Hello, Internet.

So, last week was National History Week, and in order to celebrate it we did a mini history project. We worked in small groups to research the history, and particularly the namesakes, of different places around Vancouver. Each group chose one place to research that they thought was interesting or iconic. The place my group chose was Blood Alley.

We then made a video about that place, in the style of this video.

Now, while Blood Alley is a somewhat gruesome name, the history of the alley, originally known as Trounce Alley after Thomas Trounce, is much less sketchy than it sounds. It was a pretty normal alley that was renamed in the 70s during Gastown’s rénovation into a commercial heritage district, as it was believed the name Blood Alley would interest more people than “Trounce Alley”.

Rumours were then spread about the alley having a grisly past for pretty much the same reason: to attract tourists. An alley that was said to have been soaked with blood each night after the butchers threw buckets of blood down it, or that was the site of public executions, or was rife with fights and other violence, is much more interesting than just an alleyway that nothing super notable happened on.

Here is our full video detailing the history and namesake of Blood Alley:

Toodles!

Hello, Internet.

So, in Health and Career, we’ve been learning about work safety.

We started out by watching a video of a few different situations in which young adults were permanently injured due to improperly following work safety rules, and filling out some worksheets about job safety in our own respective work experiences, and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.

We also talked about the required training for different jobs, and how being trained thoroughly can help you stay safe at work.

We were supposed to have a guest speaker come in to talk to us about work safety, but they didn’t show, so we instead did an activity where we looked at different scenarios and figured out what was unsafe about them, and how they could have been made safe.

As part of our learning for this unit, we were each asked t create a visual to represent work safety. I drew some common safety related symbols (no fire, toxic chemicals, tripping or falling), and a girl giving a thumbs up.

We were also asked to talk about how we would each handle our own workplace safety. My current job has very little in the way of safety hazards, and is generally safe as long as you use common sense. However, for jobs in the future that might be more risky, I’ll make sure to stay out of potentially dangerous situations that I haven’t recieved proper training for, and to wear the appropriate safety gear and use safety precautions when needed. I’ll also keep aware of the fact that I don’t have to put myself in a situation in which I feel unsafe.

Toodles!