For our final assessment in Science this year, we were put into groups and tasked to design and construct an earthquake-resistant building made out of spaghetti and bluetack. This tower had to meet the following criteria:
Quick and easy to assemble
Has to have a minimum height of 60cm
A maximum base of 30 by 30cm
A platform on top which is at least 5 by 5cm.
Go through earthquake simulations of P/S and surface waves for at least 10 seconds
Costs less than $60 to build as 1 piece of spaghetti is $1 and 1 gram of bluetack is $1.
This project was a great opportunity for us to experience real-world examples of how important it is to be innovative in our designs. It taught us how much an earthquake can have on people’s lives and encouraged us to work out of our comfort zones with new people. My group involved Me, Amelia, Kanin and Ridley. It pushed us to use our communication skills and collaboration to build the most effective building we could have.
Engineering Process:
The first step in this process was to go through a design sprint. This involved us making random groups and having 50mins to create our very first building. We only got 30 sticks of pasta. This was a scary experience but our building didn’t stay up. This was an opportunity to fix our design and try something else. Our main goal in this was to create height instead of stability because it would give us the most points. Before we were allowed to start our final design we went through an engineering process to design a prototype and test if our main strategy of cross bracing would be effective.
This was our very first design sprint
The first step was brainstorming
This was the brainstorm for our group
The second part of the engineering process includes defining and research. In our research we found that the most effective ways of earthquake resistant buildings was to cross brace and use base isolation. With our limited supplies, cross bracing was the easiest and most cost effective option. Our building was specifically designed to be triangular because this would evenly distribute the weight and damage throughout the building. Cross bracing also distributed energy from the earthquake throughout the whole building. The brace walls had minimal shaking compared to non-cross-braced walls. This shows that the cross-braced walls boosted structural integrity a great deal when compared to a structure with non-cross braced wall. We ended up with a building of 84cm which was 24cm above the height minimum. We first started with a small prototype where we compared a building with cross bracing and one without
The building with cross bracing held up much better and was much sturdier compared to the one without. This persuaded us to make our whole earthquake building out of cross bracing.
This was us halfway through building
I think our group worked extremely well together and we all had separate roles which played to our own strengths. We collaborated extremely well and all helped each other. We only ended up using $45 and created a building with a height of 84cm and it withstood all earthquake simulations and even being tipped upside down. I think our building was extremely stable and secure especially after multiple tests.
First test of our shorter buildingThis was our final test of our final design.
I overall really enjoyed this project and it taught me valuable lessons of real life.
Our legal system is built on key principles and beliefs that are designed to help protect the rights of all Australian citizens. There are seven principles of justice that we follow to create a just and well-functioning society. These include equality before the law, presumption of innocence, an independent court system, the right to an appeal, the right to silence, high quality of evidence and everyone having the right to a fair hearing. Principles like this help ensure that all people who go to court receive a fair-minded and unbiased trial. These principles are important because without them, our justice system would be reaching the wrong verdicts and sentencing people to jail for the wrong reasons. For example, equality before the law is a key principle in the Australian legal system. Whatever your background is such as race, income level or sex, everyone should all be treated equally. All police, court personnel, legal authorities or representatives should treat the accused or defendant equally no matter what. This main principal links to another law which is that any individual is treated equally by police when they are being questioned. This includes their right to remain silent and not answer any questions from the police. Police shouldn’t force or pressure the accused into a confession without outlining their specific rights first. Everyone is given the right to be warned before questioning that anything they say can be used in court and their right to an interpreter. Although our system is designed to help protect the rights of all Australian citizens, sometimes the system can fail certain people and disadvantage them greatly. Factors like, coercion of suspects and witnesses, trials by media, court delays, language barriers and mental health issues can fail to bring justice to the right person. The case I will be writing about today is the case of Gene Gibson. The justice system here in Western Australia failed to treat him equally and caused a lot of wrongdoing to him.
Gene Gibson was an indigenous Australian man from the western desert community of Kiwirrkurra and suffered from cognitive impairment along with suspected foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. FASD affects a personβs reasoning, judgement and thinking. It makes people with this condition much more susceptible to suggestion. Since he was a young child, he was neglected and forced through hard times. English was his second language, and he was not entirely fluent in understanding and speaking it. On February 2010, a young 21-year-old man named Josh Warneke was found dead on the side of a road after leaving a nightclub by a taxi driver in the early hours of the morning. It was speculated that Mr Warneke was beaten to death in the Kimberley town that morning. 2 years later from his death, police arrested Gene Gibson and took him into custody to be interviewed and charged with murder.
One of our main key principles of the Australian legal system is equality before the law. It means everyone should have an equal playing field when they deal with the law. Mr Gibsonβs rights for equal treatment were extremely compromised during his investigations with the police. During the police investigation, many of Gene Gibson’s rights were violated and the principles of justice were not followed. He was forced into a false statement confessing to the crime due to the pressure the police put on him. He was completely clueless to the system and didn’t understand what was happening to him. Police asked him over and over, “if he killed the white boy”. Mr Gibson only agreed to make them stop. At first Gene said he hit Mr Warneke with a car and kept saying a different murder weapon until the right answer was provided to the police. This was an extremely botched handling of the investigation not picked up by any supervisors. It has been found that the detectives who interviewed Gene Gibson were extremely inexperienced in interviewing Aboriginal people from remote communities. This fault was also not picked up by their superiors. There are extremely strict rules to follow especially when dealing with indigenous people to make sure they are treated equally and understand what is happening to them. At first, Gene was interviewed as a witness and then as a suspect. There are very different rights when you are interviewed as a witness compared to a suspect. We can see from evidence that Mr Gibson was not explained his different rights. An interpreter was not used during this first interview and the interview was unrecorded. Due to the fact that Mr Gibson was taken in as a witness, it meant he had limited rights. Allegedly, Mr Gibson made an admission of guilt therefore allowing him to be arrested on suspicion of murder.
Mr Gibson being released from jail
In this case Mr Gibsonβs right to an interpreter and legal advice were compromised. It led to his police interviews being admissible due to these rights being violated. Evidence was extremely mishandled from the police officers. They eventually faced disciplinary action through an internal investigation that found they had the βknowledgeβ and βcapacityβ to do better. During his trial, the judge ruled his confessions as inadmissible meaning his guilty pleading could not be used as high-quality evidence. Justice Hall claimed Mr Gibsonβs interview as βThey were not voluntary, were obtained in breach of the CIA and to admit them would, in any event, be unfair to the accused.β The police did not explain his rights to remain silent and failed to allow him to understand the case against him along with the implications of his guilty plea. This was because the police officers did not offer an unbiased opinion and were not impartial during the interview processes. Due to his cognitive impairments and language difficulties, he was extremely vulnerable in this situation. He is also extremely susceptible to suggestion meaning he was easy to manipulate without a lawyer or interpreter present. Due to him being extremely susceptible to suggestion its more likely he would have said things to please the police. Mr Gibson had a right to an interpreter during his interview but was not given one. Despite the fact Mr Gibson’s primary language was Pintupi he was not given an interpreter to help him understand. Other sergeants offered to provide an interpreter for Mr Gibson, but this option was declined by the police officers. They decided to keep going with the interviews fully knowing he should have gotten the right to be offered an interpreter. During the interview Mr Gibson made a comment saying he struck the deceased with a vehicle with no relevance and significantly inconsistent to his earlier comments. His interview went on for many hours without understanding he had the right to obtain legal advice. After this, he exercised his right to not answer any more questions whilst the interview stilled continued without any clarifications from the detectives whether Mr Gibson was willing to do so. There was a failure to cease this interview after Mr Gibsonβs lawyer advised police that Mr Gibson no longer wanted to answer questions. It was extremely inappropriate for police to dismiss this right Mr Gibson had and continue the interviews.
Another violation of a principle of justice in this case washigh quality evidence. Gene Gibson’s case and prosecution was based off incriminating evidence by two witnesses. He was also speculated to be seen in the car or driving the vehicle. It was recommended through Senior Sergeant Baddok, other witnesses to be interviewed before Mr Gibson but this was ignored. We know his police interview tapes were not admissible. Although the police had these two statements, the prosecutors downgraded the murder statement to manslaughter. This evidence wasn’t strong enough to prosecute him for murder of Josh Warneke. We can speculate that the witnesses were coerced into giving their statements. Soon after, these two statements were then withdrawn by the witnesses proving that the evidence the police used for this case was not of high quality and shouldn’t have been used the deciding factor of this case. In an email from the leading police officer on the case, Mr Gibson was specified to be questioned as a witness. There was not sufficient suspicion to indicated that Mr Gibson was a suspect. The supreme court quoted βthat police had breached Gibsonβs basic rights by unlawfully detaining him, failing to record the interview, failing to use an interpreter and failing to respect his right to speak with a lawyer.β The evidence they intended to provide to the court was not of high-quality evidence and not enough to prosecute him for the murder of Mr Warneke.
In the trial for Mr Gibson, his jury consisted of mostly Caucasian people with no variety between them. This compromises one of our key principals to have an independent and unbiased jury in court. Mr Gibsonβs whole jury being of Caucasian people means they would all share similar beliefs and thoughts which in turn would not be beneficial for a fair jury. He should have been given the right of a jury with no particular race or gender. This makes it more fair in the decision the jury would have come to, whether or not Mr Gibson was guilty of the murder of Mr Warneke.
The right to appeal is another principal of justice the Australian legal system provides us. This allows people who donβt feel the decision made for their case was right. They are allowed to appeal their case provided there are reasonable grounds for the appeal. If the trial can be proved that it was unfair, or there are reasonable grounds the person is not guilty, the case will be brought to a higher court for the appeal. In the case of Gene Gibson this principle was upheld. On November 8th, 2016, Mr Gibson submitted an appeal for his guilty plea on the basis he didnβt understand what was happening. He sought the appeal to withdraw his guilty plea based off not understanding what legal proceedings were happening at the time. This appeal was supported by expert opinions and the court, with evidence proving that Mr Gibson was unable to understand the consequences of pleading guilty to his sentence due to his cognitive impairment, suspected Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and language barrier. Tests were run to identify Mr Gibsonβs cognitive functioning and it was found that Mr Gibson was unlikely to predict situations or outcomes, vulnerable in new situations and he is most likely to become overwhelmed by complex information in unfamiliar situations. We can see from this proposed information from expert opinions and psychologists, Mr Gibson was extremely unsure of what processes were happening around him and what the consequences of his words could have caused him. Mr Gibsonβs appeal was granted and a hearing from April 3rd to 6th in 2017 led the WA court of appeals to hold a hearing regarding Mr Gibsonβs appeal. It was a unanimous decision to allow Gibsonβs appeal to cancel out his conviction and guilty plea. It was a great day of justice when Mr Gibson was released from jail after 4 years and 8 months. He suffered a great miscarriage of justice and the three judges unanimously voted this. It was soon reported Mr Gibson was seeking ex gratia compensation for his time in prison and his wrongful conviction. After his conviction was overturned, Gene was rewarded compensation of AUD $1.3 million and $200,000 to be set aside for legal advice.
Gene Gibson’s family pictured from the left alongside John Warneke’s mother.
The Gibson case has been added to a long list of miscarriages of justice happening. This case highlights the failures that the Australian legal system has done to many people from different backgrounds. The principles of Justice were mostly not upheld through clear evidence in this report, police investigations, and witness statements. Many principles of justice were ignored and there were countless occurrences where equality before the law was violated. Only one instance was justice supported for Mr Gibson and that was his right to appeal his case. If Mr Gibsonβs rights were supported from the beginning of this investigation from the police, an innocent man would not have been sentenced to jail for the wrong crime. The W.A police force should have upheld justice much stronger to help Mr Gibson seeing as he had cognitive impairment. He was taken advantage of during this case and became extremely vulnerable to suggestion. It was a botched investigation from the beginning to the end and even Mr Warnekeβs mother could see Mr Gibson had done no harm. He was failed to be provided an interpreter during his investigation, his civil rights, and his rights to a lawyer. It has been proven that the investigation was tampered with, and we can see Mr Gibson suffered a miscarriage of justice which he did not deserve. Justice was not upheld and cost him many years of his life. Mr Gibsonβs wrongful imprisonment is not something any person should deserve, and it has proved to us the Australian justice system can sometimes fail innocent and underserving people in Australia.
This semester in lock we covered a range of topics. This included knot tying, rock climbing, environmental awareness like leaving no trace, kayaking and bush cooking. As we entered the program my main goal was to learn new skills and tricks that would be useful for me in the future and in future Outdoor ED camps.
Lock Camp
On Tuesday the 3rd we went to Dwellingup. This was part of the lock course, and we were required to kayak, cook and treetops adventures. The day was filled with lots of challenges for everyone and required us to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones. Treetops was a really fun relaxing activity for me because I had been there lots of times before and I was familiar with everything. We did some of the easier courses because we didnβt want to tire ourselves out for the day. Kayaking was also quite fun and it wasnβt difficult with a long kayaking trip. We played some fun games and watched people get tipped over and the water was freezing cold. Bush cooking was fun and the fire was warm to be around.
This is where we went for our Dwellingup day trip. We cooked here on the fires.
Rock climbing
When we started rock climbing it was hard to get the hand of be-laying because I missed a couple of lessons. Once I got the hang of it, it was a simple thing to do, and I enjoyed be-laying. Rock climbing was fun because it was a physical thing to do, and we didnβt have to do much theory. I think as I progressed, I got stronger and was able to go further with my climbing.
Knot tying
Learning to tie knots was quite difficult in the beginning but throughout the end I understood them. We had to tie around 10 knots with ones ranging in different difficulties. The knot tying process was quite fun when you finally got it and I was proud of myself when I finally understood them all.
Kayaking
During term 1 we also kayaked during our double periods at Shelley foreshore. Kayaking was something that pushed me out of my comfort zone because I felt abit challenged in some activities. Iβm proud of myself for pushing my limits and doing the specific activities we had to do.
Bush cooking
This term we started to learn about bush cooking and fires. We learnt two different techniques to start up a fire and give it oxygen to spread. We learnt about collecting sticks and the different sizes to set up with. Jarrah was really handy in helping our fires get started and spread quickly. We started our second cooking session last week and cooked Italian food. My group started cooking pizza this week and we went pretty well. We forgot to bring oil though which made our pizza stick to the pan. I think we were well prepared, and our fire was catching pretty well. Our first cooking session was on the day camp in Dwellingup. That session also went pretty well because we cooked everything fine, and our fire caught without needing a starter. We just caught on to the embers from the previous group.
Our fire at the campsite
Our first week of cooking in our double periods was Italian.
Leave no trace
There are 7 principles of leave no trace. These principles include plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what you find, minimize campfire impacts, respect wildlife, be considerate of others. When we were cooking, one of the principles we used for leave no trace was disposing of waste properly. We were careful to not leave any rubbish or plastic or food behind after we finished cooking or kayaking. We also planned and prepped ahead of time for our food and materials to cook with which helped us be prepared and not stressed for our cooking.
Camp and overall goals
My overall goals were to push myself to my limits and my camp goals were to try my hardest and not burn anything while cooking. I think I did well with my goals and I’m proud of my efforts from this Dwellingup camp.
Weather conditions
The weather conditions on the day of the camp were really cold but there wasnβt a lot of rain which was good and helpful for us to cook and do our outdoor activities. Kayaking on the water was freezing and if you fell in the water was ice cold.
Holly, Ruby and I on the Dwellingup camp. This was during our treetops activity.
This term in life skills we have been learning about four key topics. Neuroplasticity, training your brain, resilience/grit, and happiness.
Neuroplasticity is the ability for the brain to adapt and form new and different neural connections over a period of time. Itβs the ability of the brain to form neural pathways and connections. We heard about stories that peopleβs neural pathways were cut off and the brain was unable to form connections with the bottom half of their body. We learnt about training our brain and that you can train it on a daily basis to improve it. This is called brain plasticity which is similar to neuroplasticity. You can embrace new tasks and activities which will force your brain to think differently. This would improve your brain plasticity and train it to become more adaptive.
Resilience and grit are something else we covered. Grit is the ability to have courage to keep going and show strength from your character. To have grit meant that you had the ability to keep going and have passion and perseverance for the topic or activity youβre doing. The goals that you set were followed through and completed no matter how challenging they seemed to be. We learnt about grit and watched a ted talk about it. Grit for me is to have commitment and be disciplined enough to follow through with your goals that you set for yourself. No matter how hard it becomes, you keep going and donβt give up. Even if you have the talent for something it doesnβt mean you will succeed. You need grit to follow through and succeed. Resilience and grit are very similar but to me resilience is when you have been knocked down, you get back up and keep going.
Everyone needs happiness in life and different people are happy from various things. In class we made a brainstorm over the different things that made us happy and for example some are, money, friends and family, food, and hobbies. We watched a video about the happiest man on earth during class and he was extremely inspirational. He had been through World War 2 and was captured by the Nazis but to this day he has made it his mission to stay happy and spread positivity throughout the world. Watching that video definitely made me become more motivated to not hold grudges against people and learn to forgive and forget because were all human and make mistakes.
In term 2 for innovated, I was put into the chicken group. Our aim was to find sustainable ways to provide the chickens with bedding and create a new structure that could make sure the chickens stayed healthy and alive. We were all split into smaller groups that all had their own tasks to do. My group consisted of Aidan, Anna, Mallika and Eva. Our chickens are called Isa Brown chickens. They have been bred specially to produce lovely eggs that we use.
Goals
Our goal was to make a efficient roster and include more actions from other people in the school and get everyone more involved.
Rosters
My group was in charge of making rosters for the group. We looked at all the tasks that needed to be done for the chickens and divided them into weekly, monthly and daily tasks. I was in charge of making the daily tasks roster. This included tasks that had to be done daily so that the chickens would be healthy and have food to eat everyday along with fresh water. We devised a system where we would ask for volunteers to help out with the chickens and hopefully can involve Junior School students that would help out and learn about sustainable living and the benefits from the chickens.
This is the daily checklist. This is the weekly checklist
Process
As a whole group we all worked together to make sure everything came into place. In week 1 we researched about the different tasks that were needed to be done. We went around to all the groups that were tackling their own problems to ask for their ideas. We came up with a list and went about sorting through which ones were daily, weekly and monthly tasks. After this was done we started making the rosters and printing them out. Our group did some of these daily tasks during innovated on Thursdays like collecting the eggs and emptying out the water. Our rosters are hung up in the chicken shed with markers. Once someone has done them, they can tick it off so that we know the chickens are being taken care of. I think my group worked really well together even if some of us missed out on some lessons, we were still able to finish everything on time.
I really enjoyed this project because it was really fun still being able to socialise with friends and take care of the chickens and learn more about them. I learnt more skills and used the capabilities chart by using empathy and my design ideas. I used my communication skills and leadership skills to work in my group.
Capabilities Chart
I used the problem solving and collaborative skills in my group. Everyone in my group used effective communication to work together and hear each others ideas. This was how my group worked effectively and completed all our tasks.
The Christmas Market was an annual project year sevens did as part of HASS, English and InnovatED. In class we played the game skeleton island to teach us about one of the HASS concepts, supply and demand. There were many extra hours put into this so that our finished products would look professional and polished. As a cohort, we were required to make and design products for students and teachers to buy. We drew on many different skills we had accumulated from this year such as the ASC Capabilities Chart and Design Thinking Process. Every group in year 7 was given a $30 business loan and we had 6 weeks to come up with our finished products. Syd and I worked together and made Shower Steamers to sell.
To begin with, we used empathy to understand what people wanted for Christmas and what they could get for there family and friends. This allowed us to come up with ideas on what we could make. We used ideate to come up with many different ideas on what we could sell. We brainstormed 20 ideas in 20 minutes to start being creative with all our ideas. Once we had finalised what our product would be we started prototyping to pitch to Ms Shaw what our idea was. After we pitched our product and it got approved, we tested our product and continued to make even more stock.
In my Christmas market experience I experienced quite a few of the business concepts. Syd and I experienced scarcity, making choices and allocation and markets. Scarcity – Scarcity was experienced when towards the end of the market our resources/products became very limited and with many people wanting to buy our sold out items. Making choices – We experienced this business concept with our consumers because for one consumer we sold 4 shower steamers for $11 instead of $12. Although we sold this for a lower price we made this choice so that we would make a higher profit that just selling 3 shower steamers to the consumer. We already had a huge markup from our cost price so this decision allowed our customer to be extremely satisfied. We also experienced this when we decided not to drop our price of our product in the end of the market. We did this because we felt that we would still be able to make enough of a profit and sell enough of our products. Allocation and markets – The allocation of our products were very important in this market, our target audience was to sell and promote more towards teachers and junior school student. This was because they would probably spend more money than others. Junior school students may be more impulsive and teachers would have more money to spend
This was our business logo
In the Christmas market, we were producers that made goods for others to consume. As producers we were trying to attract many different types of consumers. For this market one of the most important consumers for us were impulsive consumers. These were consumers who would make less calculated decisions on spending money. There were also discount consumers that we could attract if we decided to lower the prices of our products.
We could have improved and thought about more environmentally friendly packaging. This was because we used cellophane to wrap our products so that people could still see them. The problem was that it wasn’t eco-friendly and we could have found other alternatives for packaging.
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I really enjoyed the Christmas market experience as we worked on making and prototyping our products over a few weeks. Nearing the date of the Christmas market our excitement was reaching a high as we completed the finishing touches. We made a total of $127.7 with a 552% markup from the Christmas market. Overall, I feel like I learnt lots about producers, consumers and business concepts from this market and I feel like we went really well for our overall end product.
Henry, Helena and I working on our utopian society
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A utopian society is where everything works perfectly, and the society is flawless. Project Utopia was a group project that we began with in English whilst reading and interpreting The Giver. As we progressed throughout the book, we learnt about finding the differences of a utopian and dystopian society. Many of us thought making a perfect society would be easy, but we were soon to find out it wasn’t! This then crossed over into humanities, science and InnovatED. Over the course of term 3 we learnt about liveability factors, being sustainable and being organised. The absolute goal of Project Utopia was to create a utopian society whilst eliminating poverty, hunger, and many more global goals. Many long hours were used to perfect and ideate our models and designs for this project. In the end, we presented our final products to special guests and parents.
The global goals were a huge focus on Project Utopia because they all linked together to try and create a flawless society. There were 17 global goals in total that we could try and solve to include in our utopian society. Every group was able to get accredited in the global goals meaning we had proven and given evidence that this goal would be eliminated and solved in our society. Learning about the global goals gave me a deeper understanding about the problems we face in the world and that we must act no matter how big or small to make a difference in our world. For example, getting accreditations allowed me to think creatively about ideas to eliminate hunger, poverty, and gender discrimination.
For gender discrimination, our group eliminated the term gender as a whole and everyone would be given equal pay and responsibilities. Eliminating hunger meant we had strict agriculture laws and grew more food that required less water resources. They allowed me to research and learn to define what each of the global goals meant. In total our group achieved 9 accreditations for displaying and proving we used these nine global goals in our utopian society.
Public speaking is something I enjoy but still find nerve-racking. Throughout my school years I have had practice with public speaking but when we presented in class, I felt unprepared. Public speaking played a big part in Project Utopia as we were required to present our speeches in English and to our parents. Many people soon told me; confidence is the key to being a great public speaker. I soon learnt to improve my skills in being more confident and presenting towards my peers and adults. As we continued to progress with public speaking I gradually learnt to speak in a calm and friendly manner. Surprisingly, I found it easier to present in front of the parents instead of the class. I think that if you can appear friendly and open to people, they are more likely to be engaged with your presentation. We had special guests like Dr Kate Brooks who talked to us about community. Anthony Spagnolo who came to us in the very beginning weeks of Project Utopia, and many others. Using hand gestures was a powerful tool I am still learning and investigating with. Hand gestures also help you access memories and I have now learnt that if I could connect with the audience to a deeper level of thinking hopefully I could get my ideas across better. Researchers around the world have found out that hand gestures make people pay attention to the acoustics of your speech.
The ASC capabilities chart is a chart divided into three main components, positive relationships, spirited agency, and powerful thinking. In Project Utopia I focused on the positive relationships side of the chart, effective communication. Effective communication is where there is communication between two or more people where the intended message is successfully received and understood by the other. During InnovatED as a group of three we had to learn effective communication so that our thoughts and ideas could be put forward during discussions. For example, we effectively communicated whilst building our model by keeping in contact online and staying organised. We were assertive in our group so that everyone’s voices were heard, and all our opinions were taken into consideration. I learnt that in the future, for effective communication to work well with others, everyone in the group should be assertive and not aggressive or submissive. Compromising is also another vital element in groupwork and effective communication. Throughout this project I worked together with my group to compromise our different opinions and I learnt that everyone has different views from model building and to poster making. Together, as a group we got past these challenges and were a functional group. When everyone is assertive it all ties in together so that everyone is equal within the group.
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Therefore, I believe Project Utopia was an extremely valuable insight to real world problems using the UN Global Goals to create a utopian society. The focus on the global goals allowed us to focus on problems happening in the world today and creatively solving them. This project allowed me to develop my public speaking skills, effective communication skills and deep thinking. In the end of this project I felt like I had accomplished something great and extended my thinking so that I learnt to look at the bigger picture of life. Overall, I feel like I could have achieved more accreditations and been more organised when building my model. We could have brought out materials in earlier so that we would not have been so rushed in the building process. It was quite stressful to try and finish everything in just a few weeks. This project has now taught me many different skills that I will continue to use in high school. All in all, I feel that Project Utopia was a huge and eventful success which allowed everyone to learn something from it.
