Utopia project
The first thing we did for the project utopia was read the Giver. The Giver was a book that was trying to have a perfect community with nothing bad happening like crime. Everyone would have the same rights and the same house, but the community was not perfect, then the teacher had the idea of creating a perfect community.
For the sustainability of our community, we focused on a community that has addressed the goals of sustainability by implementing sustainable energy sources, such as wind energy, solar energy and tidal energy. We also undertook the goal of sustainability by growing most of our products for our Utopia. We also studied a sustainable house which helped us to make a sustainable design for our house which was energy efficient. For the energy we put 15 solar panels on top of the house and we also painted the top of the house black so it attracted more sunlight. Another topic we focused on was behaviour, for behaviour we made sure we turned the light’s off when we were not in the room and we only had 4 minutes showers.
The Utopia went over 2 school terms and the whole idea was to make a community that is sustainable, safe and fun for people to live in. We had to make our designs for our Utopia and then I was put in a group of 3 with Oliva and Callum. We put all three of our designs together and made a better design, then we started to decided if we were going to do a physical model or a Co-Space electronic design. Liv, Callum and I chose to do a physical model.
At the beginning of the project we had to research or plants that were sustainable for people to grow in their house and farms. We also researched what was the most common plants that were grown and eaten from people’s gardens. We came up with black peppers blackberries, raspberries, so we started to plant them in peoples garden’s for them to eat.
For the global goals we had to research all 17 goals and we had to pick three or four that we wanted to go for, then we had to write notes about them and then try for accreditation to get that goal. If you got the accreditation you would put it in to a folder and you showed that you got that globe goal in your Utopia.
In the second term, we had to make a presentation about are global goals, liveability and sustainability. Then we had to show it to the class. We had to explain what we did for the global goals, sustainability and liveability. In humanities, we had to make a constitution for are Utopia that was about what type of community we are and what rights people have and the rules for our Utopia.
I think we could build a better house and come up with a different design instead of using the same design four or five times. We could use paper for are grass instead of using a lot of green clay. What I would do differently would be coming up with more ideas to help the Utopia be more sustainable and help my team out by writing one of the accreditations for my team. The thing I found challenging was the constitution and doing the public speaking. The parts that I liked the most were building the Utopia, while getting to know people that I would not normally talk to. I also liked working on the sustainability because I got to learn more about our current situation world and what is going on. I also liked planning the Utopia, drawing it all out and seeing what it would look like when putting it all together with your partners and seeing the amazing worlds you could come up with.
Overall I felt it was a great learning opportunity and I would happily take on a challenge like this all over again.