Hello!
If you didn’t know, my class and I recently went to Oregon! Yes, we actually did school work.
I bet you are wondering what kind of incredibly awesome program would take a class full of very loud Grade 8’s to Oregon. Well, I’m glad you asked! It is the coolest program in the world, PLP, which is all about project based learning. Another part of it is going on Field Studies to help us learn about world view.
As I said, we actually learned on this trip. I am going to take you through each day of the trip, and all of the fun stuff that we did. On this trip we also made a book that has photos, videos, information boxes, and many other things. I also put that in the post. Here we goooooo!
Day 1
This was our first day of the trip. This day was full of driving, crossing international and state borders, and rest stops. We did go to some pretty cool places, and had our first time in the bus!
This was our second stop. Even though we were learning the entire trip, this was technically our first learning stop. We met our very friendly tour guide, who told us about the Column, its history, the design, the art form, and some other cool facts. Then, our teachers told us the coolest thing. You could buy little balsa wood airplanes that you could fly off the top of the column. Then our teachers told us something even cooler. You could just find these airplanes lying around from people who had thrown them off. It was very fun to search for them, and of course, me being unprepared and wearing slides, literally slid multiple times. Next, we climbed! Th climb was exactly how you would expect it to be. A spiral staircase inside of a closed in tower. It was quite a workout, especially after being on a bus for forever. Once we got to they top, we were amazed. The view was incredible. Because of the location of the column, you could basically see to Washington. At least, that’s what Mr. Hughes said. Throwing the airplanes was so much fun. Some of them flopped, some of them got blown away by the wind, and some flew pretty well!
This was our first sleep in Oregon! I don’t think any of us expected the yurts. We knew we would be in yurts, but I don’t think any of us really knew what the yurts would be like. They were pretty cool. My yurt group was me, Erin, Evelyn, Indira, and Kate.
The yurts were very cool. There was a bunk bed that slept one person on the top bunk, and two on the bottom. There is also a pullout couch that sleeps two people. It was pretty fun to sleep in a yurt! My favourite part was that there is a little skylight at the top. We couldn’t really see anything out of it because it was so dark, but it was still cool to know there were stars right above us!
Day 2
This was our second day! We had to get used to sleeping in yurts, and getting up pretty early. We went ziplining, which was a highlight of the trip.
For our first stop on day 2, we went to Fort Stevens State Park Historical Area. This was a very cool stop. Once we got to the fort, we met our tour guides. Our guides were super cool. Thy had both fought in the Cold War at the fort. They explained a little bit of teh history, and then took us to see the gun on the roof. We learnt about how quickly they could fire the gun, how they got gunpowder into the gun, and how they knew when to fire the gun. Then we went inside of the fort. It was kind of creepy! It was dark, wet, and very haunted looking. We went through the fort, and saw all of the rooms that had different people and different jobs in them. It was very cool to learn about such an important piece of American History.
After the fort, we had our very first quest. None of us knew what to expect. A quest is sorta like a scavenger hunt, but instead of objects we are hunting for knowledge. It’s basically a mix between a scavenger hunt, geocaching, and a trivia game. We had our quest teams that we worked with. My team was me, Logan, Evelyn ,Simon and Nathan. We started off pretty strong, and got the first two clues. Then we ran into a problem. We all didn’t listen to each other, and that lost us time. Once we got the third clue, we could figure out the rest of teh clues. For quests, clues equal letters, and the letters make a sentence. The sentence is where the quest box is, and then in the box there is a log book where you write your team name, and then a stamp where you stamp your page, and if you want, your hand. We got the sentence, but we didn’t have enough time to find the box.
Then we went to one of the funnest stops of the trip. Zip lining! Yes, zip lining. We went to this super cool place called High Life Adventures. If you are in the area, I HIGHLY recommend going there. Once we got there, our class was spilt into two groups. My group got to go first, which was super cool. We got our harnesses on, and then our helmets. One of the really cool things was that each helmet had a name on it. You can’t pick your own name, put somehow each name fits people. My name was Jabo, which I didn’t know what that meant until our guide told me it was a nickname that people in the South use. If you know anything else about it, let me know! Then off we went! There are 8 lines on the course, and each one of them is pretty unique. There are small lines, long lines, fast lines, lines over water, lines super high in the air, lines from towers, lines close to the ground, lines through trees, all sorts of lines. I had two favourite lines. The first one was a water line. You had 4 different options. You could stay dry, which is sorta boring. You could do a hand drag, which is exactly how it sounds, dragging your hand in the water. You could do a butt skip, which is where you basically get skipped over teh water like a stone. The last option was a super soaker. You get almost completely soaked. I had trouble coming up with which one I wanted to do, and then I saw my friend Nya do the super soaker, and I chose that one, because I was only going to be there once. It was very fun. My next favourite line was the double. On this line you could race people. You could also go in pairs, so two groups of two people racing each other. I went with Nya, and raced Logan and Cameron. Nya and I won! It was very fun.
Day 3
This was our third day, and probably the rainiest of them all. We went to the museum, which was a very cool learning opportunity, and the Creamery, which had a huge gift shop.
This was another one of those stops where I didn’t expect it to be what it was. The museum was huge. It was very, very big, which I guess I didn’t expect. The building was shaped like a wave, which was really cool. It was also a very nice light, airy space, which was really good. We had a lesson from a museum employee about the Columbia RIver Bar. We learnt about the dangers of the Bar, and how the Coast Guard save people from there. Once we had our lesson, we got to look around the museum. There are a lot of really cool things there, like a green screen that turns you into a meteorologist, and a lightship that you can actually go on. It was very fun!
After Cannon Beach, we went to Tillamook Creamery. This place is pretty famous in Oregon. It is where they make Tillamook cheese, as well as other dairy products like yogurt, ice cream, and milk. We got to have some of the yogurt for breakfast a couple days! We went through the building, and it’s sorta like a museum. They have all of the history of the company, and then a huge space where you can look into the factory. It was pretty cool to see how cheese is made!
Day 4
This was our fourth day, and our first day at OSU. We also had a quest! The quest was…interesting, and OSU was fun!
I was very excited for thsi part of our trip. We were going to university! It was pretty cool. The Hatfield Marine Science Center was pretty cool. There was a bit of a aquarium in the lobby, with a tsunami machine and a squid. Then we went to our class. It was in an actual university classroom, which was pretty cool. Our first lab for this day was Speedy Science. We raced shore crabs down a tube, and figured out what type of crab was fastest using different variables. Our next lab was Animal Adaptations. For this lab we got to see a bunch of animals, and some of them we could actually hold. We learned about how they adapt to there environment. Our last lab for this day was Assemble a Whale. We learned about different types of whales, and then we used whale bones and tried to build a whale skeleton. We did a pretty good job!
Day 5
This was our fifth day, and one of the days with a lot of learning. It was our second day at OSU. We had a good quest, and a spectacular sunset on the beach.
I still do not know how to pronounce that.
After OSU, we went to Yaquina Head. This area is super cool. First, we went to the Interpretive Center. It was sorta like a museum, with a bunch of different facts about the beach, the lighthouse, and all of the animals that lived there. We went to the museum section first, and then we watched a video about the land. After that, we went to the games area and had fun there. I dressed up in clothes that resemble what a lighthouse keeper would have worn, and that was really fun. It was funny to see the boys in the dresses. Then, we went to the beach. The beach there is incredible. There are huge tide pools, with basically crystal clear water taht helps you see everything . There were anemones, urchins, sculpin, weeds, so many things. That was incredible.
Day 6
This was our sixth day, and a day full of driving. It was a calm day, which was nice.
This was a surprise. We went to John’s Incredible Pizza Company for lunch and dinner. I thought it was just going to be a normal restaurant, like all the other stops we had made for food. But no. Thsi place is huge. Half of it is a buffet, with lots of food. Teh other half is a full on arcade. Teh arcade section has rides. Like actual carnival rides. It was insane. Around 3/4 of our class chose to go on the ride that was a little bit like a twister ride. It was really fun!
Day 7
This was our seventh and final day. It was a little bittersweet because I was sad to be leaving, but happy to get back home.
This was a pretty unique stop. NorthWest Trek in a wildlife protection center, and they have some pretty cool animals. The animals that they have are all animals taht live in the north west, like bears, lynx, bobcats, beavers, bison, and foxes. They also have birds like owls and eagles. We looked around for a little bit, and then we went on our team tour. The tour was pretty fun. It was one of those tours where you do around a habitat in a train like cart, and the animals come pretty close to teh cart. It was really cool. After that, we looked at all the exhibits. We learned a lot about animals.
That’s not all! Another big part of our project was to answer the driving question.
The question is:
How did you persist and manage your impulsivity on this field study in order to question, think, and work interdependently to complete your project and enjoy yourself?
That’s a long question. It also has a lot of different parts. Let’s break it down.
The first part was about persistence. There was definitely a lot of that on this trip. The first thing that comes to mind is our quests. For the first two quests, my team definitely struggled. We didn’t work together that well. We also all had different ideas on what to do. In the last quests, we figured out how to work together. We actually solved them! We persisted through those challenges. Another time that we persisted was when we were building our ROV’s. We had to make sure that they would work, that everything was connected, and that the delicate motors were protected. We had to change our design once to build a protective bar around the motors. It was literally like a cooking show where everyone is scrambling to get their project done. We had to take stuff off, rearrange things, and find new pieces. That set us back, but we persisted, and came out with a better final product.
The next part of the question is about managing our impulsivity. I puzzled over this for a while, and then I came up with what I think is the answer. There were a lot of times when I wanted to do something. That might of been wanted to do a risky move for a assignment, or do something other than what the instructions said to do for the quest. I had to take a step back, remember that there are other people in my group, and focus both on the step we were on and the big picture.
The next part is about how we questioned, thought, and worked interdependently. No, not independently. I already made that mistake. Independently is working by yourself, and interdependently is working with others. This part sorta has three little parts to it, so lets break down the already broken down part.
How did I question interdependently? I think that working together as a group to figure out a question is really difficult, but I am good at that! Another part of being interdependent is depending on each other, but also doing your part, like in a three-legged race. I’m good at that
How did I think interdependently? I think that I actually used this skill a lot, and improved on it during the trip. The way that I figured out how to do it is you take an idea, and then each person says their ideas about that idea. We, as a team, pick 1 or 2 ideas that we want to focus on. Then we improve on those ideas as a team. That strategy would work for big group projects, like our Oregon ads. It would work if you shortened it for projects like our quests.
How did I work interdependently? One example that I can think of is our entire class working together on our Oregon books. We all shared photos, information, videos, basically whatever someone needed. We all got more comfortable with just asking someone for something. We did this in our yurts a lot.
So, to answer the whole question in two decently long sentences…
I think I persisted through out challenges I was faced with, managed my impulsivity by putting others first an taking a step back, questioned interdependently by working together as a group to solve a question, thought interdependently by combining a bunch of ideas, and worked interdependently by sharing photos. All of those things helped me enjoy myself more on this trip.
Congratulations! You made it though 2868 words and a book! Good job! I hope you learned something about the Oregon Coast, and hopefully you want to visit sometime!
Bye for now!