Project Utopia is where a collaboration of students worked together to design and create a “Utopia”.
My group loved the Utopia model we built, the flyers, the constitution and the PowerPoint presentation. Plus during the night, we spoke confidently and proudly. However, our group never envisioned our display to turn out so well because we hadn’t been using our time as efficiently as possible during InnovatED.
I would probably focus more on the task at hand, then leave it to the last minute. Otherwise, we would be stressing out a lot more and exhausting ourselves. Finally, I enjoyed setting up for the showcase the most as you managed to see other groups “Utopia’s” and the differences between them. Whereas during the actual showcase, you didn’t get many opportunities to look at your friends work.
Personally, this project was a fantastic experience for me and my peers, and I believe it will also be for the future Year 7’s. Honestly, I would change nothing besides our time management. We knew that we had ages to finish the project, but as time progressed, our group began to run out of time as we were mucking about for the majority of InnovatED. However, we got our act together and produced something fantastic and innovative.
The beginning of this project began in Term 2 English with the book The Giver. An idea of a “perfect” society is introduced to us. Despite this “Perfect” community solving major world issues, it still had massive downsides. Little did we know that this was only the beginning of the Utopia Project.
From there, we moved to design and construct a sustainable house in Science. The homes we were creating tried to be as eco-friendly as possible. After that, we learnt all about the five livability factors and then designed and formed our individual “Utopia’s” in HASS.
Following up from HASS, we were learning about all 17 UN Global Goals in InnovatED and the various ways that people from all over the world, were attempting to confront and solve the global issue. Around this time, we were forming groups to create a group designed “Utopia”.
During the coming weeks of InnovatED, we’re constructing and designing our Utopia’s. Now and then, groups would come up to their Facilitator and attempt to go for accreditations. There were 17 accreditations you could receive, for each of the 17 Global Goals. It’s a complicated system, so I’ll oversimplify it for you. You had to persuade your Facilitator that you had solved a Global Goal issue to be accredited. My team and I received two accreditations.
Preparing ourselves for the Project Utopia night, we created an Oral Presentation which was a small rehearsal in front of our class. The Oral Presentation was being presented later during the Project Utopia night. We also received feedback from it, knowing where to improve.
Finally, the massive night came of Project Utopia. The whole Presentation lasted for over an hour. Family and Friends came to witness the innovation and technological advancements that Year 7’s had implemented into their Utopia. Parents threw questions at the Year 7’s, on how components of their Utopia worked. Once the night concluded, I guarantee the Year 7’s learnt a variety of things over the whole process.
Looking back at the project and all of the connections, I understand that everything has to work together to form a “Utopia”. For example, we use natures own resource the wind to create sustainable energy. Which is, return, creates a clean environment.
We’re using a desalination plant to remove the salt from seawater, allowing us to have access to excessive amounts of drinking water and not being limited to less than 1% of freshwaters.
We also possess a fish farm within the island, which we breed fish to produce a sustainable population of fish. The fishing farm gives us a sustainable food source. We’re using a hydroponics farm which grows crops, except with fewer amounts of water. Hydroponics allows us to preserve water and still produce the same quality of crops.
Lastly, 60% of our island is full of trees and wildlife. For starters, this allows the island to look visually pleasing, and trees producing fresh oxygen, as trees absorb c02 and produce oxygen out of that, allowing the air quality to be very high in our “Utopia”.
During this whole project, many subjects had in someway linked in with Project Utopia. Such as Debating. Debating had improved our public speaking abilities dramatically, meaning we could speak confidently and clearly during the showcase. The English Oral Presentation had some involvement in speaking to audiences too.
Science links with the project, through the sustainable houses. Everyone aimed for their sustainable homes to be as eco-friendly as possible. Also, aiming to produce the lowest amounts of c02 emissions. Our “Utopia’s” was also aiming to become as eco-friendly as possible, and the least amounts of c02. Strangely, I see our sustainable homes as somewhat like a small-scaled Utopia.
HASS links with the project, through the “Utopia’s” constitutions. Each country around the globe has there very own, which states how the government operates, the rights of the people, responsibilities of leaders etc.
Finally, English links with the project, through the book ‘The Giver’. This book held the idea of a “Perfect” community and was the first teaser towards the whole project. From ‘The Giver’ I learnt that diversity is what makes us unique, and perhaps we don’t need a perfect society.
Project Utopia is a much larger project than just an ordinary school one. Project Utopia forces you to think outside of the box for genius and innovative ideas that may solve massive world issues. Besides who knows maybe, your crazy answer to solve a world problem eventually could be the real-life solution.