On The Road Again

“I thought he was really friends with Billy Barker!”

The quote above was taken from Melika, who sometimes forgets that time exists.

Welcome to 12 days on the road, and an Exhibition, all in one (hopefully) reasonably sized post. 

 

[PRE-TRIP EDUCATION]

We started this unit what feels like forever ago. 

We started, with the Cariboo Gold Rush. The Cariboo Gold Rush occurred between 1860 and 1863 in British Columbia Canada. This is 5-7 years before Canadas Confederation even happened. We weren’t a country then, just a colony. We started learning about the gold rush with an assignment where we had to create a small “snakes and ladders” type game themed around the Cariboo Wagon Road. 

Then moved on to talk about BC’s First Nations People, and more specifically The Nisga’a Nation. We talked about the way that First Nations people were treated in the days of Residential Schools, the way they are treated now, the idea of reconciliation, and the story of the Nisga’a people becoming their own Nation. 

We also touched briefly on the topic of industries, things like fishing, mining, logging (forestry), and tourism (film, travel, ext). 

These were the three steps of our trip as well.

 

[AROUND BC IN 12 DAYS]

I never knew BC was so pretty. That’s probably something you expect everyone to say “I was surprised by how _____ was different then I thought. Even though I live here, blah blah blah”. But genuinely, I was pleasantly surprised by what natural beauty BC actually has to offer.

Also the history that BC holds, from Barkerville to the Nass Valley (Nisga’a Nation) to Prince Rupert, and beyond. The whole trip, from one side of BC to the other and back again, showed me a whole different side of BC that I wasn’t expecting. BC is rich with amazing stories and scenery, and I love it all. 

 

On the trip we were assigned to make a podcast, recording our favourite moments and learning points from throughout the trip. In the podcast we had to include stories, sounds, and an explanation from how we came up with the idea for our future exhibition project. 

 

 

[HOME AGAIN]

When we arrived home, it was time to start working. We had had the chance to experience everything, but when we got back to Vancouver, it was time to make something we could share with the world. 

That something would be this years exhibition project. Goodbye Blue Sky, hello new ideas and presentations. The idea for our projects was they they had to fit into something we learnt about on our trip (Gold Rush, First Nations, and Industries). 

For me, I worked on something loosely related to the topic of BC’s Industries. While on the trip, our class visited the North Pacific Cannery National Historic Site. At the cannery, I talked to a man named Greg about Industries effects on global warming and BC’s carbon footprint. After that conversation, I really wanted to to my project on global warming of some kind.

As I got closer to home I started thinking “how does Vancouver contribute to global warming, and what can we do about it?”. Then I started thinking, what can I, singularly, do to take that step for award and make a difference? As it turns out, Vancouver has a very good carbon plan, but there are still things that I know that myself and my community can do to be better. 

 

[THE IDEA]

I work as a cashier in a grocery store. I have to sell people hundreds of plastic bags in a shift. It sucks, because I know exactly where all those bags are going: nowhere. They will be stuck on the earth much longer than me. It’ll take years and years for them to “decompose” and even then, they become something deeply unrelated to soil. Something oily and bad for the environment as well. Plastic sucks.

I decided that I wanted my project to be based around the idea that there are eco friendly options in grocery stores that people often don’t know about. I know from experience, my customers don’t always know about the options they have (as proven by a social experiment I did a few months back for fun). 

So I came up with the idea of posters. Simplistic, easy, and a small step in the right direction.

 

[THE EXHIBITION]

The idea for this project came to me way before we had even started this project, but the exhibition gave me that chance to bring my idea to life and talk to the community about my ideas and their thought on the ideas. I got almost 100% good feedback. I even had some people thank me for thinking towards a greener future for the cove, and doing my bit to help. 

I presented my ideas with a keynote

This keynote was used to visualize the ideas I was talking about. The way I was thinking about keeping Deep Cove green, the ways I thought that would be helpful, and sharing some insight on the options available in local grocery stores that people may not have known about. I certainly learnt new hints when researching  and asking questions at the local stores that I wouldn’t have known had I not asked. 

I think the exhibition went really well. I wouldn’t have asked for it to go any other way. I talked to many people, shared some information, clearly surprised a few people with their options, and got people opinions on if they think they my posters should be put up in the local stores.

99% of the people I talked to said that my posters would help.

And so my next step is to go into the stores and politely request that they put up my posters to help bring awareness to the options people have when shopping at their stores. It costs me more then it does them to put them up so, I hope that they will agree. 

 

[ONE THING I WOULD CHANGE]

There’s not much I would change about the project itself, but I do wish I had planned a little better. I wish that I had presented my posters a little nicer, and done a little more research. Otherwise, I think this exhibition went quite well. I am very passionate about the topic I was talking about and I could’ve just kept talking about it for ages, but no one wants to hear me do a two hour seminar on climate change at an exhibition. Maybe another time. 

I am proud of my project, and myself with this final project.

From the podcast, to the posters, to the lack of anxiety I felt when presenting, I think my work has come a long way in the past months and I am proud of that.

 

[CONCLUSION]

This project was huge. This blog posts is long (sorry). But we learnt so much, and saw so many new things, I could write about it forever. 

Thank you for reading about this years final project. I hope you enjoyed.

Until next year.

 

 

[BONUS]

In Barkerville, we stayed in a hotel where one of the ladies names was Ms Powell. We asked later if she was related to the Lady Baden Powell, who started Girl Guides. As it turns out, she was, and I believe the actress also hinted that she was also distantly related to the Lady Baden Powell as well. That was pretty cool.