For this exhibition unit “Where We Are In Place and Time”, we used the central idea “The past has shaped what our world is like today” as a guide to our investigations. My exhibition group members and I choose the area of focus “Refugees and Migration” to investigate into.
We choose to understand the different perspectives that people have on refugees by interviewing others. We found out that there are interconnectedness between refugees and the society and they both impact each other. Natural disasters, political problems or violence are some reasons which causes refugees to flee their own country.
I really enjoyed the first round of the exhibition because I thought it was an enjoyable time sharing my knowledge with mostly little kids from grades 5 or below. They seemed really interested in “Refugees and Migration” because they hardly know anything about it. I found out that I became better at engaging people, especially younger kids to my area of focus because I spoke with enthusiasm and a happy smile on my face. I observed that a lot of people were mostly interested in the 3-D models and the charts on our display board instead of the jot notes because using visuals to express our understanding is a lot interesting. I was one of those who was on live stream because people came and interview me about how I felt after the exhibition and how we set up our booth. At first, I thought is was going to be scary to face the camera, but I felt like a VIP when I got to hold the microphone and started expressing my feelings about the exhibition. Round 2 exhibition was from 6:30 to 8:30, it is the time when parents and teachers walk around to evaluate me. Since I’ve had a lot of practice during round 1, I wasn’t nervous at all, instead, I confidently presented what I knew about refugees to any parents or teachers! The next day was the round 3 presentation, this time, grade 6 students and teachers walked around my booths to evaluate us. I enjoyed showing my best friends what I knew about refugees and migration and they got really interested in my models and charts.
Drawing conclusions was one of the hard parts because we had so much data to look at so it eventually became very confusing and messy. Soon, we understood that in order to draw good conclusions, we need to sort our data into paragraphs first so it would be easier to summarize our findings. If I had more time, I would like to improve my models of the refugee camp and the city model because it is not as neat and beautiful as expected. In the past, I have done a lot of small investigations so I understood that using charts and tables would really help us to organize our data, making it easier to analyze.
I learnt a lot more about cooperation and teamwork because this exhibition project requires a lot of commitment and collaboration to succeed. So, I tried really hard to work well with my group members and learnt to be more open-minded by listening to other’s ideas and opinions. I finally got to have a chance to try out one conflict resolution style because if each group members has different ideas, I figured out that it was best to compromise like the “Humming Bird”. During our investigation, I learnt how to become great communicators, listeners and inquirers because in order to collect primary sources, we had to interview others. I think that my communication skills had improved over time because I learnt how to ask questions to the interviewee and conduct a successful interview.
After my investigation, we decided that taking action is a good way to also show my understanding of my area of focus. My group collected stationary, books and toys that people don’t need and donated them to Christian Action, an refugee organization in Hong Kong. This action not only made refugees feel overjoyed, it also made us feel glad to be helping people who are in need. It is actually my first time doing these kind of big donations to organizations and me and my friends got to have a chance to become ‘little volunteers’ to help the society and other people.
I really liked the part when we had to set up my exhibit because I got to show my creativity skills and design our booth to make it more appealing. It made me understand that setting up booths (especially ones that are 7.5 feet tall) requires a lot of teamwork so I practiced my cooperation skills. I didn’t have any least favorite parts of my investigation because every step from the beginning to the end was exciting and challenging at the same time. However, it was sad and one of my less favorite parts when we had to tear down all our booth after the exhibition because we spent a lot of time printing and setting up the display items and we had to take it down.
I learnt from the central idea that refugee’s lives today is affected by the charities and people around the world. That is because usually it is the community and organizations who help change the lives of refugees besides themselves. The refugee problem that is happening affects the society and other countries around the world. After looking at different areas that other students have done, all of those areas prove that our lives today is the result of what has taken place in the past and our choices and actions we make today can make a positive or negative impact on the world in the future.
In conclusion, the grade 6 PYP Exhibition project made me realize that real learning can be really fun. Listening to other’s ideas, learning together with friends and collaborating as a group is something great that I’ve learnt by doing the exhibition with my team members, not from the teachers.
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