips, this year it was our California field school, in grade 9 it was our Florida trip, and more. On the side though, we do a lot of smaller day trips around Vancouver. Earlier in the year we went to the Museum of Vancouver, and now we have gone to the BC Tech Summit youth day. A lot happens during this day at the convention center. Companies bring some of their coolest products, schools exhibit technology programs, there are multiple speakers, and of course lots of cool displays.
We had four main tasks to do when we were at the conference. The first was to interview a mentor. When we were on the main floor, this one:
There was a bunch of ‘mentors’ at tables, they all worked for different companies that were using technology in new and interesting ways. Where I was, I was sitting with Simon, Kyle, and Spencer, we interviewed a lady who worked at LifeLabs. A testing facility that uses technology to test patients for any disease, this infor can be used by any company to cure the patient, or rehabilitate. I asked if that’s field was connected directly with my field of interest: rehabilitation and personal training.
The next assignment was to talk to a university presenting there about programs they offer that we were interested in. Personal training doesn’t use a huge of amount of innovative technology, so I expanded. What if I was trading or rehabilitating someone with a prosthetic body part? So I tried to find a program that involved prosthetics. I found Kwantlen Polytechnic University, a place where students learn about advanced robotics and technology, it was described to me as ‘A program where you learn to repair and build what no one else can.’ Woah. Not prosthetics. But still, I would be very opening to learning in a place like this.
The third assignment was my favorite. Before we went to the conference we all chose two speakers to research, once we had learned a bit about them, we were ready to listen to them speak. My first speaker was Brent Bushnell.
I was interest in Brent because I learned something really cool about his company, Two Bit Circus, I learned that they made the music video for the music group Ok, Go. He was such an amazing person, and he was totally this video all into a person, loud, fun, and enthusiastic. I would strongly recommend watching this video.
Also, check out the website for Two Bit Circus, happens be a huge project coming up soon that you should read about.
My second speaker was Ryan Holmes, I won’t lie that name isn’t anything special but his net wortk and reason for it are.
He is worth around ONE BILLION DOLLARS all due to his company, HootSuite. This company wasn’t his first though, he told his whole come up. He had one quote that really impacted me. He said: ‘You need to know enough to be dangerous.’ To me that means that you can only do damage to the world by using knowledge well.
Last assignment. We made a vlog. I worked with Sam, Simon, and Spencer to make a video. This was supposed to be a video that showed what we did during our day at the convention centre, where we went, what we did, and should also show what we saw. This video was not exactly a formal assignment, it was more of a free run fun time. This is what we made.
This was a very long day. We arrived at school at 7am, and didn’t get home until around 5. It was also a lot in one day, we went across town, listened to a whole bunch of inspirational speakers, interviewed people, leaned, did activities, and more. In the end, this was one of the many experiences that makes PLP unique. It was just tiring, so I’m a bit whiny.
In history class we are following a timeline. Last year we did a lot about Canada during the 19th and 18ty centuries, and earlier this year we did a huge unit on WWI, you can read about that below.
So, if we follow the timeline of important events in our history, the next one would be WWII. That was the unit that we just wrapped up. We did a unit all around the perspectives of war, the different perspectives that each country involved had, how they were different, similar, and more.
To get a better understanding of a perspective of war, we all read books. I read All the Light We Cannot See, I also made a blog post about it, which is attached below.
This book gave me the perfect perspective that I would need for this unit, because I was put into the Germany group. The group that was responsible for Germany’s portion of the website. I was with Sofia, Reid, and Samuel. I found this funny because three of the four people in that group are all blonde haired and blue eyed. That was the definition of Adolf Hitler’s perfect human. Funny. Anyway, so we started this unit with two main focuses. The first was important dates and battles in WWII. Some of my favorites included the beginning of the war, when the Germans invaded Poland, triggering WWII, operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain. When Adolf Hitler and his Luftwaffe bombed London for 53 nights in a row. My favorite was actually the end of the war, operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. This in the end put a halt to the Nazis.
The second main focus was citations. We had done this a lot last year with Mr. Featherstone, so this was like a big reminder combined with a wake up call. We wrote paragraphs in which we cited books, websites, and YouTube videos. Both of the previously mentioned topics would come back around to the website, but before that there was one last huge event.
We interviewed a WWII Veteran.
Helmut Lemke was a German soldier who served in WWII, he served on the Russian front, before escaping to west Germany to later pursue an education in architecture that would eventually wind him up in Canada. He shared with us stories about where he grew up, and what it wasn’t like to see Adolf Hitler rise to power. That at the time nobody saw him as a bad man, he was just a string politician. He said that nobody wanted a war. People would pray in churches for peace, but in the end we unfortunately got a war. He shared the unique story of how he joined the Nazis, and also he talked extensively about fighting on the Russian front, where he eventually got wounded, and escaped to West Germany. I was interested in what it was like to join the war as a german at the time, and he talked extensively about his very unique experience.
Meeting Helmut was amazing, most people don’t ever meet a WWII veteran. But, I bested the class in that field. I have now met 2. Earlier this year I met a man in the US navy, so I have met a man who served for the Allied Forces and the Axis Powers. Here are the photos of me with them.
That is very cool.
So, anyway, back to the project. We had all the pieces, now all we had to do was put it all together. This website had to include everything that I had just mentioned: the podcast, the book review, the research, citations, and of course the perspectives. Germany set about doing what we had to do. Fortunately for us, we had the most group members, so we had less work per person, that meant the work we did was better and more thorough. Also, I was recruited by Ms. Maxwell is to make the home page, about page, and to construct the WWII in literature page as well. Attached below is our masterpiece.
Normally when we make a final product, we submit it through showbie, Andy then we receive critique, and revise what we have made. This time was very different though. Our teacher Ms. Maxwell called in her history teacher from her time at our school, Kathleen Barter to listen to us present our website, our learning and the overall idea of the project, this was an amazing opportunity, we got some great feedback, and it was cool to present to someone who decides what we learn.
Wow. That was a big project. It was a long, multi layered journey through WWII. But, the perspective? For a unit called ‘Perspectives of War’ I feel that there was a bit too much emphasis on the war and not too much on the perspectives, but nothing I say perfect, I’m not complaining. In the end we got to experience multiple firsthand sources that made this unit truly one of a kind, a unit that I will remember. I think the area I leaned the most in was the details of battles, for example I did not know that operation Barbarossa started the fall of the Nazis, because of the Russian winter. But, in the end the biggest lesson that I learned was teamwork. We had to work with a whole class, something we haven’t done yet, and hat will was a new and amazing experience that I want to carry with me. That experience needing to start with nothing and build something amazing. I think it isn’t perfectly said by the 6 God, Drake. We went ‘Zero to a hundred real quick.’ We started at 0 website building experience, 0 full teamwork experience, 0 idea of what to do. We went to a hundred real quick, like Drake.
