This year my grade nine PLP class went on an incredible nine day road trip across BC and Alberta. We learned a ton, especially about video making skills, and created a better knowledge and understanding of our lands history, our own, and how it all shapes into national, group and individual identity.
The first stop and the first video we created on the trip was at Three Valley Gap located in Columbia, Shuswap BC. We stayed in a hotel next to a ghost town where we were given the challenge to create a video in and around the town.
My group members, Jordyn, Jason, Jackson, Caleb created our video after many drafts and editing. This was our final product hitch we are all quite proud of.
We created this storyboard and storyspine that helped us through the process of creating our final video.
Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Sanctuary was one of our first few stops on the trip. The Wolf Centre was where I started to really understand our driving topic and understand my own and others identity’s. I interviewed Shelley Black one of the co owners of the sanctuary and she talked a lot about the First Nations Peoples. The First Nations People are very significant to the land and impact our lands history and who we are.
Gabby, Kiera and I interviewing Shelley Black (co owner of the Wildlife Wolf Sanctuary)
Beakerhead was another cool thing our class got to experience on the trip! It’s an art, science and engineering festival that happens every year in downtown Calgary. We traveled across downtown Calgary finding different peace’s of work created by all sorts of artists.
One of the highlights from Beakerhead was definitely getting to learn about the brain and see one up close. We even got to use gloves and touch a real cats brain. While I talked to someone at Beakerhead about the brain for as long as I could, I learned that you have three different protective layers covering your brain from your skin and bone. The first layer is called the Pia Mater, next is the Arachnoid Layer, then Dura Mater, and then you have bone and skin. Learning about the brain was so interesting and super fun.
At night we went to a huge festival for Beakerhead where we experienced all sorts of incredible things. Below is a video of our Beakerhead experience.
On our journey home we stopped at two more incredible places. A buffalo ranch and The Enchanted Forest Bc. At the enchanted forest we created our last fun group video of the trip. In my group Kyle, Caleb, Lucy, Luciano and myself created a super fun video! Watch down below.
Last but not least, we visited a buffalo ranch where we met the most incredible guy named Leo Downey. We interviewed him, which you can watch in part the video below.
We got the amazing opportunity to be live and up close with his heard of bison. While he was in on foot with them we watched just on the other side of a fence. It was truly one of the most amazing experiences and the highlight of the trip for me!
I could not have asked for a greater trip experience. I had so much fun with my classmates as we grew closer friends and learned in ways we couldn’t in the classroom.