Next week I am going to volunteer at the UBC Farm summer camp. The summer camp is based around weeks. Different weeks have different topics and age groups. The week I am volunteering at is called ForestTransformations for kids age 6-8. The summer camp and the school program are all about building a connection between kids and nature. It encourages sustainability from a young age group and I think it is a great project. (You probably guessed that I would say that, huh?)

Today will be the last day of summer school. Yesterday I missed half the class because somehow during recess I managed to have a head-on collision with a fence post while playing an extremely amateur game of frisbee which was really too bad because I got a huge lump on my face and I had been really looking forward to helping with the action plan my team was making, for implementing the solution I had come up with.

I have thought of a few neat things that solar power could be used for over the past few days. Here are some of them:

• A sun umbrella with solar panels on it which power a fan underneath.
• A roof covered in solar panels which collect rainwater that drains through the cracks to be filtered and used.
• A pavement made out of solar panels covered in fiberglass or some strong, transparent material.

I also thought it would be neat to have a wind turbine which uses the noise from turning to generate electricity, solving the problem of noise.

I am almost done writing my fourth letter to Gordon Campbell. I hope we get a new premier in the upcoming election because I am tired of writing to him.

Today we learned about creativity in my future problem solving course. Creativity consists of four components:

Fluency-the ability to generate a great number of ideas.
Flexibility-using categories to come up with more ideas.
Originality-the talent to think of unusual ideas.
Elaboration-the process of filling in the details.

Here are some excercises anyone can use to improve thier creativity, although they sort of need to be done in order.

1.) Think of a shape or shape description (such as ’round’)or a texture. Write a huge list of random things with that shap or whatever. Try not to repeat anything (like writing car wheel, bicycle wheel …) .

2.) Think of a category such as body part, outer space, or economics, and write down all the things you can think of that are the shape you chose earlier and fit into the category. Once again try not to be too repetitive.

3.) Look over your lists and find the most original/ unusual things on them. Pick 5-10.

4.) Describe in detail using creative vocabulary the unusual things you picked in as much detail as you can.

Creativity is very useful in a changing world, and I hope these excercises work well.