Here is my recommended song for this post.

So, once again we have done another year of PLP and we have done another year end blue sky project.

This year was drastically different than previous. We as Grade 10’s have already done two years of blue sky so to mix it up we were split into groups. Each of those groups then picked one of 17 UN Sustainable Devlopment goals. These are goals set by the United Nations to better the world. They range from ending poverty to reducing climate change. Many of them are very big topics which aren’t necessarily the best for blue Sky. We still picked the topics but had to think very, very small and base our projects off of what the UN wants to achieve. I was first put into a group with Reid, Sam and Willa. We decided first on Sustainable Cities and Communities but after some negotiations with another group we switched to Industry, Infrastructure and Innovation.

We also added Calum and Kyle to our group and Willa left to go to another group. The task we had to do is create a blue Sky project about those goals but we can do it in partners or as a group as long as they are all related to one central topic. We also had to follow the LAUNCH Cycle, like past years.

In case you didn’t know the LAUNCH Cycle is an acronyme for a creation process to create something that can be sent to the world.

We spent a lot of time in L phase. We went over multiple different themes. They started with looking at third world islands and bettering their infrastructure then went to forest fire prevention in BC to finally looking at touristy in Deep Cove (its a serious topic in the area).

After finding a root theme that worked with some ideas we moved on to the A. We began asking ourselves and our group members many questions about touristy in Deep Cove. I work at Deep Cove Kayak so I’m on the front lines of touristy down in the Cove so I definetly was asking questions bout how we can improve tourist safety, tourist experience and tourist knowledge.

By the time we moved on to U we had a bit of an idea of what we wanted to do. We wanted to improve tourist Saftey but also improve their experience in the cove. We first thought about improving the trail markers in deep cove and then implementing multilingual directional signs for tourists. Then we thought about creating a pamphlet that tourists could pick up and use to find directions and some of the fun things going on in the cove over the summer. We really wanted to figure out what is was we wanted to accomplish and starting to think about how we were going to go about doing it.

Next was N. For this phase we went through various ideas until finally getting an idea from Willemse. In Florida we went on many audio tours and some of them were really good. So Willemse suggested we create an Audio Tour of Deep Cove. Good idea right.

Then we moved onto the C phase. We first created a script. Our standard for the script was to provide directional information but also informative by way of giving important information about the area as well as some cool history and fun events in the cove. We created a script for three routes. Main Street, Deep Cove Park and Panorama Park/Quarry Rock. After writing the script we recorded it all and submitted it to Willemse for review. She really liked the podcast style and the amount of info. We wanted to now implement it and upload to one account. So we finished editing some of the tracks and uploaded it to a new account.

We then put together some maps of the routes for the exhibition.

Now since we were the Grade 10’s we are the oldest people with projects on display at the exhibition. Naturally we were told we were the leaders of our groups. We needed up being in one of the biggest exhibition groups. We were also given our areas and we got a hallway and a corner in front of a bathroom.

We had had to decorate the area to reflect our topic, which was Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. So we created a slideshow to airplay in a TV on differnet constructions and industrial areas. We had unique innovative food and some people wore saftey vests. We also had a really awesome sign. My favourite part though was a duct tape road going through our area. We did it so the road weaved (it was a mistake) so we said it weaved because Infrastructure needs to be improved in certain areas and countries.

We presented at the exhibition to a lot of people who lived in the cove. They all seemed to think this would help address the issue of tourist organization and reduce some of the annoyance they cause to locals by way of busyness and overall lack of knowledge of area and what it all entails. So this week we are beginning to set up QR codes around the area and have set up an email for people to email feedback and criticism so we can continue to develop these tours over the summer to better aid everyone in the cove.

This project took about 3 weeks of planning and execution. Usually we have a month and a half of prep and creation time. So I think it wasn’t the best project but it was nonetheless fun and engaging. Although I wasn’t too happy about using the UN goals I thought it was alright to use as a trial run.  Some really good and interesting projects came out of it which I thought was really good. Given the amount of time we had and the addition of other class work in the rest of our PLP classes. I was really happy that I was able to work in a group for this project as the past month has been super busy.

I’m excited to see what we are going to do for blue sky next year.