Utopia – A non-existent place with perfect living conditions, rules, Government… etc.

In Term 3 of 2021, we were assigned the project called Project Utopia. Upon reading ‘The Giver’ in our English lessons, we were tasked by Nicole Lockwood who is a Consultant of Infrastructure, Planning and Regional Development to contribute our ideas to the Fremantle Port redesign. This would mean that our version of Project Utopia would become closer to a ‘real-life’ scenario rather than creating a design for an imaginary, utopian society. After deciding what we were going to do as our project, we needed to research questions such as ‘What animals can legally be kept in tanks?’ or ‘How can we help our injured animals?’. This was so we could become knowledgeable about our topic so we could pitch our ideas and vision board to the guests and visitors on the day of the presentation.

This is our discussion with Lamis Sabra about our idea for the project. Lamis Sabra manages an education program known as ‘Creative Schools’ and has worked in several countries across Asia. In this image, we had only just decided where potential locations for our idea were and how they would be beneficial. In this stage, we were still planning what to do.

Liveability

In our HASS lessons, we were introduced to the concept of liveability. The liveability of a city, town or community is measured through factors. Some liveability factors can vary due to age, cultural background and values, they influence people’s ideas or opinions on living in a certain area. Others are more essential such as environmental quality and access to healthcare and education.

I came to realise that liveability would come to be a vital area within our plan to make a Marine Rehabilitation Centre because adding liveability factors to the area would only help by enhancing the quality of people’s lives. For instance, since our idea contributes to economic factors, our project not be increasing the comfort of peoples homes, but it will add more opportunities for employment which will steadily improve the liveability of the Freo area. This subject will most likely be important in geography for the coming years if we work on a similar project to this one.

Global Goals/Sustainability

The UN Global Goals are Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which were created by the United Nations. All of the Goals are trying to be accomplished by 2030 in the hopes of removing poverty, hunger and inequalities. These are just some examples of what they hope to accomplish. Our group agreed that our idea was focused specifically on two Global Goals. They were Life Below Water because we aimed to preserve and rehabilitate marine life and Sustainable and Cheap Energy because of the need for a large amount of sustainable energy for our idea. Since this centre would require a substantial amount of energy, it would not be sustainable for us to resort to using fossil fuels and gases to use as energy sources. This is why we were planning to use a considerable number of solar panels to help maintain the well-being of the injured creatures.

I can apply my learning about the Global Goals and Sustainability in many upcoming projects. Sustainability is a key part of any task with an objective to design or create something. Just like Project Utopia, the design aspect of any inventions or ideas should include sustainability to be practical.

This is our Vision Board. It was a way for audience members to understand more about our project. All the images are connected to our idea and some can show more things about our project that were not mentioned or explained fully in our speech.

ASC Capabilities

The ASC Capabilities are several skills/attributes that make a person more well-rounded and help improve your future self. These capabilities were heavily encouraged by our teachers during the project because of how useful they could be in our future lives seeing as they are transferrable to any situation or experience.

The primary capability we used effectively was creativity. This capability was extremely useful during our planning. From the planning phase of the project, we soon narrowed our project down to two water-based projects, an aqua park and a marine rehabilitation centre. Apart from that, our group’s creativity in addition to some of Mrs Chapman’s ideas, helped us to decorate our vision board. I learned that our creativity could lead to (in my opinion) a unique idea to help redesign a portion of Freo port and an attractive vision board design.

A capability that we found more challenging was collaboration. My group members and I all found it challenging at first to collaborate. Honestly, this may have been the case because of the disappointment that we were not placed with our closest friends. It was because of this struggle that we discovered the importance of collaborating and how much work we would get done if we stopped bickering over our small predicaments.

This is the ASC Capability Wheel, as mentioned earlier, these capabilities are attributes to improve yourself and make you a more well-rounded person. The two capabilities that I needed to improve on were organisation and effective communication.

Public Speaking

Public Speaking was overall a more difficult part of Project Utopia for me. Since we were nearing the end of Project Utopia, we were set with another hurdle, public speaking. As a more reserved person, it is hard for me to speak in front of an audience while maintaining good pitch, pace, power and pause (Several skills that are used along with body language to speak well in front of a crow of on-lookers). All groups had their own speeches prepared for both the in-class assessment and the day of the showcase. Whether it was presenting in front of my peers (while being recorded) or speaking in front of multiple visitors from Murdoch University, I found both to be very challenging yet very eye-opening at the same time.

Looking back on the presentation in class, my power was lacking and my pace was too fast. In the future, I can keep these experiences in mind when presenting or speaking in front of an audience. After this public speaking experience, the best I can do to improve is to ‘Fake it until you make it’, familiarise myself with the speech and practise until it is more fluent.

This is our group presenting on the day of the presentation. We had spent around two to three weeks on the speech and we did our best to perfect it. This was one example where our group had to collaborate. If we did not communicate effectively, we would have not been able to finish writing and memorising our speech.

Undoubtedly, this project was filled with many challenges and obstacles that my group and I needed to overcome. From Project Utopia, I’m glad that I have improved my organisation and collaboration capabilities, even if it is only by a small margin. Now that I realise these things, there are many major improvements I would make and things I would do differently. Of course, our lacklustre time management and teamwork along with several other small details. However, thanks to this experience, I, along with my humble classmates can take away so many skills for future employment, free time or even when working on other projects similar to this one.