A big part of PLP are the field schools that we do as part of our unit. These trips are always organized so that we get the most learning possible from the trip and the places that we go visit. Very recently we went on a trip to California to learn all about disruption and how that has been a hub for change and disruption for years and years. During this trip we went to several different cities. Our first stop was San Diego, then San Jose and finally San Francisco. In these cities we went to several different tourist attractions such as the San Diego Safari Park, Stanford and Alcatraz. All of these places we went to had something to do with disruption and that was the main focus.
The day we left was mostly a travel day for us. We had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 3am to go to the airport so we could make our flight. When we got to San Diego which was our first stop, we went straight to lunch at an amazing burger place called hodads. Right after this it was off the Torrey pines state national park. This was really our first tourist destination spot that we went to. This is one of the two places in the world where you can find the Torrey pine tree and it was a very cool place to visit. It was here that me and a group made our first video of the trip which is in the book that we made during the trip. After the Torrey pines we got to go to a very beautiful spot called la jolla Cove. This is a place that is famous for the seal breeding grounds that take place in the cove. This was also a very cool place to visit and I’m very happy that we got a chance to go there.
Over the next few days we got to go to the San Diego safari park as well as the USS midway. These 2 places are very famous with tourist in San Diego and many, many people go to them. The safari park was probably one of my favourite places in the whole trip as I love to look and learn about many different types of animals. It was here that we made our second video of the trip which was about the conservation efforts that the park makes to help the animals and their habitats.
The USS midway is a very important part of US military history. We spent most of the third day here and we learned a lot about how it was used as a weapon and as a show of power for the US. This was a very interesting place to visit as it was here that we also got other speak to a WW2 veteran and many other war veterans as well. This ship was also one of the biggest ships in the world at one point and it is now used to show the public how an aircraft carrier functions in the army.
Over the next three days we went to a special high school called High Tech High and traveled to Silicon Valley. High tech high is a very unique and interesting school located only in California. While we were there we did a few different things with the students that we were partnered with. We got to sit in on a few of their classes and see how they do things differently then we do them in our program. HTH was a very fun place to visit and at first I wasn’t really sure how it would be but I quickly started to enjoy myself.
Our first day in Silicon Valley we went to the Googleplex, Apple park and the Intel museum. These places are all very tech based and we had a very interesting tour at the Apple park of the visitor centre and we were on our own for the Intel Museum and the Googleplex. The Intel museum was all about the history of this very famous computer company and there was actually a lot of old artifacts that were there as well. When we went to the GooglePlex we weren’t actually allowed to be there so we had to be very discreet so we wouldn’t get kicked out by the security. The outside of the complex was very cool as they had loads of outside places to eat and talk with each other. They even had a skeleton of a real life T-Rex just outside in the court yard which was a very cool thing to see.
The last few days that we were there we got to see many other cool things. We went to Stanford which was a very interesting place to go to. We had a full tour of the campus and it was the most amazing university I have ever been to. On the same day we visited the computer history museum. This had the history of every computer and computer company you could think of.
Then it was off to San Francisco and Alcatraz which was the most interesting place to visit out of the whole trip. We went aight seeing around the city and had a very fun tour with a tour guide one day. Alcatraz was just so much fun that I’ll never forget it. We explored the island, went on an amazing audio and even got locked in one of the isolated unit cells. All in all this was a very fun trip and I had so much fun learning about how disruptive different things can be without you even thinking about it. A huge part of this trip was also making our own book that would show what we did and when during the trip so make sure you go and read that to see in greater detail what we did.
