The Canadian Student Leadership Conference was hosted in Kelowna this year. 800+ students from all across Canada came to Kelowna to participate in various activities, sessions, and workshops. The conference serves to enhance their leadership skills, build confidence and create new friendships across the country. I was fortunate enough to be able to get involved with CSLC, volunteering over three days.
Day 1 - UBCO Tours
The STEP students paired up and were assigned a spirit group to lead the CSLC students around the campus. I was assigned the "Killer Whale" spirit group. Our day started off with lunch and we were able to get to know our students a little better.
Afterwards, we all met in the gym for an opening ceremony. With all the students in the gym at once it was amazing to see how many there really were. The students also had multiple cheers they had made up and spontaneously started singing in the gym, it blew me away!
We then got a very exciting opportunity to go to a talk by Dr. Christine Schreyer, a linguistic anthropologist at UBCO and the Creator of Kryptonian for the new superman movie Man of Steel. We brainstormed and came up with our word of the year.. And the result was "Bae" which until then I had no clue what it meant. Bae essentially means 'Before Anyone Else' aka your number one person.
We also found out our practicum placements while we were touring so the STEP students were briefly distracted by all the excitement of finally finding out where we will be. I found out I am at OKM and couldn't be more excited! One of my CSLC students who actually goes to OKM made me this 'killer' Killer Whale. All in all it was a great day and a lot of fun!
Day 2 - Art Project
Friday I volunteered to facilitate an art project that all 800+ students could participate in. The idea was to create something that could be left in Kelowna as a way for CSLC to leave behind it's legacy. Students got in pairs and each were given a tile. They were to think of a word that represented their time at the conference or what it meant to them. The goal was to create the Canadian flag, so when the students designed their tile they were to make as much of it red as possible (using red markers to write their word). They could also group together with more people to get two tiles for their word. When they were done, they returned their piece and slowly the flag came to life!
This concept is such a great idea and definitely be adapted in many ways, for example making your school's logo. It is also a great interdisciplinary project if the students were to make it! It involves design, woodwork/building, and calculations. The general shape was sketched out in pencil on the board, so for the maple leaf some students were given "difficult" pieces like the stem and had to fit their word into the restricted area. each piece of wood was of equal size and numbered on the backboard as well as the back of the piece.
What you would need:
- A frame
- A backboard with a sunken surface so that when the pieces are in place the edge is flat with the pieces
- Plexiglass cover
- Evenly cut pieces of wood to write on
- Markers (whatever colour goes with your theme)
We also gave students a piece of paper the same size as the wood to draft their design before hand and then transfer it onto the wood.
What you would need:
- A frame
- A backboard with a sunken surface so that when the pieces are in place the edge is flat with the pieces
- Plexiglass cover
- Evenly cut pieces of wood to write on
- Markers (whatever colour goes with your theme)
We also gave students a piece of paper the same size as the wood to draft their design before hand and then transfer it onto the wood.
It turned out so well and the students were all so excited about it. A lot of them actually took pictures of themselves placing their piece in it's place. Another neat feature was it was bilingual thanks to our francophone students!
Day 3 - Closing Ceremonies & Dance
Saturday was the final day of CSLC. The closing ceremonies had some impressive student talent like this beat boxer.
And the grand finale was David Garibaldi, an artist that was seen on America's Got Talent. He has a very unique style of performance art he refers to as "Rhythm and Hue." He combines music, dancing with his graffiti style art. He did 4 different art pieces for us: Beyonce, Superman, Terry Fox and Einstein. Einstein he actually painted upside down and then flipped it when he was done!
Afterwards it was time to chaperone the dance! It was a much music dance, which I had never experienced before and it was great! The students seemed to have so much fun dancing and celebrating all the new friendships they had made over the week.
Here's a sneak peak. Looks pretty fun huh?!