Hi, welcome back to another one of my blogs. This time I am writing about my field study that I went on recently. This is our first overnight field study in two years! We went to loon lake which is located in the UBC research forest. This field study was 3 nights long. We stayed in the Johnson cabins. During this field study, we had lots of fun while also learning about goal setting.
The first stop on our trip was Popeyes. We stopped at Popeyes to enjoy some fried chicken for lunch. Later we visited Raptors Ridge, Raptors Ridge is home to lots of different kinds of raptors (no not the dinosaur the bird). We listened as we were taught about how these birds live and what they are used for. Then we went on a walk around their massive property and explored all the wonders of their forest. Finally, we had made it to loon lake. When we got there it was beautiful, even though you were only 30 minutes away from the suburbs it felt like you are transported and completely isolated in nature. The lake was stunning and so quiet it looked like a mirror. Later we found our rooms and settled in, I shared two rooms with Ethan and Quinn. Then we went for dinner which included juice! After dinner, we learned about target setting for our field study. Then we had a game night which was super fun.
The next day was action-packed. We did lots of different activities in the forest and on the lake. We did High ropes, Climbing, canoeing and archery. After each activity, we all reflected on things that we learned from each experience. The High ropes course was located in the forest on 30-foot tall pillars. There was one obstacle that was meant for two people so Logan and I tried it. It was a lot harder than expected and super slippery because it rained before we went on the course. In the end, after many attempts, we did not complete that obstacle. We also did climbing on a wall that one of the instructors built himself for a cruise. When it wasn’t needed on the cruise he brought it to loon lake. After lunch, we did archery and canoeing. I thought I would be better at archery but I was really bad and missed the target almost every time. Last but not least we went canoeing on the lake. It was so beautiful being on the lake at the end of the day canoeing with your friends. We learned about the different strokes in canoeing and we even had a race(which Julien and I won). After dinner, we were back to learning. On this day we set our goals for the trip. My goal was to build connections and relationships with new people to deepen my learning and improve my growth mindset. We were also introduced to our Loon Lake Learning Book, in this book we would fill out different pages related to our goal each page had a different task.
On our last full day at Loon Lake, we worked a lot on our Loon Lake Book and our goals. We had conferences with our teachers about our goals and the progress we made throughout the trip. We also finished most of our book on this day. Through the book that I was filling out, I learned a lot about myself and how I can push myself to reach my goals. After all of the learning, we went across the lake into the forest to practice our fort-building skills. I was in a group with Logan, Ethan and Julien. Together we used teamwork to gather logs and build a shelter. We went around the forest and looked at our classmate’s shelters and my group thought ours was the best. After building the shelters we took a nice nature walk back to the dining hall for dinner. Along this walk, we participated in a scavenger hunt where we had to take photos of certain things throughout the walk. We finished off the day with more learning and finally, some fun games to end the day.
On the last day at Loon Lake, we started with some reflection on how we did on our goals. We also did some work on trying to get as much work done as possible on our books. Then it was time to start heading home. Although we still had one more stop to go. We stopped at Extreme Airpark to jump around and have a blast. I found it fun to have one last fun activity before heading home.
In conclusion this field study, I enjoyed the time away from home a lot. I got to talk to more people than I would normally inside of school and as a whole class, I think we became a lot closer to one another. Learning about the importance of goal setting and setting goals helped me when I got back to achieving better things. Overall this trip was an amazing experience and I am glad I get to say that I’ve been to loon lake.
