Ill never complain about Quarry Rock again!!!
Hey everyone! It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything because it’s a new year, I am now in grade 9!
So as you may or may not know last year the grade 8’s went on a trip to Oregon and I was not one of them because I was in Bali! Here is my blog post on that: My Class Was Ore-Gone But I Was In Bali!
I promise I’m going somewhere with this- So each year the grade 9’s go on a trip to Alberta at the start of the year! So yes! I have just had my first ever PLP trip!
Our DQ 🍦🏎️:
Although we did go to Dairy Queen this trip (and it was delicious) our actual driving question was, “How can we become the best version of ourselves?” The main part of this project that focused on answering this question was our 10 essentials video that you will see if you continue reading!
Back To The Starting Line…
Ok so that was a bit of information to throw on a person in a span of 15 seconds, to start off and give you a clear view of what I’m trying to say I’ll start from the beginning.
In July we received an email about us being able to go to Alberta and of course I was very excited! When we got back to school in September we immediately started doing assignments and projects and readings that may be related to what we will be doing in Alberta. We would be doing practice interviews on our peers and we would be focusing on how to find a story in a conversation.
My Practice Interview With Cole
Banner In The Sky 📖🚩
This was a reading that we did in humanities about a boy climbing the mountain his father died on. This was a lot about conquering your goals and not listening to what others say and this may just be me but I didn’t really like the book. The ending wasn’t as satisfying as it needed to be and at some point whilst I was reading I got superrrrr bored (Im not saying that Mr.Harris has bad taste in books). I can relate this back to our Alberta trip by thinking how the character in this boom used a strong mindset to get through tough situations just like how we had to whilst powering through the tougher hikes.
My Craft notes on this book: Banner In The Sky Book Notes
Our Videos/ Video Making 🎥
Video making was a very big theme on this project because we were going to be making a Vox Pop video, a silent video/movie and a “TikTok trend” video.
TikTok Trend
The TikTok Trend video is where we take a viral travel trend and we make it our own of Alberta. The goals of this were to include the views of the amazing places we would see and to make it our own! Although this part of the videos was an individual project we could still do it with people as long as we all have different videos in the end.
I did this trend with my amazing friend Maya!
Silent Film
The silent film is something we made in the ghost town at the 3 valley gap. We made these on our first day so even though we were all really tired we still all had amazing videos at the end! The goals for this video was for it to be silent and black and white and be able to tell a story without any words! I learned from this part of the project how important it is when you have no words to be more dramatic with motions and being overly emotional.
My group for this part of the project was: (click the names to see their blog!)
Vox Pop
A Vox Pop is a kind of video where you ask people on the street or just walk up to them and ask them questions. Vox Pop means “Voice of the people” and whilst we were in Alberta we were tasked with making a video on the 10 essentials of life. We would basically walk up to people and be friendly then we would lead into us asking if we could interview them for a school project. These interviews really helped me become more confident with speaking and with talking to new people and I found it really cool to see the end product of what I could take from all of these interviews to make my final result.
My group for this video that we did during the entire trip was: (click their names!!!)
Alberta! 🏔️
So now that I have filled your head with a bunch of information of what i have learned and what we did, I wanted to talk about some of my highlights and what was super fun! (Prepare for lots of photos) Also if you want to see even better photos go to PLP’s Instagram (run by Ms. Kadi 💕👍)
The Hikes:
A VERYYY big part of this trip was the amount of hikes that we went on some were shorter than others and some were more tiring but every single one was definitely worth it.
Lake Louise
Sulfur Mountain
Moraine Lake
Johnston Canyon
Lake Louise
Other things that weren’t hikes…:
We did a lot more than just hiking as well! We went to the golden skybridge we went in the Banff hot springs and we stopped at so many more places too! One of my favourites was definitely the golden skybridge and the coaster there because it gave me an adrenaline rush and I love those!
Banff Hot Springs
Ink pods
3 Valley Gap Ghost Town
Tea House on Lake Louise
Glass Skywalk
Everyday…
Everyday was a challenge we would wake up pretty early and go down for breakfast (sometimes earlier if you had breakfast duty). Then after we would all pack up into the bus and the van and head to our destination which was usually a hike or a cool museum. I had so much fun at all of our destinations and then at the end of a long day we would go back and sit in the hotel lobby or whatever and do a reflection work book where we would talk about our feelings and what we hope to do the next day! Here is it:
We have never looked more like iPad kids… the amount of stares I bet we got… 😶
Conclusion:
A big part of this project was all about us and trying to reach our peak potential which means being the best version of ourselves which is like what we were learning about in our 10 essentials and I feel like I really did reach my peak potential of this trip! From keeping a strong mindset through the hikes to being a responsible and respectful classmate even out of the class room. I really loved this project because we traveled for one but we also did a lot of group work! Something I feel like my groups could work on (specifically my 10 essential group) is equal participation. Like our class norm “Equal participation equal dedication” Although we all got it done I feel there were times where we could’ve all worked together more. And I do know that I have been told that sometimes I can seem intimidating and because I’m willing to do more work my other group members let me so in the future I will give more people opportunities to do work. In conclusion this was my favourite part of the year so far and I cant wait for our next trip!
Thank you so much for reading this post and I hope to see you next time! And stay posted for my next post! 👍