Gaia: A Magical Experience for High School Students

Mr. A’s HomeBase had a magical experience visiting the UNIS Hanoi hosted Gaia Exhibition this week. Before visiting we talked about our expectations, we chatted about Gaia during the exhibition, and we did a wrap-up after our visit. 

We went through Gaia as a group, as individuals, and in smaller groups, similar to the ‘walk & talks’ we do with Mr. A in HomeBase.

We spent time with Gaia at the end. A lot of time. It is impressive and it impressed us.

This is a collection of some of our impressions.

As we walked SDG 1, No Poverty, Yen remarked “I was impressed by how each fabric layer has a quote all translated into my language which makes me feel seen and represented. The quote that resonated with me was the one about our own actions. It is not enough to say ‘no poverty’ we have to make it a reality”.Seungmin and Ingyu spent time together exploring SDG3, Good Health & Well-Being and they said “I picked friendship and connections with friends as a source of my well-being. We are friends and time together makes us happy”.

“SDG 5, Gender Equality, was interesting for me. There was a series of questions on the rotating panel. I did not know for example that women and men in tennis now can earn the same but that only started in 2007. Can you imagine all the other areas where men and women do not earn the same? That seems very unfair.” Seungmin offered. “Equal pay for equal work seems like a simple idea but it still is not happening. It needs to be fair.” interjected Ingyu.

Timmy thought that “…I thought it was really smart to use the ping pong balls to illustrate some of the statistics like waste and power usage and water usage and levels of pollution. It was interactive and I enjoyed throwing the ping pong balls.” 

Thy shared that “…the big wall at the end with the different numbers had a lot of stickers. It asked us to pick the SDG that you were most passionate about. I picked SDG 4 Quality Education. Education is the baseline to be a good human being. In many parts of the world children have less of a chance for a quality education. And we need to change that.”  

“I was happy to see so many opportunities to be able to engage with the SDGs through some of the sticker activities. I really like the sticker wall at the end of the SDG parade where we could really think about and sum up what we see as the most important SDGs.” 

“SDG 16 is the most important for me. War is really bad. Things are not in our control. This makes me feel helpless. But I am still striving for a change” Anh Thy offered.

“For me…” Yen continued “…SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities. If you think about the typhoons and the flooding in Thai Nguyen where families are losing their homes. I love rain but these typhoons are evil. They are losing their sources of income. The flooding is still happening. I feel so bad for the people there and I want to help them but I am not sure how. We need to do more. This SDG exhibition helped me to have these conversations with my friends. We need to do something.”

Jessica believes that “…SDG 9 Innovation, Infrastructure and Industry if we have global issues we need global solutions. That is innovation. Income inequality AI is an innovation and it will replace jobs but we can use these SDGs to guide us so that we are not overwhelmed by things like AI and job replacement.”

Jayden “I will be performing there in a couple of weeks. I am really excited. The music will transform the space and Gaia will enhance our music.”

As we approached Gaia itself, Linh offered “I was not sure what to expect …the more you stare and dwell on Gaia itself, with the voiceover in the background, I had the chance to think about what is happening in the world like climate change – you could see the clouds and plastic use and waste because you could see the vastness of the sea. That connected me to SDG 13 Climate Action and SDG 14 Life Below Water. It was impressive.”

Gaia was an incredible experience for us all.