The class of PLP nine just got back from our trip to Calgary. In my first blog post of this school year I am going to talk about my highlights from the trip and what I learned from it.

For this trip we went to Calgary, we did many activities on the way there and the way back but most of our time was spent in the city of Calgary. We were out all day in the bus visiting various mueseums and tourist attractions. We had a few subjects we were studying in school at the time including video making and the Canadian Pacific Railway. We had to make four videos two individually and two while in groups. One of my videos was not finished and that was the one that my group and I made on the enchanted forest.

Our first stop was a ghost town where we were tasked with making fictional video I think that my group did a great job with ours and you can watch it here.

We learnt many things from this experience and I think it really helped me understand how to make videos. It was also a lot of fun to make and I think it turned out quite well.

Then we visited the place where they drove the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Canadian Pacific Railway or CPR was one of main things we were focused on while we were on the trip. While we were there we got to take many photos and see the place where Canada was united into one country by the CPR. 

An artillery gun used to start safe avalanches

We then continued east through the Rockies and learned about how the snow war was fought in an attempt to stop the mass amount of avalanche damage being caused to the CPR. they used artillery to make controlled avalanches to make the area less dangerous.

Another great highlight was Banff National Park. A ton of the places we visited were within Banff national park and it is really nice to drive through.

Banff national park

After seeing some really cool sights we left the Rockies and moved on towards Calgary, the sudden change in landscape was amazing as it went from huge mountains and forests to open plains of farmland.

We later got to attend to one of my favourite events of the trip which was a locked room challenge. While my group did not win it was still a blast and I enjoyed trying to solve the challenge we were assigned.

Another great highlight would have to be the Drumheller where we got to see yet another amazing change in scenery as it went from open plains to dry badlands. We then visited the many dinosaur related attractions that came with the place including the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, The Worlds Largest Dinosaur and the Badlands. The museum was the best part as they had so many fossils on display and we got to fully explore the place and see all of the exhibits.  We also had to make a video on one of the dinosaurs that were on display in the museum. I made mine on the Nichollissaura which lived in an ocean that divided North America over 112 million years ago you can watch my video here.

The Worlds Largest Dinosaur was a huge dinosaur you could stand in and take photos. The Badlands were a huge dessert with a bunch of hills where they find all of the fossils on display in the museum. We got to take a tour of the badlands and learn all about it. The badlands definitely had some of the coolest scenery of the entire trip.

Now one of the coolest things that happened on the trip and was one of the the main reasons we were there was Beakerhead. Beakerhead is an event that brings together art and science to build interactive works of art throughout Calgary. We went to many different Exhibits but my favourite has to be the Calgary Municipal Space Station at the Calgary Tower. What they did is use virtual reality and a section of the Calgary Tower to make it feel like you rode a space elevator up into space. This worked so well, I really did feel like I had gone on a space elevator.

My final highlight from this trip would have to be the Cave and Basin National Historic sight I made a video all about this place so you don’t have to read about it here. You can find the video below.

Now I would like to talk about what I learned from this trip. I learned many things about the many different places that we visited while we were on our trip. I also learned a lot about how to properly make videos. This was done through a lot of mistakes and now I feel like I have a way bigger understanding of what makes a video good. We were of course going on the trip while researching the Canadian Pacific Railway and we were constantly being asked to dig up stories about our surroundings. I think that we really focused on the CPR, video making and how to find and tell stories and I learned so much fro  this trip.

I look forward to our next trip in April.