I have been working on this project called Genius Hour for these past couple of months where you pick a topic and research about it. The topic I picked for this project was water skiing. It took me a while to pick at first because I was unsure of a project to do that could help people out but also I would enjoy. I started thinking about sports and the environment but I couldn’t find anything then I looked up different sports, that is when I found it, water skiing. I decided to pick this topic because I remember doing it in the summer and how much I enjoyed it, so I thought why not learn more about it since it could help me improve and it is something that catches my attention.
During this project I learned a lot. At first I wasn’t sure I was going to find that much information but researching proved me wrong. While researching I found about the different types of water skis there are, I thought there was only the type where you have two skis but it turns out that there is also slalom skiing which, as shown in the picture above, is with one ski. I also learned about the correct way to position yourself so you wouldn’t get injured or hurt after. In addition to this, I understood why we had to bring certain materials with you such as a life jacket. Lastly, I found out about the competitions and how the worked as well as what events they had. Some of the events tat are held are races where you see who can go the fastest, show where people do all sorts of tricks (as shown in the picture below), like the pyramid, there are jumps, where you jump off a ramp and do some sort of trick like a flip and then land perfectly onto the water. To come to think of it, water skiing is the exact same thing as skiing except it is on water instead of snow. The way you turn and position yourself is the exact same.
Doing this project helped me grow as a person because it allowed me to learn more information and become more specialized with a subject but also helped me improve my skills and techniques. I say this because if I go water skiing again I will just think of this project and what I learned while doing it. It will allow me to be more safe and prevent me from getting hurt or have back problems. With all the information that I learned it could help the community and also the world because it could allow people who have never done it before or are willing to learn about new sports know about it and become aware of what they should do. It would save them some money because they wouldn’t need to spend it on getting lessons since the information given is enough for them to learn how to do it. However, it could also help the world because people could earn money and then donate it by holding an event. You could say for every meter that you go without falling people would pay you this amount of money and with every meter you stay standing you earn more money. This is helpful because it would not only motivate the skier to stay up for a while but it could also help organisations or the less fortunate since you could donate that money to them.
In my next Genius Hour project I was thinking about learning how to create an organization that would help the less fortunate out. For example providing them with education and learning how to use computers and books to help them find information but also provide them with food and water. In addition to this, they be treated fairly and learn to respect and help out one another. This would help the community around me because it would allow them to maybe get a job when they are older that would provide them with a good amount of money that they could survive on. It could also help people around the world and make them more aware of what is going on and influence them to do something like this.
Here is a link to my presentation if you want to look through it