Month: October 2020

At the beginning of term 3, we read a book called the giver which was a dystopian fiction novel which the people thought of as a perfect world. I then began to learn about the livability factors which were environmental quality, climate, infrastructure, safety and stability and access to healthcare and education. After that I learnt about sustainability and that was when Harry and I built our sustainable house where I learnt about water and energy saving features and behaviours in science which helped me to build a more sustainable and livable society.

Before I could start designing, I had to fill out different sheets explaining the details of our Utopia for example where our utopia was located. After I had finished those 3 worksheets we were put into groups with 2 other people where we then started planning and mapping out how our Utopia would look and where everything was located so that we knew what we were doing when we started constructing. We did a few draft designs before we could move on and start making our final copy.

We had to make a choice if we wanted to create a physical model or create a virtual model in co-spaces. We decided to make a physical model and moved onto creating our actual Utopia. We used the laser cutter down in the hangar to create our houses and buildings and plaster-cine to make our ocean, beach, parks, grass, and agricultural areas. The members of our group learnt how to operate the laser cutter and how to piece it together. As a group we had to consider how we were going to fit everything into the black cardboard plate we had been given. This taught us how to conserve and manage space appropriately and how to deal with limited room.

Accreditations were little slips of paper, each represented 1 of the 17 global goals for example no poverty, good health and wellbeing, quality education and so on.  These slips were handed out to students who had defined, addressed, and stated the impacts of it on their community. After doing this the student would be eligible to apply for accreditation to 1 of the 5 accreditors who would decide if they deserved the accreditation. This benefited my learning because I learnt about all of the UN global goals and learnt how to address them in our Utopia. This also benefited my presenting skills when applying for accreditation. For the duration of the Utopia project our group achieved 4 accreditations, Climate action, Good health and wellbeing, Quality education, and industry, innovation and infrastructure.

The oral presentation was a speech that was based around livability, sustainability, and the UN global goals that me and my group members had to present to the class. It helped me improve our presenting skills for example PVLEGS, which stands for Poise, Voice, Life, Eye contact, Gestures and Speed. This activity also assisted us in memorising most things in our Utopia so that we were better prepared and knew what we needed to improve on ready for the showcase. Being able to see other groups presentations benefited our Utopia because it gave us new ideas which my group hadn’t thought of before.

As part of our Utopia presentation my group and I created a constitution containing the fundamental principals that outline structure, purpose, and powers of the people in our Utopian society. In creating this constitution, I learnt about the importance of the constitution and the many different aspects that make it up.  I also learnt about the different ways that people run a country for example, a Democracy, Dictatorship, Monarchy, Republic, and Communism. At the showcase we had to talk about our Constitution which aided my presenting skills.