Hello everyone and welcome back to another blog post! This is going to be a very exciting and somewhat eventful post because…….we got to go on an overnight field study!!!!!!!! This is super exciting because of COVID-19, we weren’t able to go on any field studies in grade 8. Throughout this post I will be expanding on my learning and sharing the fun and interesting things that I learned! Enjoy 🙂

First off, the facilities. I’m going to just go over this briefly because I have so much else to say, but oh my goodness they were so nice. We were right on the lake and there was a cool rope ferry that took you across the water. You can see a picture of it below ⬇️

The rooms were also really nice. Our rooms had a connecting door that led right to my best friends room which was really snazzy. Also the dinning hall. It was enormous and had super interesting wood carvings and paneling. 

Ok, so now for the actual learning. While I do like learning in the classroom, I feel like the change of scenery was really nice. I loved getting to sit downstairs and be able to see the water and forest. It was sort of calming in a way and I think that helped my get my work done more effectively and efficiently. While we were there, we did a lot of Destination Imagination (or DI for short) work. Like what I talked about above, the change of scenery, I feel, got our creative juices flowing. Because of interference, I can’t disclose anything that was discussed, but I can say we got a lot of work and ideas finalized. I think that through doing DI there and having to adapt to our surroundings, I learned a lot about teamwork. Here’s a picture of our team working on DI:

Also while we were there, we worked a lot on the 7 Habits book by Sean Covey. We were suppose to keep a Personal Bank Account (PBA) during our stay there. This is pretty much where you keep track of deposits and withdrawals in your life. For example, if I said a complement to someone, that would be a deposit. If I didn’t take time to renew myself, that would be a withdrawal. You get the idea. Keeping the PBA was a real eye opener into my positive and negative actions. I think that by doing that, I can change the way that I act to have more positive actions which is a really cool thought.

Next up, the outdoor activities. This, I have to say, was probably the best part of the whole trip (besides the meals which were very good – and I’m saying that as a vegetarian). First off, we did a cool nature walk. This is where we were first introduced to the rope bridge. Also during the walk, we had to take pictures. I really liked this activity because I think that it taught me a lot about keeping an eye out for small details which can be very helpful in school. You can check out some cool ones that I took below ⬇️ 

Also in the outdoor activities we did shelter building. I think was for sure the best outdoor activity by far. We went across the rope ferry and went into the woods. There we took a bunch of twigs and branches and made lean to’s, A-frames, and teepees. I think that this activity was somewhere that I learned a lot. I mean first off, I learned how to build shelters, the best places to put them (flat high ground), and the rule of three’s. Three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food. While building out shelters, we definitely had to use our teamwork skills seeing as we were working in a team. I really enjoyed the team I got to work with and I think we made a very luxurious shelter. You can see some cool pictures of it below ⬇️ 

Another really cool activity that we got to do was the battle archery and forest laser tag. I personally preferred the battle archery but I know a lot of people really enjoyed the forest laser tag. Battle archery was really fun because we got to go against the grade 8’s who also came on the trip with us. It was fun to beat them at it 🙂 Here’s a cool picture that I got:

As for the forest laser tag, I sadly didn’t get any picture of it, but we were running around in the forest with laser guns. Both of these activities were very much based around teamwork and communication skills. I think because of both of these activities, I expanded and grew those skills.

Also, throughout the trip, we kept a log of what we did everyday. You can check it out below ⬇️ 

Thank you so much for reading about this really fun and exciting field study that we did!

Best wishes,

-Dana