Last Wednesday students from the Seven Summits Centre for Learning presented their ROPE projects to the public.
Every year at Seven Summits Learning, the Grade 8 and 9 students work on a year-long project of their choosing.
This project is called ROPE (Rite of Passage Experience). Every student is guided through the process of figuring out their area of interest or passion and narrowing it down to a manageable project. The students then seek out a community mentor to help them with their project. During this independent project, the students learn new skills such as communicating with adults, researching a topic, finding a mentor and setting up a meeting schedule, financial planning and skills, time management and sourcing materials on their own.
Students work for many hours with their community mentors and on their own to acquire the necessary skills to complete their projects.
In May of every year, the Grade 8 and 9 students then have an evening devoted to sharing their newly found skills and accomplishments. This year’s event was held at the Old Fire Hall and included a potluck to start the evening, then students took turns on stage showcasing their process and work.
This year’s students had a vast array of projects.
Three took on music: guitar, saxophone and piano. Another built a beehive, which he is now donating into the community. Two other projects were learning how to cut hair and sewing.
One student made good use of his vast collection of Lego and made a four-minute stop action video (youtube.com/watch?v=lDB-oaKGEaI&feature=youtu.be).
A distance learner who attends virtually from Victoria did his ROPE project on screen printing and shared his presentation virtually as well.
A not so small part of the process was developing the presentation. All the students had polished and professional presentations with lots of humour thrown in for good measure. The most consistent theme and lesson learned was not to procrastinate — a great life lesson that will do them well in years to come.