🌲 This Land is Us 🌲

Hello, everyone. A few weeks ago my class and I traveled to Alberta in search for an answer to our question.

how does place impact who we are.

To answer our question we made a video that focused on a certain group of people and a lens. I focused on the First Nations people and used the social lens. Before I get to my conclusion and video. Let’s start at the beginning.

At the beginning of our project we started off by brainstorming, and trying to think of a possible answer to our driving question, How does place impact who we are.
For this activity I made a mindnode and started to think about how where I live impacts me.
Here is my mindnode.

In my mindnode I wrote about how place affects my hobbies and my point of view. Specifically how the wildlife and nature shapes my perspective.
To continue to answer our question, we practiced using a lens. A lens is a way to look at a situation it usually means the main subject you focus on when you approach a situation or big topic. There are four lenses, geography, social, economic and political. To help us understand how to use a lens, (because we would be using a lens for our video.) We  were assigned articles to read and then write a report about while using a lens, that would dictate what I wrote about. After writing my paragraph I had a better understanding of what a lens was, and had an idea of what lens I would use for my video but also how I would represent that point of view.

We then started planning for our trip to alberta by making our video scripts. In my video script I wrote about what places I planned to showcase in my video and which shots I needed to make my video consistent.

This activity helped me figure out what I wanted to have in my video but also what message I wanted to get across, and while doing this activity I discovered that a social lens would help my video tell a story. Because of the events and changes First Nations have gone through. Because of writing my script I had an idea of what to do with my video and what story I wanted to tell.

A little while later we left for Alberta.

 

In Alberta we started writing daily notes. Which were a type of journal to help us keep track of our thoughts and served as a kind of revision of the day and what we learned.  Which came in handy when I created my video because I had my notes to refer to and to track my learning. Here are my daily notes.

 

While we were in Alberta we spent most of our time visiting different places and learning about topics that could help all of the groups in my class answer their driving question. Some of those places for me were the Glenbow museum, the Cave and basin and the heritage park. The first of these places we visited was the Cave and basin.

The Cave and Basin

The cave and basin was really important to the First Nations people before it became the first national park in Canada. Which made it really important to me and my video. The first people believed that the water was healing and a very holy like place. By visiting this amazing location I started to understand the level of change these people had been through. One day the were using their land for all aspects of their lifestyle, they were using the Cave and basin for rituals and healing, and then they weren’t allowed to any more. The visit to the cave and basin showcased to me what has changed for these people but also started to get me thinking more about special locations and not just place in general and how a certain location could mean so much to a group of people.

Whe then visited the Glenbow museum.

The Glenbow museum

The Glenbow museum is a very popular museum in Calgary. There I got to explore the many exhibits that the Glenbow had to offer. At the museum there were some really great exhibits about the local First Nations but also other regions. Looking at artifacts and reading signs I started to understand how different these different regions were. They were different because of where they were located  and what they had access to. Visiting the Glenbow got me thinking about resources and wildlife and how they affected the first people.

Later in our trip, I was able to speak to a First Nations man and get his perspective.

The heritage park

On one of our last few days we visited a heritage park near Calgary. Where I got the information I needed to finalize my answer. At the heritage park I was very fortunate to get an interview and speak to Shane, an employee and a First Nations person. After speaking with him I understood that what I learned up to this point was pretty valid but I realized that a lot of the culture and lifestyle of these people was controlled or guided by the bison, and that were they went is where the people would go. I found out that land wasn’t just important to them spiritually or because it was where they resided it was what the land hosted. The wildlife and nature that was really important. Originally I knew that wildlife and nature was important but I didn’t realize how much that aspect of location was until I spoke to Shane.

 

  Back at Seycove

Soon we returned to Seycove where we started making our videos.  Unfortunately I had issues not with my answer of plan but technical difficulties. So for our first try at our videos I unfortunately only had audio working. So when we got our peer feedback I could only be critique by one aspect of my video. For a while I tried to get my iMovie working but it wouldn’t…….co operate . So I made my content and set up photos on my ipad and sent them to my phone. After a pretty long editing and a few minor meltdowns because of glitches,  I got my video finished !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x–hMz60rYk

Im pretty proud of my video and answer, of course there is always room for improvement. But I’m pretty happy with what I came up with.

The end

I’ve really enjoyed this project and field school and feel that I understand the answer to our question. I think that First Nations people used to work with the land in way. They would be effected in every aspect of their life by it. Food, religion, clothing, tools. I think being separated from the land they lost part of their identity. Because place was so important and served as a base to who they were. I think now its different land isn’t as important, and their lifestyles have changed. But I believe its starting to come back, who they are and aspects of their identity. Im excited to learn more about these people and have learned that place isn’t just somewhere where you live and go to school. It’s part of who you are. Thanks for visiting my blog, Kaia