Oregon Fun 2016
The highlight of my grade 8 school year was definitely going to Oregon. I learned so many new things and got to experience so many more opportunities. I enjoyed learning about things that we could actually relate to in our direct environment that we couldn’t do back home.
One of our first projects involving Oregon, was advertising. We were asked to create 3 different types of ads about 3 different things in Oregon: one tourism, one business and one disaster ad. We also had to use many of the modern techniques and appeals that are used in actual ads. The goal of the tourism ad was to make tourists to want to go to a specific attraction. My group was given South Beach State Park which I never actually got to visit because of the rain. This was okay because I had been there before and I used a picture that someone else in my grade took. The business ad which came second, was my personal favourite because I was given a very nice restaurant called “Nisa’s Thai Kitchen.” The PLP program had actually been there before with other grade 8s in previous years, so they were very open to us interviewing them. The interview part was very important because it was key to how we were going to design the ad and what points we were going to focus on. The restaurant I interviewed wanted to focus on their originality and how they are a family owned business that has passed on the skill from generation to generation. To incorporate their uniqueness, I made the ad look like it was showing pictures in a photo album. The pictures I used were all mine and taken when we were interviewing. Overall, this ad was probably my favourite because of how amazing this place really was. The last ad we were asked to do, was a disaster ad. This ad was an advocacy ad that was meant to warn people in Oregon about the dangers of tsunamis. It was really hard to find a picture for this ad, so I used a photo of a “tsunami hazard zone” sign. A lot of people used this photo because we actually really didn’t see a lot of warnings. I chose to focus on how there won’t always be a sign to show you where to go. My ad informed people that they should always be aware of their surroundings and know where to go when one strikes. I learned a lot about how to design ads and what to do to make an effective point in the marketing world. I also learned about how ads can be used for good and how important it is to share knowledge with people in an eye catching way.
One of my favourite ways we learned in Oregon was through field studies. We had the opportunity to go to the University of Oregon and actually help collect some research and act like community scientists. My favourite experiment involved “shrimp slurping” in the marshes that were close to the laboratory. I know that that this sounds humorous, but it is actually quite cool. Basically, we used large tubes that we would push into the sand and suck up the underground shrimp. After, we had to observe every single one and look for a specific parasite that was hiding on the side of their abdomen. Doing experiments like this and collecting data is very important because small problems can escalate to larger ones in an ecosystem. I really enjoyed helping because I like hands on learning and having the opportunity to help fix a problem in real life.
The final conclusion of the whole trip to Oregon was our iBook travel diary. There was a page for us to fill out every day. We would answer questions and add any other media and photos to help decorate the book. I really enjoyed designing each page because the app we used made it so easy to include any design media at all. For example, we were asked to draw a timeline about the trip in the same way that the Astoria Tower tells the history of Astoria. I also added a picture and audio to give as much information as possible about everyplace we went and what we learned. Something I would do differently if I was to re-create this iBook, is probably keep up to date on each slide while we were in Oregon. I found it really hard when we got back to remember all the details, especially at the beginning because it wasn’t fresh in my mind.
Here is the link to my iBook…
Oregon 2016 was an amazing experience. I am so happy that I went and with what I learned. I feel so much more confident with learning and experimenting with new topics. I am very excited to go on all the other trips planned for next year and learn even more things that I wouldn’t get to learn in a normal classroom.
