Nillumbik/Banyule Term 4 Week Five
Once again we started off the week with a session at the YMCA with Jordan. We played basketball and worked through a range of different exercises at the gym. This great session was followed by a visit to JETS music studio in Bundoora. The studio is run by Banyule Youth Services and provides hight quality facilities for young people in the area. Our group of students were given a tour of the space; which includes rehearsal rooms, recording equipment, a green screen room, DJ equipment and a computer lab. After our tour, we were given free reign to use whatever equipment we wanted! Some chose to start their own band and use the instruments available, while others spent time practising to be a DJ or constructing music digitally. Everyone really enjoyed the afternoon spent at JETS and it's a great space for any students interested in music, film and multimedia.
Thursday this week was spent canoeing! With threats of a storm looming, the group was quick and helpful getting the canoes loaded onto the trailer to head down to Bellbird Picnic Area in Kew. Here we unloaded the canoes, got a quick lesson in the different strokes and safety elements of using the canoes before launching into the Yarra River. It's a great place to practice our canoeing skills, where the river is wide and the thousands of bats that fill the surrounding trees give everyone a surprise.
All the students worked really well together in pairs, and moved at a great pace along the river to get to our lunch destination. Canoeing uses a lot of team work skills as you must work well with the other person to make any progress. Communication is particularly key. After lunch everyone swapped partners and it was pleasing to see everyone still worked well together. The biggest excitement of the day was witnessing a tiger snake swim across the river between our boats. Not something you see every day! This was a really great day with lots of positive team work and some great physical activity out in the sun.
We continued the trend of team work on Friday morning with some team building activities to continue to assist the students in working together. The students problem solved their way through a number of different tasks using a range of resources like blocks of wood, a tarp and a big pair of boots. Activities such as this always bring out different leadership styles and skills, as well as bringing the group closer together as they achieve their goals.
After this successful morning, we headed over to Fairfield for our second tafe taster (Landscaping) at NMIT. Here we met Mark who talked about what opportunities come out of doing tafe courses, before showing us all how to build our own brick wall. This process involves many steps and a large amount of precision and care. This session was a great way to finish off the week and to do something practical with our hands and mind.
