Project Utopia spanned across Terms 2 and 3, harnessing many different subjects and demanding a variety of skills. The overall goal was to create a perfect world that everyone would want to have a part in.

Gaining Accreditation For Sustainable Cities and Communities

Before any of the practical work, however, we were introduced in Term 2 to the concept of utopian and dystopian societies through a book called The Giver. After a series of tasks requiring us to contemplate the flaws in the society where The Giver takes place, we began looking at different methods that could improve the overall liveability of a community. Those became know to us as the Liveability Factors. We briefly touched on SPICESS, the acronym for all the Geographical Concept during the Term as well. Up until this point, all the work had been mostly individual. Term 3 was more collaborative, with everyone forming groups and coming together to make one vision of an utopian society come to life.

For me personally, the big challenge was trying to collaborate and compromise with my partner Emily. As someone who mostly works alone, it was difficult for me to agree to disagree, because I was much more used to charging forward and doing things my way. But despite running into initial disagreements with design, both of us managed to come together and run the project smoothly. Together as a team, we did face quite a few stumbles, such as realising our original Greek-inspired circular utopia with a massive tree in the centre was not very suitable. Even though we lost time on redrawing the plan, it was actually a good thing in the long run because the new design was much easier to build and explain.

Building and CoSpaces

This project required us to either build a physical model or a CoSpaces digital world of our utopian societies. At first, Emily and I ran into issues with deciding what format we wanted to build with, especially when we started losing time on our initial failed plan. Our Facilitator Mr Haxby advised us to do a CoSpaces as there was a higher chance of us finishing in time than if we built a model. Despite this, we ended up pushing forward and creating both a CoSpaces and a model version of our utopia, which were both finished for the showcase. I feel like by doing this, Emily and I developed Problem Solving and Organisation skills.

Accreditations

During the Innovat[ED] sessions of building, we were also offered the opportunity to gain Accreditations for the UN Global Goals, which we had touched on at the beginning of Term 3. In order to attain Accreditations, we had to prove to our Facilitators that we had found a solution to one of the Global Goals. Emily and I decided to focus on only a few Global Goals and really think deeply about solutions to them. In the end, we managed to gain three Accreditations for Climate Action, Good Health and Wellbeing and Sustainable Cities and Communities. It was quite a struggle to spend so long on each Accreditation, but we agreed that it was for the better.

Constitution and Legal System

When we began the Civics and Citizenship unit in Humanities, a government system was developed in our utopian societies. After learning about different ways a country can be governed, we began to think and develop our own ideas about a perfect system to rule over our utopias. This involved developing a constitution that would act as a visual aid to our presentation. As the constitution assignment came very late into the construction of our communities, my partner and I decided the best thing to do was to divide and conquer. This resulted in me drafting our constitution and Emily drafting our other visual aids. In the end, we managed to finish for the showcase, and throughout the process I think we learned Effective Communication skills as well as developed trust in one another.

Speaking Presentation

Public Speaking became a part of Project Utopia in Term 3 as we prepared a speech for the final presentation. Like the constitution, it came quite late into the process, so our strategy was to divide the tasks as evenly as possible. This resulted in Emily drafting and editing our script for the speech. Once again, we learned to Problem Solve (dividing and conquering) and Collaborate (bringing the separate components together)

At the end of the project, I think I learned quite a few things about myself and the world around me. For starters, there was the unfortunate fact that utopian societies are impossible in the real world. But more importantly, I discovered that I am able to compromise on my ideas, as well as problem solve and figure out the best way forward after a setback. Overall, Project Utopia really opened my eyes to all the possibilities and hidden skills I never knew I had.

Organising Global Goals