Project Utopia

        

Utopia means a “perfect city”. The word Utopia can mean different things to different people. It could mean upholding the global goals, having an eco-friendly world, or looking after every single living creature on this planet. But what Utopia means to me, is not to have everything perfect, but to respect and look after this planet. It means that the economy is structured so that everyone has a job and that the global goals are met to the expectations of the people, that our world is eco-friendly, that the communities we live in have safety and stability and that everyone has a sense of belonging. A Utopia needs to have laws and rules, whilst also having a strong government. So instead of dwelling on the thought of a Utopia, we put that into action.

Before we even understood what a Utopia was, we read and analysed a book called “The Giver”. The Giver was about a ‘perfect utopia’ where there was no colour, or animals, or individuality. We thought that this Utopia was not a perfect community at all, in fact a dystopia. We relialised that there was no such thing as a ‘perfect’ society. Then, in science, we focused on sustainability and we had to work in pairs to try and make a sustainable house (e.g like most of the houses had solar panels, chickens, water tanks, etc.). We had to make our house ‘perfect’ and eco-friendly.

Then we worked on Livability factors in HASS. Here we had to research about livability and what would the communities be like in our Utopia. In Livability we looked at the 5 major objective factors (Climate, Environmental quality, Infrastructure, Safety and sustainability, Access to health care and education.) We also looked at cities with good livability and found that Australia had some cities with top livability features. We also did some research, and I found the bio-bus from Sweden (it’s a bus powered by human and food waste) .

We also got to start looking at what our Utopia would look like as a bird’s eye view , by drawing a digital map of everything in our Utopia to see how it was unique and special. Then our tutor group teachers chose our project groups, I was put with Emily Ji and Paula Krause. After working on our individual Utopia’s. We had to start brainstorming and choosing what aspects we like about our Utopia to combine into one big Utopia. We had to discuss what the name and location would be, as well as think about what the pros and cons of our choices. For example, we chose to be near Norway because Paula’s and Emily’s individual Utopia was close to Norway, mine was near Hawaii. We chose near Norway because  its cost less to get warmer by putting on jumpers and using heaters. In hotter places, like Hawaii, they use more electricity to keep cool. In the end our name was called “Lunina”.

Then in Digital ICT we worked on a website called ‘Co-Spaces’. We had to code a maze, this helped my group a lot because in the end to make our utopia we chose to use co-spaces. We also learnt ‘java script’. We wouldn’t be able to make our Utopia without these skills .

Then it was my favourite part… InnovatED. In InnovatED we started our design process. While we were making our utopia, important visitors came to see what our utopia would be like. Every session of InnovatED, important visitors came to look at our ideas they gave us information about the global goals that were handy for us. . We also had ‘accreditations’. This is where the utopia groups would go up to a teacher and tell them our group’s solutions for one of their global goals. If you didn’t have enough information about the global goals, then you would get sent back to find more solutions.

In my group achieved many accreditations: we got 13: Climate Action, 3: Good Health and Wellbeing, 15:Life on Land and 1: no poverty 1. By myself I managed to achieve- 4: Life Below Water and 5: Gender Equality. All these accreditations were very hard to accomplish. When Emily and Paula were working on the utopia I went and I got (by myself) 2 accreditations goal number 14 life below water and goal number 5 gender equality. I got sent back one with gender equality because I got mixed up with gender equality and quality education. But in the end, I got gender equality.

In InnovatED we got to choose either Co-spaces or modelling. My group chose Co-spaces because we thought it would be easier instead of modelling. This involved a lot of connections and communicating. Then in English in our groups we had to make a speech about liveability, the global goals and sustainability. We split the roles in the speech, so I did liveability and Emily did the global goals and Paula did sustainability. We all had to research  and present some sections.  I had to present about the community, the sense of belonging and safety & stability. Emily had to research about the accreditations and the global goals. Paula had to research about the Bio-bus  and the environment. We had some difficulties because with our speech we didn’t split the jobs evenly which was a big problem. But in the end, we all finished our speech and when our class (7X) did a vote on which one had the most information, we were one of the groups that got picked. I think my group felt pretty proud.

Then it was HASS: Civics and Citizenship. Firstly we did a facetime incursion with a tour guide in the parliament in Canberra. We did a virtual tour of the whole building and we learnt how our Australian government is run.  Secondly, we read a story called the “Island”.  We learnt about the types of governments (Constitutional Monarchy, Republic, Monarchy, Anarchy, Totalitarian state, Democracy, Dictatorship, Federal government and Local or regional government.) We also learnt how elections work and how to vote. It was a big decision for my group, but we chose Constitutional Monarchy for our ‘utopia’  because we quite liked the Australian government structure.  Then we had to make a Constitution (a constitution is basically like a rule book of your utopia). In the process  of making the Constitution we decided to again split the job. In our constitution it had to involve A  Preamble, the Rights of all citizens, the Government Structure, the Responsibilities of elected officials, the Responsibility of the community members, the Participation, the Decision making process, Changing the constitution, the Pledge and the Conclusion.

We also had to design our flag. Our flag had a Moon in the middle and a reef connected to the moon with a leaf in the middle of the moon and the reef. The flag was designed by Paula. The Leaf means the environment, and the moon represents how our ancestors found the island, and the reef symbolises the connected community and having a sense of belonging.

Then it was InnovatED. we had to finish up our utopia and co-spaces, we made a lot of infographics and we also made 15 flyers for our visitors to look at what our utopia is like, and what features it has. In the making there was only one problem. The problem was co-spaces had a technical issue and we lost all of our coding. We couldn’t get it back but luckily we had already saved our co-spaces before the problem happened, so it didn’t affect my group. It did have a huge affect on people working on co-spaces. In the end we made our co-spaces, and it went well.

We presented for the parents, teachers, students, and visitors at the Project Utopia Showcase. At that moment I felt like I wasn’t nervous and I knew my information pretty well so I could answer questions. After the presentation, we were voted by the teachers to go to a conference called “It takes a spark”.  My group now gets the opportunity to present our utopia to more and more people.

 In the end, Paula, Emily and I all felt very proud of what we did. What went well for me was working in a group with Emily and Paula. Although we had small difficulties we worked well as a group. I also showed my teammates what I am good at ( getting the accreditation) and what I was having difficulty with (doing the constitution). What I think we could have done better was splitting the work evenly because in some areas Paula did more than I did. We could have done better at communicating with each other because when work was due some of us didn’t know and the rest of us didn’t communicate that there was work to do. We also needed to be clearer with each other.

What I could have done differently was to be more patient with my group members and also try to do more work. What aspects I found challenging were writing the constitution because some of the wording in the constitution I didn’t understand. When I had to write my bit of the constitution I found it really challenging. I also found challenging doing the public speaking in the English speech. I had to use public speaking a lot in the utopia project and I found that very hard to do especially when I was talking either by myself or talking to important people.

What part I enjoyed the most was being innovative and actually designing the utopia in co-spaces and doing the infographics. I also enjoyed being in a group with Emily and Paula. I know we had our ups and downs, but I think overall we were a great team. I also loved reading the Giver because I got to see the perspectives of what Jonas was feeling when he was living in a “utopia”. To him and to me it wasn’t a utopia. I have to admit I loved all of the process. There were some difficult aspects, but it was good.

In conclusion, Lunina to me was utopia. We had completed everything and we had some outstanding features and our government was structured. We  used many of the ASC Capabilities:  organisation: so we could be organized and finish all our jobs e.g. constitution or the geographical concepts (place, sustainability space, environment, change and interconnection).

Leadership: whenever we had a disagreement someone had to speak up and put the two ideas together.

Collaboration: we needed to work as a team to get things done. None of us could finish the work without the help of others.

Effective communication: we had to tell what we thought was best. We had to communicate to each other so we could improve our ideas. 

Problem-solving: we always had an argument or a small disagreement we had to solve, so we could get over the problem. We had to think outside the box so we could complete the job.

Self-aware: we had to put a lot of effort in.  We had to see what was happening around us so we could figure it out.

Resilience: we had to get over it even when sometimes we didn’t want to.

Inquisitive: we had to be curious about everything we had to find it out to make the ideas and to solve the problem.

This is how Project Utopia was made. It was a simple thought that has come to this. It is quite amazing after seeing how much effort my group and I did. And I am very proud. I am so glad this opportunity became Project Utopia

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By Alicia Reynolds