About Alicia Reynolds

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WAIS TALENT IDENTIFICATION PROGRAM

Part 1 (Description)

On the 25/8/2022 at All Saints College, I got an email about a sporting opportunity that was run by WAIS and it was a Talent identification program. This was for kids who wanted to do it. The program was set up to see if you had Olympic potential for certain sports that were less popular. The sports were rowing, kayaking, and cycling. I ended up volunteering for the program as well as lots of other kids. We had to go to the school gym to do the testing. They tested stuff like weight, height, vertical jump, stationary bike sprints and endurance. Afterwards I got an email saying that I got into the program for Track Cycling. Then I had to go to an information night where they talked about track cycling and road cycling. They explained how lots of kids enjoyed the program, and that the program only ran for 5 months and would finish after the WA state championships. Then I went to the velodrome and started my training.

Part 2 (Feeling)

Went I got the email about the program I was really excited because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was also a bit nervous because I really wanted to be selected, but I didn’t know what was involved. I think other people felt nervous and excited as well because when we did the testing everyone was concentrating because I think we all wanted to do well, and we wanted to get into the program. After the testing I was surprised when I got an email saying that I hit a benchmark score and I got into the program. I was really happy and when I told my parents they were really proud as well. I was also very eager to start the program. Then we went to the meeting, and I was excited and nervous. They talked about how this program would end in 5 months’ time, and then they gave us information about when it was going to start and so on. When I first went to track cycling, I was really nervous. The first day there were no girls and just boys, so I felt like I had no friends. Some girls joined later, and I ended up being friends with all of them in the end.

Part 3 (Evaluation and analysis)

When I started track the most positive thing was that I made friends and had good friends with me, and we all had a close connection because we were all in the same boat, and also the group became really close. The most negative bit was probably the self-doubt in my head. I thought that I wasn’t good enough because I had a slow start at the beginning, but I ended up enjoying it. What went well was that I could slowly see that I was improving. And after the progarm I ended up being the gold medalist for Western Australia for the U15 girls scratch race. I was really proud. People who helped me were my coach, parents, friends, competitors, and other people who just supported me along the way. And if I had to do it all over again, I would probably believe in myself more.

Part 4 (Conclusion)

I learnt about myself, that anything is possible. You just have to want it really badly. I also learnt that if I push myself a lot can happen like when I wanted to compete in the State Championships, and I tried my hardest and I ended up getting a good result. What I learnt about that particular situation was that being organized was a major thing because if your bike isn’t ready then you can’t do a proper warm up which can effect the race. It can also be really stressful if you’re disorganized. I learnt a lot about my coach’s and what techniques they use. For example one of my coach’s only likes practicing sprinting techniques. What I could have done differently was that I could have been more organized, and I should have stopped the self-doubt in my head when I started racing because I was always coming in that last group. I got really upset but I just needed to believe in myself a bit more. The skills/knowledge I would need to develop further is that I need to get into the habit of hydrating before a race, so I don’t get dehydrated. I also need to learn how to balance schoolwork and cycling and my other sports. The Advice I would use for 2022 is that I need to be properly prepared for races and I need to get better at studying because the homework only gets harder from here.

Part 5 (action)

This new learning can help me by being more organized and being more proactive and not relying on people for bike repairs and stuff like that. Also, I can get better at bike handling skills in the future. The goals I would like to make for the end of this term and next term is that I want to get better with handling both cycling and schoolwork at the same time because I don’t want to fail schoolwork. I am creating this goal because I think it would help me, and I need the goals or else I won’t succeed with schoolwork and cycling. Then I can’t do what I love the most which is cycling, if I don’t have balance. I think my goals align with my values. I will monitor my goals by getting myself a tutor to support me with schoolwork. I am also going to use my dairy more and I am going put my phone in another room so I don’t get distracted by it. I will see how that goes for a week or 2 and then I will improve the goal and I will keep it on track. The people who would be involved would be my parents, teachers, and my tutor. At the end of the term, I will see how I have improved through my test results at school.

Part 6 (my goal)

Is to get better at finding a balance with my studying so I will be able to manage my schoolwork and my cycling together, so I can keep progressing in the future.

Here are Some photos of me and the WA State Championships

Lock Dwelling Up Day Trip

Lock Dwelling Up

On the 3rd of May all the Lock classes went down to Dwelling-up for a day trip. The activities we did were kayaking, bush cooking and the tree top adventures course. In Dwelling-up my goals were to set up the bush fire with out any help and to do one of the hardest levels of tree top climbing course. I ended up completing though’s goals in the end.

Kayaking – Resilient

The first activity I did was the kayaking we only had a hour of kayaking because of the road works which slowed the bus down a bit. The first thing we did was we got all our gear and kayaks and the instructor told us that we had to be push down a flight of stairs. It was scary at first but it was really exciting some people even flipped there kayaks. Once we were all in, we kayaked for a bit and then we played a game in our kayaks were we had a ball and we all had to grab it and try to score a goal in our kayaks. The Capabilities we used the most in kayaking was Resilient because when we found out we had to get pushed down the stairs most of us were scared and nervous so I think we all had to use resilient to go down the flight of stairs, but it was all fun in the end.

Bush Cooking – Effective Communication

The second activity was bush cooking were we had to make are lunch. I was in a group with Anna and Amelia L. Our jobs were divided up; I was setting up the fire, Amelia was the cook and Anna got the equipment. We were cooking Noodles with egg, mushroom and tomato. We all bought for the food and some equipment for the cooking. The first thing we had to do was Anna got the wood and matches and I started the fire, while Amelia was chopping up the food. Once the fire was ready and it was going, we started with putting the egg, mushroom and tomato first because it took longer to cook. Then we put the noodles in the billy and let it all cook. It all ended up well in the end. The capabilities we used was effective communication because I was working in a group and we had to share the roles and without effective communication then we wouldn’t of had a well cooked lunch.

Tree top Adventures – Problem Solving

The last activity was tree top Adventures , this was my favourite activity. There were levels on the course yellow, orange, green, blue, red, black and advanced black and then there was the zip line course. I did green, blue ,red, black and the zip line course it was very fun and the views were amazing. We had 2 hours of this. There was one course I did were we had to jump from rope to rope but I got stuck in on of the ropes because my harness was tangled I had to use problem solving to get my self out of the ropes which was scary because I didn’t want to fall. But I used the Capabilities Problem solving to finnish the course.

7 STEPS OF LEAVE NO TRACE

In Bush cooking we had to leave no trace after finishing our fire. Here are some of the principles we used the most while we were bush cooking :

P1 Plan ahead and be prepared

All the food we brought was from our own homes, once we finished our bushing cooking we all made sure that nothing was left behind. We also had to be prepared with our equipment so we had to bring biodegradable plates and knifes and forks. We had to make sure the camp site look like it did before we used it. After packing everything up we picked up 10 pieces of rubbish.

P3 dispose of any waste

If we had any waste we would have to through it way in the bin or put it in the fire so it gets burnt to ashes. We also picked up any litter so the campsite was clean. Afterwards, we also had to take most of the rubbish home because most of the bins were over full so we took it home. We also had to bring cutlery that was biodegradable.

P6 Respect wildlife and clean up afterwards

We also had to do a proper clean up to make sure nothing was left behind. In my group we had someone watching the food so the wildlife wouldn’t get the food and get sick. We also had to make sure if there was any food in the fire that it was burnt down to ashes so the animals wouldn’t eat the food. We also made sure to pick up any rubbish so the birds wouldn’t eat it.

Job INTEREST

In Life skills we had to explore a Job that interested you. The Job that interested me was a special education teacher. A Special Education Teachers teach primary, middle or intermediate, and secondary school students with learning difficulties, hearing impairment and sight impairment, and promote students’ social, emotional, intellectual and physical development. The weekly pay of a Special education teacher is $1,914. The gender balance is 86% female and the growth potential is very strong which is good for the future. And the job openings over 5 years is 12%. Here is a video below more about being a Special Education Teacher.

https://collegegrad.com/careers/special-education-teachers
How to become a Special Educational Needs Teacher - Salary, Qualifications,  Skills & Reviews – SEEK
Here are some photos and data about Special ED teachers

Here is some data
Self-Care Strategies for Special Education Teachers | AC
Back-to-School Tips for Special Education Teachers | Reading Rockets

$20 Boss

Mia, Sophie, Dylan and Me were all in a group for $20 dollar boss. Our business was called OceanCo. Our products were tie die socks and painted CDs. Our group goals were to sell lots of our products and make a lot of money the capabilities that my group relied on the most was Dylan’s drawing my advertising and Mia’s and Sophie’s tie die making. My groups successes were that we sold all of our products and that we got a lot of money. One of the downside was it was hard designing our products because we didn’t know what cool design we should do. We solved that by surveying people and asking for their opinions.

Up above are some painted Cd designs that we used and that people liked

Project Utopia

        

Paula, Emily and Me presenting our utopia at the showcase

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

By Alicia Reynolds

My Photography From Coral Bay

#save the turtles
reef shark 🦈 we need to stop killing these beautiful creatures

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