The Final Push

I've spent the last 3 days creating a 35 minute presentation with a group of 6, and making the fact sheet about Dugongs. It's been an exhausting process. I've realized that I don't really enjoy group projects, specifically because they aren't very efficient and I hate when stuff takes me longer than I think it should. But I loved my group members and we came up with a really excellent presentation that was clear, concise, and hopefully well-delivered.

Today was presentation day - there were 8 total groups with 6 people each, and we were ALL discussing the impacts of a hypothetical tourist development on Stradbroke Island. We had the same data to work with and had all heard about the same issues, so it was basically the same 35 minute talk 8 times. TERRIBLE. But I suppose the process of putting it together and talking through all the issues was really valuable, so it wasn't a total waste. At the same time, I hope I NEVER have to listen to the same presentation 7 times again and I feel so bad for teachers who design classes with that result. EWWWW.

Here's some of the awesome stuff we did for our presentation - Mind Maps! These are to discuss the scope and cascade effects of different aspects of the tourist development and it's impact on the social, economic, cultural, historical, and environmental context of the island. Blah blah.

Economic factors:
Environmental factors:

So now all we have left is a written exam tomorrow, and then we have 3 days to work on research! I'm going SAND BOARDING tomorrow!! It's like snowboarding on sand dunes and looks like this:



We're also going diving off North Stradbroke and I really want to see a dugong. We saw tons of dolphins and turtles when were hiking around Point Lookout, so maybe we'll see some when we're actually in the ocean as well.