Dinosnore Event 2014

We had the annual Dinosnore event in December this year. There were approximately 75 people that attended, these people were Evo students as well as students in a similar program from the New York Hall of Science Museum. As a Bay and Paul leader we spent a bunch of time preparing our 3 hour slot for this event. 

This event was our first predatory step to planning the Maya Conference that we are hosting in August. The dinosnore event is our first chance to lead a large group in a workshop. In my opinion it was a huge success.

For our part of the event, we were easily identified by the green shirts that I made (green for environmental consciousness.) The participants were split into three groups that we randomly split up, which served to introduce them to people they may not have spoken to or worked with before. Our six Bay and Paul fellows ran three stations, and had rotations of approximately 25 students between each of them.

My friend George and I ran and created the icebreaker station that included two games. The first activity called for all 25 people to be in a circle. Small notecards and crayons were passed around, and they each shared out loud and wrote down one item they own that best represented them. After everybody in the circle had gone around, mentioning things like a laptop or fishing rod, they were assigned numbers one to three, again splitting up the group. These smaller groups were each a team, and they had all been shipwrecked on a deserted island. The only materials they had were the items on their cards. Each group had to come up with a solution to either survive on the island, or escape to safety using the items within their group. The activity turned out to be a lot of fun, and the groups really enjoyed it. We tied the icebreaker together with a lesson on looking at things in different ways, and being creative in their re-use of items.

The second game was a bit different; the students involved were split into 3 separate groups. This time, their objective was to create the lamest environmental-themed superhero they could, with three unique powers. The group with the most creative, lamest, and overall original superhero won. Our example was Captain Planet, holding several amazing powers, such as the ability to turn into a tree, but only once, and it's permanent. The power to summon unlimited amounts of wasps, but he can't control them, or make them go away. And perhaps his greatest earth-saving gift: He can turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, but only one molecule at a time. The groups really enjoyed this activity, and we had fun hearing their crazy ideas.

The only thing that I would change for next time is making the two activities more environment focus, our station was supposed to be based on meeting new people and networking, and we received feedback that this shouldn't have been the main focus. The other four Bay and Paul fellows ran stations about using materials that incorporated environmentally conscious words and the third station hosted a debate.