Blog post #5: World Issues Conference

I had an awesome experience at the world issues conference 2012. I was partnered with Rachel and preparing for the conference was not a difficulty at all! Our topic was the Somalia crisis which was very interesting to research and our two grade 8 presenters knew all their information very well and explained it thoroughly but clear for their fellow students to understand it! Their presentation was awesome and easy to understand, I even learned a few things I hadn't known before they presented. The two boys were confident and seemed like they had practiced many times! Part of their presentation was a quiz, which their peers answered easily! After every few slides, our two presenters would ask us and the rest of the kids a question based on the previous slides to check for understanding. Another part of their presentation was a 10 minute long video showing olympic runners training in somalia, contrasting it to an olympian training in Canada. It was a really cool video to watch and it definitely intrigued the rest of the kids into their presentation. Since their presentation was so lengthy, we barely had time at the end to ask questions however we did ask 2! The kids cooperated and were a little shy at first but once one person gained the confidence to answer they started a ripple effect!

The simulation I was involved in was the Right to Play simulation. Both the panelists running it were really nice people and were awesome to work with. They involved us grade 12's enough to let us partake in a leadership role. The first game we played was a game that involved team work. They split us into groups and we had to play the human knot. It was a hard game to play if you didn't have patience and weren't open to other kids ideas. I tried my best to let the kids figure it out but definitely helped move the team work along and encourage the kids as much as possible! We also played a game called mosquito tag which gave the kids a bit more of an understanding on malaria. I got the kids involved and explained the instructions. We did a trial run so they could see how the game works then they each got the hang of it!

It was a really awesome day and I loved working with the kids and motivating them to do better things in this world.