Istra!

On the 4th of June, Year 12 went to Istra for a week! Everybody was really excited! 

When we get there, the first task that we needed to do is look for 10 flags around the forest, and my group found only 7 flags. It was hard, however, we had a good teamwork and I think that the objective of the task was that, we can know the path of the forest. After that, another task was given which was to draw the map of the Istra reservation. I thought that I wouldn't be good at it, but I was impressed with my Istra map. After dinner, we had something fun to do, which I have no idea what's it called, but it has something to do with blindfolding. It was fun and I think we laughed a lot of time.

The next day, we had an investigation to do, which is about the trans-section line. We had to do the investigation in a group, and my group members were Thibaut, Yein and SangHoon. We distributed the tasks for each person. The hardest thing is that our site was a really steep slope and all of us at least fell once, and we would laughed at each other. After collecting the data, we would go back to the conference room, where we do all the write-ups. Later on the day, we had a competition where we had to design a boat, and my pair was Thibaut. We used a pringles box, 6 cups and a thin stick. At first, we thought that our boat was the worst, but no, we actually won the competition! And I still can't believe it until now! Next, we had to do a trap for the bugs. But, the next day when we came to see who trapped the most bugs, all of the traps have been destroyed but some Russians. 

The third day, we had to do another investigation using quadrats. I was in the same group as before. And we had the same tasks as before, 3 of us would count the number of each species and one of us would do the writing. This investigation took us a really long time, because we really wanted a good result. After having all kinds of tiredness, we had a game, like we always do after dinner. This time, it's a music quiz, where we had to listen to the song, guess the title, the artist, the name of the album and the decade when it was released. My group was Matanat, SangHoon and Yein. We guessed a lot of them, however the answers were really random. We just took some words from the lyrics. 

The next day, the investigation that we did is the individual investigation, where we had to come up with a our own plan for the investigation. Since I was really blank, Mr O'Connor helped me with an idea of investigating the relationship between the height and width of pine trees. I really liked doing the experiment. And Matanat also had the same investigation with me, because if I was to do it alone, it will be hard. And I got two cuts at the same time! Eventhough we didn't even started anything yet. It hurts so bad! Can't even imagine! During the night, we had a barbecue because it was the last night we're gonna be there. I ate a lot of chicken since that's the only food I could it! After that, we played a game called Spotlight, I think. And, the exact time that we started playing, it also started to rain. But we still played it like 5 times, because it was a lot of fun. I was holding the torch with Natalia, and we were really good at identifying people, and we're proud of it!
On the last day we're there, we woke up for breakfast, then we packed our stuff, and we came back to Moscow.
Honestly, I want to have the trip again! One is because of the fresh air and another one is that we didn't have to wake up so early like I always do when it's weekdays. However, the thing that I hated the most was were mosquitoes, I even had a huge one and the bites were so obvious, they were really red. But we still had a lot of fun together at Istra!

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved during the trip to Istra are:

• Undertaken new challenges, as I had to draw the map of the Istra reservation, we had to design a boat, and design a trap for the bugs. Dong all the investigations as well, especially the elevation one, where we had to do it on a steep slope. 
• Worked collaboratively with others, as when we were doing the investigations, we distributed the tasks with each other, and sometimes we would take turn counting the species, which is a tiring task, but we still managed to do it. 
• Planned and initiated activities, as for our individual investigation, we needed to come up with our own plan.
• Developed new skills, as I actually had never used some of the equipment before and now I know the names, the uses and obviously now I know how to use them. 
• Considered the ethical implications of my actions, after the barbecue, we cleaned up the mess that we did when we were eating and having fun.