ENBE - Project One

And so! We went to Riverstone for our first ever ENBE project. We left school at around 8.00am+ I think (I woke up at 7.30 am when we were supposed to meet up at the bus stop at 7.30 am because I accidentally set my alarm at 6.30 pm instead of am but thank God I was woken up by the slamming of my housemate's door.. and I wasn't the latest to gather at the bus stop :P) Anyway, we had a pleasant journey to the resort. I set next to Ayuni! 

All of us walking to the resort! I remember as soon as we stepped out of the bus, the smell of nature tickled my nose. It was different than the scent back here. You really are able to smell nature once you're in it! It felt really hot too! But it felt nice being surrounded by treeees.

Tada!

We had to take off our shoes before entering :) The design of the reception place was really nice and tropicana-ish hahaha. So after that, we were brought to our dorms. The guys and girls were at seperate dorms of course!

Here's a picture of the place we stayed in! 

Not your average 5 star hotel of course :P we girls (as we are girls) kept on complaining. But nevertheless, it was a great experience :)

After settling down, dusting our beds and pillows, and re-tying our hairs and changing from jeans to shorts, we all went down to gather at the hall!

(I didn't take picture of the hall but I took pictures of the shoes hahaha)

After that, it was time to explore the resort! and to also find for our site to document and explore on :)

Our journey to the deeper side of the resort..

Tada!

It was a really great and relaxing view. Although, you could smell dead fish which was really sour. But the view was amazing :) This place/lake was deeper inside.

There were people fishing as well!

This leaf was so cute. It was furry and soft!

I also found a tree trunk which I found really interesting.

The patterns on the trunk really caught my attention and so, I had to take a snap.

I found a butterfly on the ground :D

Beautiful bamboos that were reaching out! 

This was a really, really round rock and I find it very rare to find a rock this round!

Since our theme for ENBE is about patterns, I realized that the clouds here formed a really nice pattern :)

A picture of me taking a picture (piception)

Everyone looking for a site and exploring the place!

Us documenting and journaling under the shade provided by the almighty tree.

Fern leaves!

After hours of trying to find for the perfect site, we still didn't feel like we had found it. But it was lunch time and we got really hungry!

After lunch, we decided to go to the river. It was such a good good gooood magnificent experience :)

We decided to go deeper and further into the river and we finally finally found our site! It was really nice and relaxing and cooling and I enjoyed every bit of it. We even tasted the fresh water there :P we set on rocks and then eventually drenched ourself. I mean, how could we not get wet right? It was too good. We were shaded by trees as well which was good. And we had different elements around us such as the rock, water, sand, mud, plants, leaves and... 

a turtle!

We saved a turtle and it was such a fun and exciting experience :) We definitely had fun doing it.

Fun times!

It was a definitely a fun, and amazing experience and it opened our eyes to nature to a whole different level. It felt really good being away from all the hussle and bussle and just enjoying nature as well as everyone's company without technology (as our phones couldn't receive signal too! muahaha). It was really therapeutic as well. Nature's such a beautiful thing :)

That night, we had to create our own logo for our group and we came out with.. 

A TURTLE OF COURSE!

We had to use things from the forest/nature given things such as leaves and rocks and stuff :)

The process..

The result!

The next day, we were able to make our own raft and we went rafting! It was an amazing experience that I would never forget. The man who taught us how to build the raft kept on trying to drown the raft which was really funny and fun.

--

Individual powerpoint assignment ; we were told to do a powerpoint assignment based on the 5 senses and our experience there as well as the plant (mine was a bamboo) and an animal/insect (mine was the water beetle) to unerstand them further and better.

Group work - 20%

Group members : Vady (Leader), Mahi, Zoe (me), Ayuni & Ameerah

So, for our group work, we discussed with Miss Norma about the element we should focus during this trip. We came up with the study of "patterns" and divided ourselves in a way that each person had to do an infographic poster about the patterns of their findings - one animal and one plant. Either than the infographic poster, we also had to do a video documentary of our experience there in terms of the 5 senses.

(Definitely a great group to work with!)

Group Video Documentary :

The Infographic posters :

The process of the model :

Reflections :

All in all, it was an amazing experience. We all took the best out of everything. I really thank my lecturers for bringing us there as well. It was really nice just being caught and wrapped up in nature. Especially at night, when it's quiet and all you can hear is a performance by the insects in the trees and around us. The skies were really clear and you could see stars shining and showing off their light. It was really a beautiful sight. We also were able to see fireflies which was beautiful. And also, Eugene found glow worms at night and it was really interesting. A few of us slept outside under the stars, and it was really nice and soothing and cooling, like natural air-con.

I definitely got to learn and experience different part of the natural element that I have taken fore granted. Even though the place we stayed in was not your average 5-star resort, that was what made the trip and experience even more captivating! 

Thinking and problem solving skills - I've learnt how to discover and investigate different elements of the environment as well as ways to make an infographic poster and a model.

Communication skills - definitely very important in different terms. Such as, communication between human beings and the natural environment as well as communication between the group in order to produce group work.

Lifelong learning - Like I said, definitely something that I would take in my heart for a very long time.

Nature's such a beautiful thing and we always have to appreciate it!