For year 9 camp we went to Kalbarri and explored the national park. The purpose of camp at All Saints College is to build relationships and to work together in a team with some that we generally wouldn’t and overcome challenges and obstacles.
Skywalk
Majority of the days we were hiking in different locations including z bend, the coast and the gauges where we had to use different skills as a team such as communication to warn each other of any dangers, teamwork when we had to cook our meals and set up tents as well as encouragement and enthusiasm when supporting others while they were doing challenges such as the bouldering down in placid pool.
Cooking dinner
Working with others is important for our working future we may have to work with people that we don’t like very much but must utilise their strengths in order to to get maximum enjoyment and an amazing experience. An example of where we had to utilise people’s strength was when we were hiking, a few of the experienced and confident hikers would stay at the front and lead the group while all the slower people would then be behind them and set the pace while the rest of the confident and people who are better at hiking would stay at the back.
SkywalkGauges
There were also many other skills that we’d use to support ourselves to keep us going throughout the hiking journey. We’d continuously have to preserve as we were carrying big hiking packs everywhere proving a challenge which had all our food, tents and personal belongings. By persevering through all activities it became a fun and enjoyable time where we tried many new activities, found new interests while doing other stuff that we may not have liked as much.
The problem that we were required to solve was that many buildings weren’t strong enough to withstand earthquakes as seen with the 2015 Nepal earthquake that destroyed many homes and were struggled to be rebuilt in the aftermath as in 2 years only 5% of the homes had been rebuilt. Our task was to build a scale model structure that could withstand a major earthquake that would be simulated through a shake table. When building we were required to use the design thinking process which started off with a 50min design sprint where we had to build and plan the structure in the set time that would fit all requirements. We had a $60 budget and our structure would be made out of spaghetti ($1/stick) and blutack ($1/g). Our next step was to research and brainstorm potential designs and different structural supports that we improve our design. We then constructed our structure which wasn’t very structurally supportive and didn’t have any room in the budget which is why we then started a new structure that actually turned out quite well. It was then put on the shake table where it survived and was destroyed after a 100g weight was added.
Our original design that didn’t have very good structural support
Some changes that I would’ve done in terms of the process in the future is to maybe spend the time planning our design a lot better and looking at many potential different designs that are much stronger in terms of the structural supports. Reasons why I would improve the ideating stage is because our original design that we were planning to do was not very strong in terms of structural supports which affected our whole structure as it couldn’t generally hold itself up. Looking back now we should’ve looked at multiple potential designs that are slightly different but still had the same concepts with cross braces, equal distribution and triangles as they’re the things that supported the structure the best. In terms of collaboration it definitely had its flaws as our communication wasn’t the best in terms of what our individual jobs were as we couldn’t all build at the same time as we’d get in each others way. Although we also all had our strengths as Paula was good at the ideating stage, while Kate was the one who did most of the problem solving while I did most of the prepping for the build.
It was a highly enjoyable project that helped us connect to real world problems while collaborating with others
Do you know what ‘me time’ is? When was the last time you had some?
For our health wellbeing expo our task was to identify a problem that teenagers face that can affect their mental health/wellbeing and to find a solution/strategies to enhance wellbeing/raising awareness and to provide strategies to overcome the issue. My group decided for our focus to be on taking time for yourself and to do what you enjoy.
To me taking time for yourself means to be able to have time to reflect on your feelings and to be self-aware. Some things that you could do that involve taking time for yourself include hanging out with friends, doing a hobby/sport such as soccer or art or even something as chill as reading a book or sleeping. But for others it may mean something different according to Jessica Kasparian it doesn’t always include the things that you enjoy doing such as going to doctors appointments or cleaning the house. Although there’s always one general consensus between all of the definitions that it’s about taking care of yourself.
While doing this project some things that we’d learned include the benefits of taking time for yourself. A study completed by Kelton global surveyed over 1,000 people in the U.S.A about how they view self care, how different generations engage in self-care and what stops them from having time for self-care. According to these studies 40% feel that they rarely have time for themselves and 45% of parents and 32% of people without kids don’t have time for self-care and if they do have time then they feel guilty for not doing something. WHO have also now diagnosed burnout as a real medical diagnosis showing the significance of how important it is to take time for yourself.
A piece of advice that I would give to young people about taking time for themselves is to not overfill your schedule or be/feel overwhelmed as it’s not going to help you in the long term. Every week leave gaps to hang out with friends, read a book, get some extra sleep play your favourite game or just doing something that you love. Wellbeing is a real thing and is affecting many negatively so take care of it as it takes care of you.
I pledge to take time for myself and to have at least 30mins of self care during the week and an hour on the weekends/holidays. Some things that I will do include walking my dog, reading a book, playing tennis and cooking. I choose to do these things as I enjoy them all and is a mix depending on how much energy I have and the weather as I can always read a book even when I feel tired, walk my dog which is easy to get motivation for as someone never forgets when it’s time, while playing tennis I can hang out with friends while doing something that I enjoy and get physical activity and cooking I personally find peaceful and eating it after is always enjoyable. It should be easy to stick to these things as they’re already incorporated into my everyday life as I enjoy doing all of them.
After semester 1 where we created our business Pen & paper we felt as if we had more to us so we went to something completely different and went to candles. Yes, that’s right we created a new business called SoyNatural Candles, but they weren’t any ordinary ones otherwise how would we be able to sell them ours were infused with natural plants and herbs that came out of our back garden and were made with soy wax meaning that it’s better for the environment. We chose to make candles because there was currently a big demand for them at the time and we also wanted to try new things.
Some challenges that our group faced during the process of this include finding decent priced soy wax as we didn’t want to harm the environment by using paraffin wax as well as finding a way to make them unique. We also had to do all of our production at someone’s house as we were required to melt the wax in a saucepan and keep the herbs and plants fresh when we put them in there. After our first market we found out something that had been happening to our candles. They were going mouldy because the plants had lots of air but this was easily solved by just covering the plants in the wax meaning that the plants wouldn’t have any air so that they’d mould.
During the production of our candles we would meet up every fortnight after school to produce our candles as we had 2 markets in that term and had to complete lots of pre-orders. Luckily we were able to produce them in bulks as we’d fill up the saucepan about halfway and 1 person would keep an eye on it while stirring while the other 2 would put the plants/herbs and wick inside of the jar meaning that we’d be able to produce them quite fast as we could allow the wax to dry overnight.
Some improvements and additions that we’d made to our candles include adding more plants and herbs as well as new sizes. We’d originally only had 1 size candle which was 150ml which would be infused with either flower petals or rosemary. After the first market we then added a new size which was 300ml and add new plants and herbs which were holy basil, lavender and some cute pink flowers. We’d constantly post on our social media page taking aesthetic pictures trying to get the word out of our business.
Altogether our business was quite successful and we were able to make $50 profit each.
For semester 1 I had decided to do $20 Boss where we were required to start our own business and sell our products in a market during week 9. This was similar to the Christmas market but also had its differences because we were able to relate it since we had to create our own product I’d joined a group where we were all very creative and would take leadership but little did we know that our ideas would clash. After brainstorming many different ideas we’d made our final decision to make customised notebooks. We’d decided to make customised notebooks because we can all agree that notebooks can sometimes be utterly boring and writing is a skill that has been lost over time. Writing can help many things including mental wellbeing as it can be used to write down your emotions and feelings or could simply just be to draw or write in some schoolwork. This is why we decided to get some potential design covers and choose what cover they personally wanted. We thought that with all our skills we’d be able to easily accomplish it but it was a lot more challenging than expected with a lot of steps. We’d started off by doing a design sprint challenge where we had to explore different ideas to solve a problem within the world.
A picture of my group at the market
The capability that was most useful for us was creativity and there were also many others to improve on include organisation like who was going to do what in terms of production as 2 of the group members did most of the production and also a thorough timeline and actually trying to achieve our goals. We also could have used effective communication as we didn’t make it clear if we were going to meet up or collect materials and who was going to do what in terms of production and advertising.
Measuring book covers
On the 16th of June, we were all ready for the market although we were only taking pre-orders we had a prototype for our customers to have a look at. The market went successful and managed to make a $20 profit.
In this project, I have grown by learning to work with some different people to what I usually do and I have also learnt that every idea won’t always work which is why we continue ideating to make our idea even better than it was. If I were to do this project again I’d focus a bit more on time management and figure out how long it would take us to make the notebooks. Even though it didn’t go as well as we were hoping to this was an amazing learning experience for all of us.
Project Utopia has taught me many new and exciting concepts about how I can incorporate my learning in different subjects that include English, HASS, InnovatED and Science. The purpose of Project Utopia was to design our own community which also included lots of many other steps.
Reading The Giver was the beginning of the journey where I would learn about the concepts of a ‘perfect world’. Some of the ideas of a Utopia in The Giver included no cars and walking or having a bicycle, everyone doing a certain amount of service time to help out with different jobs which the Elders (Committee) choose depending on who suits the job the best. In my community one of the ideas that I included was not using cars and walking or cycling.
In Sustainability I learnt about how to reduce water and energy usage through behaviours and features by designing and building a sustainable house. Some of the water saving behaviours included two-minute showers, watering the garden in the early morning or evening and turning off the tap while you are brushing your teeth. Some of the water saving features of a sustainable house were a rainwater tank and low flush toilet. The energy saving behaviours included turning off lights when not needed or if the room’s not in use and only turning on the dishwasher when it is full. The energy saving features are insulating water pipes, solar panels, insulated walls and roof and LED lights. These initiatives will help the world in different ways like making sure that countries do not have a shortage of water, reducing use of fossil fuels and production of greenhouse gases.
Sustainable house
In my Utopia I included these sustainability features by putting solar panels on top of all buildings and having rainwater tanks around the community.
Sustainability also led to consideration of the environmental quality of my Utopia. This included where various services were located leading me to think of liveability factors such as building a community as it would influence the friendships and quality of life within my Utopia. The subjective factors would attract people into the community depending on their likes and dislikes. These liveability factors would help me to decide what buildings I would want to include in my Utopia.
In preparation for making my community I designed an overall plan. To me, the main thing that I had focused on was environmental quality as it affects the climate and the way that people live. I made provision for renewable energy and lots of green space for residents to enjoy.
A big part of my Utopia was the UN Global Goals. These are Sustainable Development Goals many countries wish to achieve by 2030. Most of them are focused on the environment and basic everyday needs. After prioritising the seventeen Global Goals, I could seek accreditations in some of the areas that were of most importance to members of my group. The accreditations gained were No Poverty and Affordable and Clean Energy.
No Poverty Accreditation Affordable and Clean Energy Accreditation
I achieved the goal No Poverty by providing financial support such as having affordable babysitting and childcare centres to help support families and having a homeless shelter for people who don’t have access to everyday needs such as food, water and shelter. The other accreditation was Affordable and Clean Energy which was achieved by having solar and wind energy within the community.
While doing Utopia I had to use nearly all the College Capabilities such as problem solving by figuring out how I could provide solutions for the Global Goals like No Poverty and Affordable and Clean energy, collaborate by working together effectively in a group and effective communication by sharing ideas and helping each other. There were also lots of other capabilities that I used like creativity when considering how to make my community unique and being organised which helped to decide what would be the focus and priorities each week. The College Capabilities have helped me to work stronger and more productively as part of a team.
College Capabilities
Project Utopia has been a challenging and amazing learning experience which has improved and taught me many new skills, as well as helping me to gain experience of the issues involved in planning modern communities.
