Project Utopia was a group task which we completed in Term 3, we had to plan, design and create an perfect society for humans to live together in harmony. My team was made up of three people myself, Finbar, and Jayden. We had to select a number of  the global goals from the UN list which we felt was applicable to our society. We had to think about sustainability aspects of our environment  design and how people would live in society and we had to create a model of some sort (eg physical model or a digital co space Digi-model) to incorporate all of these ideas. This reflection will show what I have learnt, what my group could have done better and what I personally could have done different to support my group.

The Project Utopia introduced many of my cohort to the UN Global Goals. I was lucky enough to have prior knowledge from when I was in Year 5, my primary school had a strong focus on community and sustainability.  My group discussed each of the goals at the start of the task and we ranked them in order of importance from 1 to 17.   We felt confident that we had a clear understanding of the UN goals but our ideas did differ about each of their importance. Project Utopia therefore also develop our group work skills.  We did, however, have a few hiccups along the way, as well as some issues related to teams member arguing. Good teamwork means that everyone has a role to play and must pull their weight to achieve the goal and complete the task. Some times you have to compromise and sometimes you have to agree to disagree.

There were a few areas were my group could have performed better, we did not really divide the workload fairly and my teammates’ communication skills were lacking. Fin took on the research and Jayden and myself created our model. Even though I liked building the model at the start I felt that I would have liked to have been involved in gathering some of the research to support our ideas, this task was completed by Fin.  As a result, Fin was overwhelmed and overloaded  Communication works when people listen to the content of what other people are actually saying. I feel Jayden liked to argue with Fin to get a reaction, it was as if Fin was Bi-Carb soda and Jayden was the vinegar and they were an explosive mix. I was on the outside like the beaker, Ii had no control over their reactions. When our team did not work together we ended up missing out on our accreditation and this was frustrating and annoying because we had worked so hard and then missed out on the final step at the end. Communication between members was challenging at times and this area let us down.

I felt that I was a team player,  I tried my best to balance the group and to provide a compromise between Fin and Jayden. I was able to make many aspects of our model. I am a hands-on learner and liked being able to make things. I would have liked to use the 3d printer and laser cutter to make our model look more professional however the 3d printer was broken and other members of the cohort were using the laser cutter. I enjoyed the presentation evening the most as I am confident to talk to people and I enjoyed our presentation evening. Fin and I presented mainly to parents and visitors because Jayden left earlier. I was more than happy to play my part as I love talking to people. I  was one of the last people to leave at the end of the evening and I helped to pack away.

Project Utopia was a really enjoyable activity and I felt we were able to demonstrate a few of ASC capabilities. On reflection, my group began to develop our creativity, communication and organizational skills and in the previous paragraphs I have shown that we have not yet mastered some of the skills. Communication and organisation were our areas of weakness and if we were to do the project again we would create a chart outlining what we need to do each week and who was responsible for each of the tasks. We could divide the tasks evenly and spread the workload across all three members of the group, so one person would not feel overloaded. I could also then be involved in the research instead of Fin taking this job on by himself as he had done at the start of our project. Project Utopia pulled everything together we have been learning through English, HASS and Science in a fun way through hands on learning, which I loved.