Our Beautiful Backyard

The best field study to date, PLP 10’s Trip around B.C. was truly an experience I will never forget. There were so many amazing aspects to this trip that amazed me, however there was one in particular that inspired me more than anything; the natural beauty. 

B.C. is world-famous for its natural attractions, but as I visited all these beautiful places on the trip, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had never knew of their existence before. I had always thought that I had a pretty good idea of what our province had to offer, but little did I know, there is so much more out there then what I thought. With this inspiration I figured that most people’s picture of our provinces natural beauty was incomplete, and this led me to by thesis. Visiting places like the Painted Chasm, the Hazeltons and the Nass Valley, this idea followed me around during the trip, and almost everywhere we went my thesis was somehow connected. I knew this was what I wanted to focus on for my inquiry because I was genuinely passionate about it and the thought came to me authentically. In fact, I vividly remember having a conversation with Ms. Maxwell on the lava beds in the Nass Valley, talking about how I was amazed I had never heard about the place before. It seemed so crazy that I had never heard of a place with that much raw beauty and geological significance.

This thesis prompted me to write my script for my podcast. I didn’t find it a struggle to write the script because most of it was coming from my heart. Other than my personal thoughts and reflections, I included evidence from various stops along the trip. Also, all throughout the trip I had been collecting interviews and sound clips. My only issue was that the interviews I had collected myself didn’t coincide with my thesis, so I was in a bit of a pickle. I didn’t sorry too much though because I knew there was enough material that my classmates had accumulated over the trip that they would be kind enough to lend me. And low and behold, Marshall comes in clutch with an interview with Greg at the North Pacific Cannery where he discusses some marine life that was just recently discovered. This added to my podcast because it just goes to show that there is so much out there within our province that we hardly even know about. 

I want talk much more than that about my podcasts as I’d rather you gave it a listen for yourself! However I will say that I am extremely happy with how it turned out. I put a lot of time and effort in to making it personalized and authentic, and I was glad that it translated in to the final product. Now writing this I’m thinking back to some of the memories I have from creating this podcast. One of the best ones is definitely when we got off the ferry in Port Hardy and instantly I had my head down staring at my phone using GarageBand on my phone because my iPad didn’t have it downloaded. I literally spent a good two hours trying to make a song that sounded somewhat good, and before I knew it we were in Campbell River. All in all though it’s great that I was able to produce a piece work that I’m proud of that can not only serve as an assignment but a tangible memory of the trip itself.

The largest part of our Circle B.C. unit was the creation and presentation of our artifact. Tying in with the thesis of our podcast and answering the question “How can you convince your neighbour they haven’t lived until they’ve experienced what you’ve experienced?”, our job was to create an artifact of some sort that displayed our inquiry. We would be presenting this at our spring exhibition and it was our final project of the year. 

As I mentioned while talking about my podcast, I found that what resonated with me the most was that I believed that people needed to be educated about what our province has to offer and to be inspired to explore this land we call home. To do this I had to undergo the LAUNCH process. First I looked, listened, and learned by experiencing BC for myself on the trip. I then asked questions such as “how have I never heard of the Nass Valley before?”. Next, I understood the problem by conducting primary and secondary research. This included creating a poll on my Instagram account where I asked questions that would help lead me to a better understanding of other people’s perspectives. Then, I analyzed all of my ideas and grouped them in to organizable pieces. I then created my first prototype. After all those steps I had decided on what I wanted my artifact to be. I created an interactive map that featured lesser known “hidden gems” of BC, 3 of which were stops on our trip and the rest were some that I had researched and found through various sources. After creating my first drafted prototype i went back and forth between this C stage and the final H (Highlighting and fixing) stage, to come up with my final artifact. 

All that was left now was to execute the Exhibition as we had planned. Divided in to quadrants depending on the topic of our artifact, we were tasked with transforming our prison-resembling classroom in to an immersive experience. I was part of the Education group and we had a bit of a challenge with coming up with education-themed decor. However I think we collaborated pretty well and when it came time for the big night our quadrant looked good. 

In the end I’m really happy with how everything went with this unit. Although there were definitely a lot of ups and downs, everything from the trip to the Exhibition taught me something and I’ve become a stronger student because of it. I wanted to diversify my work a bit so I decided to implement aspects in to my project that I normally don’t, such as art, and I’m glad it turned out well. Lastly, I want to say a big thank you to my teachers for putting together this trip and this unit because I know it’s not easy to handle all of us students normally, let alone on a trip. I thoroughly enjoyed this unit and I hope you are just as proud of the work I completed as I am. I’m looking forward to yet another amazing year!