At 6.30 AM on Wednesday the 24th of November, the DP1 students hopped on two seperate buses and embarked on our orientation/science trip to Kitulgala. The bus ride there took around 2 and a half hours to 3 hours and the majority of the ride was spent talking, eating and having fun. As soon as we arrived, we dropped our bags off in the Long House in Borderlands and took a short bus ride to the white water rafting site. Unfortunately I was unable to take part in this activity however just an hour later after lunch, we were being briefed on the canyoning activity. Personally this was the highlight of the trip as it consisted of jumping from rocks and sliding down natural water slides. After finishing this activity and a short hike, we arrived at an area in the river where we could do some white water “swimming”. What this meant was that we split into groups of 3 and floated across some small rapids and then swam all the way back to camp. After completing an extremely action packed 1st day, we set off to our seperate cabins for the night.
On the 2nd day of our trip, we split into our science classes and went on our seperate activities. As I was a physicis student, the first thing we did was visit a private power plant nearby along with the ESS students. After being given an interesting tour, we seperated from the ESS students and spent the rest of the day collecting data using a mini hyrdro-electricity generator we had created during class time. After dinner, as it was our last night of the trip, we had some fun singing and dancing to music.
On the 3rd and final day, we tagged along with the ESS students on a hike to a nearby cave. After appreciating the wonderful nature and having lunch and a 2 hour bus quiet bus ride where the majority of us fell asleep, we returned back to Colombo. This trip ties into the active aspect of CAS as I did many sporty activities such as swimming, hiking, jumping and running.
Learning Outcomes:
Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth: Some areas where I identified personal growth were my ability to appreciate nature as well as my swimming skills. Prior to the trip, I never truly appreciated the beauty and the vastness of nature however I feel like my viewpoint on nature vastly changed during this trip. Regarding my swimming skills, I was never a poor swimmer, however on the trip I learnt vital information such as how to swim through rapids and I learnt the immense difference between swimming in a pool and swimming in a river.
Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process: One challenge which I encountered during the trip was that while we were recording data sometimes the turbine didn’t spin and therefore we could not record data. I overcame this challenge by using skills which I had learnt during Physics class such as varying the head height, to solve this issue.
Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions: During the trip, I vastly learnt how to recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions. This was due to the fact that the Borderlands staff always told us how the choices we made affected the wildlife which we stayed in, and I decided to stop doing certain activities as they harmed the environment and were therefore unethical.