Throughout the whole of the year, we have been learning through our teamwork, research, trial, and error and creative thinking skills, and this final project has really been an exciting conclusion to the year for us all.
We were given the task of creating a building that would be able to survive through the challenge of a makeshift earthquake. Using the materials of spaghetti, BluTack, and rulers to create this building was one of the main challenges. We were given a price budget of $60 to buy the material ($1 per/ 10cm of spaghetti and $1 per/10 grams of BluTack.) During the prototype and final build process, we overcame many challenges and changed our design many times.
A basic outline of the requirements are as follows:
A base of no larger than 30cm x 30cm
Height of 60 cm minimum
Stay standing during the 10 second earthquake
Remain in the budget ($60)
We firstly sat down and compared our ideas coming together for a first draft of what our build will represent. Working together we were able to research together and successfully find options for how our build could look. We found options for how we can achieve a stable build then worked out the most cost-efficient option (totaling $59.50) for our earthquake-resistant build.
After we drew up a diagram and spoke with Miss Donnelly about the equipment we finally started prototyping and quickly realised our build was not going to be as efficient or cost-effective as we thought. Creating a wide list of possible options and not being successful with any of them, we resorted to making a build quickly at the very end of the lesson. This build ended up being our final idea. It had a triangular base with stronger side supports and a flat platform top.
Some of the main challenges we faced were:
Spaghetti breaking – spaghetti broke making us loose materials and our designs breaking
Not standing up straight – as spaghetti isn’t very solid and bends easily our builds often ended up being tilted side ways and not stable.
Our group got very easily distracted
The overall task was very engaging and enjoyable. I enjoyed working in groups and having the ability to learn through failure. We learned all about the current options implemented for architecture and earthquake prevention, but more than that we learned about how to structure our own research and how to create something of our own based on said research. In addition to all, we learned about the task itself we also had a great time putting together our earthquake-proof buildings.
In this project, we partnered up and chose a topic to research. My pair (Georgia Dolley and Jessica Lim) chose COVID-19. We had to work together to get the tasks done, present them in a professional matter, and sort through the plethora of data we received. After discussing the options, we had regarding data collection, we decided to format our survey and send it out to a more concentrated group of students, our own maths class. Splitting the work up evenly and working through it in and out of class we created an easy-to-follow breakdown and description of the raw data we collected.
The principles of justice are put in place to ensure a fair trial for everybody, unfortunately sometimes this is not the case. For example, Gene Gibson a young 18-year-old aboriginal man from a small rural town was accused and charged with manslaughter despite having nothing to do with the crime. Three of the principles of justice were not upheld during Mr. Gibson’s prosecution and one principle was. The right to remain silent, standard and burden of proof, equal treatment before the law and Gene used his right to appeal a few years later. Throughout this case, I will be discussing the extent to which justice has been upheld and the injustice that Gene Gibson was victim to.
Josh Warneke – Victim
On the 26th February 2010, Josh Warneke, a 21-year-old man was found on the side of the road with severe head injuries. 2 years after Warneke’s passing, Gene Gibson was brought into questioning as a witness after claims he was at the crime scene on the night. After 8 hours of questioning, 2 of which without legal representation or an interpreter. Mr. Gibson had never had issues with the law before and therefore was unaware of his rights throughout the majority of the process. Gene was sentenced and sent to prison where he would sit for the next five years.
Equal treatment before the law means to be treated the same as everybody else despite your race, gender, age, or in this case language barriers. This is a right to ensure that all people won’t be taken advantage of by the law and all people will be fully aware of everything that is happening. Gene Gibson was not once given equal treatment before the law and was frequently taken advantage of. During Mr. Gibson’s 8-hour long interview he was unaware of his right to an interpreter and right to a psychological evaluation. The police department had a 2 hour ‘off-book’ interview with Gibson with no interpreter or legal representation. Years later Gene would be tested and labeled severely illiterate, meaning during hose 2 hours he would not have understood any of the questions or legal proceeding going on. Gibson was also diagnosed with severe cognitive impairments, meaning with his condition he would be unfit to answer any questions and able, to tell the truth, while answering them. Part of his condition meant that Gibson was unable to properly participate in basic day to day tasks, he only wanted to please people and would do anything to achieve that, i.e. lie, he was also a very shy and reserved person who got easily uncomfortable when doing the same thing for a long period.
Gene Gibson – accused
Standard and burden of proof mean that Mr. Gibson would have had to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The definition of this is the burden of proofs is given to the prosecution where it is their responsibility to prove the accused is guilty. The standard of proof is the level of surety that the accused is guilty. This however was not the case throughout Gene’s case. After the interviews had been ruled unusable, there was no proof except a butchered statement, where the witness came forward and said he is unsure if it was Gibson or not at the crime scene. During the court case, the interviews (ruled unusable) were the only evidence in the case. Confirming that there was no clear evidence in the case. Gene couldn’t have been prosecuted as the evidence was not up to the standards expected.
The right to silence means that at any time in the case you can stay silent, not answering any questions, and only give your name and address. This is important in any case as you could inadvertently self-incriminate. Mr. Gibson was unaware of this throughout the whole investigation and trial and continued to be interviewed by the police. Before he got the chance to speak with a lawyer, Gibson was interviewed as a witness for 2 hours, (being interviewed as a witness meant that the officers investigating his case could get away with interviewing him without a lawyer for a short time.) The officers were talking to Gibson and treating him as a witness on paper but in the actual interview was treating him as a suspect and trying to get a confession. After a lawyer was finally called via phone (after the initial 2 hours) she requested the interviewing to stop, but the officers in charge of the case just hung up the phone and continued. Gene was interviewed for another six hours again the lawyer’s wishes. The accused was never given the right to silence throughout the whole case.
Although lots of different principles of justice were not upheld Mr. Gibson did execute his right to appeal. Right to appeal is defined as a person who has been convicted by a jury or has pleaded guilty and has been sentenced by a court judge has a right of appeal. For Gene, about five years after his imprisonment he applied for his case to be reviewed and applied for an appeal. He was quickly granted an appeal after the new judge saw the unfair conditions he was put under. Leaving prison with 1.3 million dollars in compensation. After he was released the officers in question were arrested, fined, and had their licenses revoked.
Although Gene Gibson’s case has a happy ending it could have been completely avoided if the law enforcement followed the principles of justice. Gene was not given the right to silence, burden, and standard of proof or equal treatment before the law, causing an innocent man to spend over 5 years of his life in prison. The principles of justice are to ensure a fair and equal trial for everyone, these rights need to be followed at all times.
This semester in InnovatED, I was apart of the documentary team. Our team had a big responsibility to carry out an effective and engaging video explaining what we had achieved, despite the circumstances and how the other groups performed. I chose to highlight Leadership and effective communication because we had a very special way of showing leadership and an interesting time trying to effectively communicate.
Our leadership wasn’t based on only one person, it was based on what the circumstances were. For example, we would be all working collaboratively then an issue would arise and so one person would take the lead to explain to everybody, then we would go back to being equal.
Effective communication was an interesting point for us. Although we were collaborating together we weren’t communicating properly. For example, I would be working on sorting the videos and so organising who else was helping and what they were doing, then suddenly all my videos would be disappearing because somebody had already sorted them. If we had more time I feel as if we would be able to overcome this issue and work both collaboratively and have good communication.
Hi, my name is Georgia. The most significant things about me are:
family (my background is a recent photo of my family and I)
helping others
dance
netball
travel
friends
I am a social person who enjoys hanging out with my friends and working with others in various endeavors. I like to help people, whether that be my friends or other students at school and I maintain great relationships with my peers. I also get along well with adults and have healthy, respectful relationships with teachers and all adults. I’m often relied upon to assist the teachers in the classroom and around the College as well as with my outside interests.
Overall, I am a confident, fun-loving and happy person who loves a challenge loves people and loves experiencing new things.
In Textiles 2019, we worked on creating monsters out of felt. First was the design and creative thinking exercise which I struggled with as my skills lie in writing or explaining. We drew up some characters from the movie ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ then moved onto brainstorming creative ideas. I came up with a variety of fun looking monsters. In the next couple of weeks, we drew and cut out coloured fabric to sew. This made me nervous with limited experience on a sewing machine. In this class, I learned how challenging hand sewing was. Relying on the sewing machine enabled me to move on. Looking back now, I didn’t have to take this assessment as seriously as I did. The final products were exhibited in the CPA and I am very proud of my effort and finished product.
Overall, I am happy with my Semester 2 Report. In my reflection from Semester 1, I didn’t get as many A’s as I would have liked but the work did also get progressively more challenging (it is also not about the grade.) My subjects were different from the previous Semester as well as I needed to balance Food Tech (which I was very confident in) to textiles (which I am not confident in at all). While I am happy with the marks I achieved, this made a noticeable difference in my results.
In Year 8, I would like to focus more on Maths, Science and Health as those were the only C grades I received. I do noticeably better in English and HASS, and I would like to maintain my A grade. It has always been a goal for me to get an Academic Award, but I do find it very challenging with all of my extracurricular activities and the workload getting larger. Next year I am going to put extra revision in for Maths and Science. For Health I am going to try and be more engaged in class discussions.
On the 20th of September 2018, I set off to Guangzhou with 16 of my school friends and 5 of my favourite teachers. The trip was an amazing opportunity because I was able to experience being away from home for over 2 weeks including a homestay for 5 days. I was also able to experience school in Shenzhen for 5 days. Throughout those days, I had to learn how to be friends with anyone, if they speak your language or not. We also used lots of different capabilities such as ethics, effective communication, being self-aware and organised. We had to be ethical as we were in another country without our family at age 12 and we were representing our school and our country. We had to make sure we were organised as we had to do our own washing, we had a hotel room that we shared with one other friend and we needed to effectively communicate with English and Mandarin speakers.
Another part of the trip was the exchange. A year prior I had a student come from Shenzhen and stay with me in Perth. It was a strange experience having somebody who didn’t speak any English come and stay in my house but it was an incredibility fun experience. We got to show her around Perth and via Google translate discover our differences and similarities. Even though there was a language barrier we were still friends and had an amazing time. It was easy for her to fit into my weekly plan as she came to school with me and was basically ‘my shadow’ for 3 days.
Overall, this opportunity was fantastic. I grew so much as a person, learned how to be independent, and was able to see some amazing historical sites such as The Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Warriors.
In 2019 I had the pleasure of representing my class and College service partners as a Class Representative (Semester 1) and a Service Councilor (Semester 2). When I first put my hand up for class representative, I was quite nervous. I was new to the College and not many people knew me. I took this as an opportunity to make an attention-grabbing speech. Instead of the old boring read in front of the class, I wrote my speech out on big pieces of card and got the class to read it for me. All while I was dancing to prepared music. Then for my service role, I used my experience and the positive approach to fuel my application. Applying for Service Councilor 2020 was an easy decision for me as I had a blast being able to help on the service team last year. In the image I am in the Chapel, receiving my Service Councilor badge. The Class Representative was also an amazing opportunity and the next chance I get I will be going for that as well.
While trying to learn more about homelessness, I had the opportunity to sleepout at Notre Dame University. The sleepout was most definitely eye-opening. We had to sleep rough for a night, eat food that was prepared for us by a soup kitchen (like homeless shelter foods) and share this space with a large group of others. The sleeping arrangement was the hardest, we were sleeping on a cold concrete floor in a sleeping bag, squashed up against everybody else. It would have just been a sleepless night, if it didn’t rain, around midnight it started pouring with rain. We were cold, wet and couldn’t wait to get home. This experience made me realise how challenging it was for these normal people who just got themselves into a bit of trouble. Through this experience I learned about the services that were available for people living on the streets, how easy it is to become homeless – just one or two things can go wrong and people can end up sleeping rough. One of the highlights of the evening was a performance by homeless youth where they demonstrated the transition from privilege to homelessness – it was incredibly powerful.
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