A long time ago in a PLP classroom far far away, the teachers announced the theme of our upcoming winter exhibition, and we were quite excited. Going along with the theme of a new Star Wars main story movie being released every 2 years, the PLP 8’s and 9’s put on an amazing Star Wars extravaganza of an exhibition. This includes everything from decorating the rooms to look like areas from the movies, to dressing up in costumes of characters throughout the galaxy. This, along with an inquiry question focused around an aspect in or out of the movie universe, is sure to create one spectacular night.

Hoth (a.k.a the PLP Room)

My Inquiry Question

PLP Exhibition projects are focused around one key aspect, and that’s an inquiry question. In case you haven’t read my other posts, an inquiry question is a question that you really need to think about, and can’t just be answered by Yes or No. It should be something that you are interested in, and will need to develop new skills/research and learn new things to answer.

Now these can be quite hard to think of, so in order to get us into the theme, the teachers had weekly screenings in Star Wars movies in our school’s theatre. We also went over some of the different things to think about while deciding a question, such as if you personally would be interested in it, was it open ended or closed ended, and what would needed to be done to answer it.

At first, I came up with a rather in universe question, which was: Why do stormtroopers always miss? I was planning to look at the different factors within and out of the movie that could play into this, and even planned a game, my project, and costume. Yet, when I pitched this idea to my teachers, they didn’t think that this would be a good inquiry question. At this point I learned the valuable lesson, which is what to do after a failure. I wasn’t that upset that I couldn’t do this question, and quickly moved on to trying to find a new one, but became frustrated when I couldn’t find one. This lead me to become stressed out about something I didn’t need to be, and actually was able to find one when I took a step back from my problem. This turned out to be after watching the Star Wars movie Rogue One, and was: Why are people willing to sacrifice so much for a cause?

My question in Star Wars font

My Project

Now that I had my inquiry question, it was time to begin fingering out what I was going to do for my project. The first thing to come up with would be what mini topics would be inside my main one. I decided it would be best to look at 3 characters in Rogue One (Jyn Erso, Galen Erso, and Bodhi Rook), their journey/sacrifices, and why did they do what they did. I also decided to compare the events in the movie to real life events/people to see how this topic was present in not just the Star Wars universe, but the real world too. At this point I knew what I wanted to do, so I was now time to do some research on it. With it being a question more about philosophy and concepts then hard core facts, I began with some human nature articles and studies on the Internet.

Here is an article I found particularly interesting:

The power of purpose 

These helped me find the main reason each character had the motives they did, along with some insight into the real life aspects of their stories. I then went to look at some videos around my topic, and then went to find some external sources. This included Winnipeg Psychiatrist (and Star Wars fanatic), Dr. Stan Koodoo, who answered my questions about phycology. I also tried to reach out some more ambitious sources, such as the Director of Rogue One, Gareth Edwards, and the actor who plays Galen Erso, Mads Mikkelsen.

Galen Erso, the character played by Mads Mikkelsen

If you want to read the response from Psychiatrist Dr. Stan Koodoo, click here

After I did my research, I began to put it into presentable info and construct my project. I did this by first writing short bios on the characters explains their goals, and then writing sections on why they might have done what they did and then the real life equivalents to these scenarios. After this, I needed to come up with a way to present this information. I started off by painting a poster board with a Death Star background and then attached a lot of info to it. Next, I made a title and for a personal touch drew my own drawings of the characters. Then it was time for the pre-expo critique process, where we bring what we have ready to school and classmates can give 1 good thing and 1 thing to improve about them. This is when I realized that I had gone way overboard with the information aspect, and didn’t have enough visuals/audience engagement. I found a way to fix this by making the board more of a presentation and having the info down below, along with having a game.

My Project’s First Draft

My Project at the Exhibition

My Game

The game was a board game style activity which I decorated with my Lego Star Wars collection and a painted background I created. Now this helped bring people in and keep them interested, but it was also an interesting experiment. Here are the rules:

This game is an experiment I am doing to put on my Learning Portfolio to see why people are willing to sacrifice so much for a theoretical cause. In this game you play the role of a rebel pilot who has to deliver plans across the galaxy to a transmitter. In order to get there though, you must go through imperial forces who want to stop you at all costs.

You start on the blue square at the beginning and are aiming to reach the red square at the end. At the beginning of the game, you are given 2 lives, each represented by a candy. If you land on a square with an X you lose a life, thus loosing a candy. If you loose all your candies, then you loose the game.

Now here’s the catch: you get the candies at the beginning of the game, and have no obligation to complete it. You can leave the game right there and then with all your candies, but then in the game will not be completed and the theoretical evil will win. If you choose to go through the game however, you may loose your candies, but will have saved the theoretical cause. If you complete the game, you will also get a sticker.

As people played the game, I kept a tally of who started the game, finished it, or didn’t decide to at all, and the results were fascinating. 60% of the people who played were able to start and finish the game, and around 27% of people started, but did not finish due to chance or deciding to leave. Surprisingly, under 14% of the people decided not to play the game at all, and most were willing to keep going even after loosing candies.

My Game at the Exhibition

The Exhibition

Creating your own project was only one part of the exhibition. Making the room look as Star Wars like as possible and contributing to decoration was also a major part of our jobs, for it allowed our exhibition to spring to life with character. Now due to this exhibition being Star Wars, we were split into the two iconic groups, the Dark Side and the Light Side. We were divided by the nature of our projects (no, not by personality as some seem to think), and because mine mainly dealt with rebels I was on the Light. As soon as we figured out our groups, we started to collaborate with the grade 8’s assigned to the same group, we came up with roles for who would do what. Some of these included representatives from both grades, costumes directors, decoration directors, food directors, etc.

The PLP room before it’s decorated

The first few days were spent planning based on who had what and who would do what tasks. From this time I feel our whole group learned some important skills, such as how to collaborate with so many people, and make sure everyone’s voices are heard. After we had planned most of everything out, it was time to begin construction. My job specifically was to make some decor, such as paper walker silhouettes and icicles for the Hoth area. We got this part done gradually over about a week, but really started to kick things up to high gear on the day of when we could start adding things to the room. A lot of us were concerned before hand that our room would not be ready in time for the big night, but once everyone pitched in things got pulled together. In the end, we ended up with a great rebel base and a fantastic Hoth area which we felt helped immerse the audience in our theme.

Our Room during the Exhibition

During the exhibition, I started off with a specific checklist of things I would say to each person, but after some test runs I came to the conclusion that it may be slightly long and boring. Because of this, I had to cut down what I was going to say drastically, and has to shift my plans a bit in order to accommodate. This was definitely challenging, but I feel has helped me learn how to roll with sudden changes. Through out the night, we performed skits, ran games, had lightsaber battles, and had a great time together displaying our achievements in learning. This was quite the fun night, and it truly felt like the force was with us.

Reflection: What I learned, would do differently next time

Being the first exhibition of the year, I felt it went rather well, but there is definitely room for improvement. I also feel that even though I’ve now done three exhibitions, I am still learning new skills and techniques each time. One thing that has personally been a goal for me is to step back from being too controlling of projects, and I feel I have achieved that during this exhibition. I decided not the take the role of grade 9 representative (also known as the Grand Moth of the Exhibition), and I feel people appreciated that I decided to do this. I also learned the value of detailed planning and what it can accomplish. In my opinion, our best decorations and plans were the ones that we thought about, shared with the group, got feedback on, and quickly acted on making them a reality. This is especially important in something such as an exhibition, where a lot of ideas will come up, but few of the, will actually come into reality without proper support.

An area we planned that turned out well

One thing that went well and would be a strong aspect to focus on in future events was our group cooperation. People were willing to listen and wouldn’t shut ideas down. They would support those who needed help and would band together to get a difficult task done. This really brought our side of the exhibition together, and allowed us to produce our best work. The grade 9’s also took on good leadership roles and quickly began to listen and help the grade 8s. As for things to improve, I think a more cohesive plan from the start would be beneficial. What I mean by this was although we were coordinated, we still had different ideas of what the overall feel of our side should be until the night of the exhibition. Even then, there was still some uncertainty when it came to skits and running stations. I also feel that everyone could have began building and creating sooner, for we had our ideas pretty quickly, but they only came in to reality within 3 days of the expo.

Overall though, this was probably the most fun expo yet, and I can’t wait to see what other people have to say about it. Are you a parent or student who visited the light side? Leave your comments below on what you thought.