What better way to show off a project than with an exhibition! Don’t answer that.
My dear readers, if you have visited my blog previously then you may have noticed, I do a loooooot of projects.
Considering this, its no surprise that I also do exhibitions.
Blue Sky exhibitions, to be exact.
Twice a year we PLP students, from all grades, participate in an exercise called Blue Sky and it includes an exhibition of our work.
As I mentioned before, I have been doing these exhibitions since grade so you might remember some of my past ones from some of my other blog posts below.
If you cant tell yet, this post is going to be about the most recent Blue Sky presentation.
This years Blue Sky guidance was that that our projects were to be based on one of the UN Sustainable Development goals. Apparently, in 2015, countries adopted a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. So that means that we are a few years in to this agenda.
I thought that this was a good theme because even though the goals were large and challenging, like Zero Hunger and No Poverty, there were also some that where smaller and much more doable for us, like Quality Education and Health and Well Being.
The UN is a pretty interesting group so if you want to learn more about it, click here
My classmates and I, were all divided into groups (mine included Mimi, Will, and Sydney) and we had to, as a group, pick the UN goal we would focus our exhibitions on. We did this by spinning a wheel that included the names of all group members on it. If the wheel landed on your group, then your group would get to pick your goal. Any goal you wanted from the list of UN Sustainable Development Goals. My group ended up choosing Health and Well-Being. This meant that every one of our projects and their exhibits had to tie into or have something to do with this goal (Health and Well Being).
Next, we had to had identify a theme for the room (at the school) that our group’s exhibits would be in. Heres how we showed our theme:
Me and my group decided that a good way to show this theme would for our room would be to make it look like a vacation. This is because, usually, one of the least stressed states you can be in is the one you are in while you are on vacation.
One of the key ideas we had to keep in mind during this project was the ‘LAUNCH cycle’.
The LAUNCH in LAUNCH cycle is actually an acronym. it stands for;
L- Look, listen, and learn
Awareness, seeing a problem and having a sense of empathy.
A- Ask tons of questions
by curiosity, leads to understanding the process or problem.
U- Understand the problem or process
Use authentic research experience (interviews, analyzing data, articles, watching videos).
N- Navigate ideas
Brainstorm, combine, analyze, and navigate ideas to generate a concept for what they might create.
C- Create (a prototype)
Could be an action, digital work, tangible project, work of art, or event.
H- Highlight and fix
Fix what is failing, for every mistake brings you closer to your final product.
Launch to Audience- To an authentic audience
Thought the weeks leading to our exhibition, I’ve gone through all these steps.
Lets take it step by step.
First I recognized a problem: High school students often suffer from stress and anxiety.
Next, I empathized. Yes, I can see that they do often feel stressed and I know what that is like.
Then, I did some research and talked to some students. Not surprisingly, they said the stress of school made them sometimes want to scream. This lead to some more research and then a brilliant idea.
It turns out that schools like Stanford, Yale, and Harvard encourage their students scream outside to relive anxiety.
This drove me to ask the question, why don’t students at high school use this approach?
I eventually figured out, after a short test, that when you scream in a suburban environment, people surrounding you will become both scared and anxious, defeating the purpose of distressing.
So going outside our school and screaming would not be the answer I was looking for.
I then came up with the idea that lets you stress scream, but does not stress the people around you. I call it, The Scream Box! Heres my project pitch:
{PITCH}
Once my project was approved, I started work on it.
The first thing I did was design my project. I wanted to create a sound proof box that would allow people to scream privately. Once I had a good design, I began building.
I knew I had to build a box big enough that you could stand in it and really scream.
To do this, I had to source some materials like wood, but also less common ones like insulating or sound proof foam.
I found the foam I needed on Craigslist and went to a business in New Westminster to pick it up.
Then I had to begin constructing the box. It was so big, I had to create it in my driveway and cover it up at night so that it did not get wet.
Once I got the foam, I vacuumed it all carefully and then began building the frame.
I then constructed the walls and built the door.
One of the comments I got from a student was to keep it ascetically appealing so it wouldn’t look bad in a school or urban setting. I made sure to keep this in mind while working on it.
For this reason I painted it with a white primer and a white base coat.
Then I took it to school so that I could put in the foam and draw some ascetically appealing designs on it.
At this point, I was nearly finished my project so it was time to gather together with a group of grade 8’s and 9’s who would be in the same room with the same theme as us. My group included Kai, Kiera, Fraser, Luca, and Paisley. We all worked very hard to turn our room into a tropical get away.
Every element of our room related to mental health in one way or another. For example, the snacks we had out were either healthy or comfort food. This is because comfort food actually has an effect that will relieve stress in most instances.
The Blue Sky evening went really well. A lot of people commented that they liked my project and thought it was a good idea.
Kids of all ages seemed to enjoy testing it out.
This was a great experience and I really enjoyed how this project let me show off my skills with the application of research into a physical project.