-What Is Project Utopia?-
Project Utopia was our project on the redesigning of Binowee Yaringa, which is Noongar for green place by the sea. It included many past lesson factors such as The Giver, liveability, and other things that would help us remodel the port in a way that would be sustainable as well as impact the people living there. As part of the project, we brainstormed some liveability factors and what Global Goals they connected to, prepared speeches and even made a to correctly to scale model with all the things that we would include in the new design. This may have included lots of greenspace, retail areas, and other forms of transport other than cars. To help us understand the amount of space there was, we went to Fremantle Port and filled out a small booklet about the history and Aboriginal heritage of Fremantle.
-The Giver-
The Giver was a book we studied in Term 2. The main idea of it was a display of a perfect world (a utopia) compared to a imperfect world (a dystopia). The community, was an example of a ‘Utopia’. This meant there was no pain, no emotions, and no real families. The main character, Jonas, was given the role of the receiver of memory, which meant he would be given all the memories of the past, which included pain and sadness, but also happiness and colours. As he received all these memories, he started to think about the current world he was living in, and the potential in it. This helped us in the redesign of Binowee Yaringa because it gave us insight to what a utopia and dystopia would be like and the concept of it.
-Geography: Liveability Factors-
Before we started working on the model and speeches, we learnt about the 5 factors of liveability, which includes environment, society, culture, economy, and infrastructure. This connects into the Future of Fremantle by informing us of some things we may need to include in our design so that the port will be liveable for the people living there and sustainable for the environment. It was very helpful when we were writing our speeches, as some things we needed to include in our topic was how it would be liveable for the people living in Fremantle.
-Capabilities-
Some capabilities I have used in Project Utopia includes effective communication between both me and my peers, as this enabled us to work better as a team so we could achieve more in less time. This was very important when building the model, because it required a lot of leadership, collaborative working, flexibility and organisation coming from everyone so the model could be done in time. Another thing was problem solving when things didn’t turn out the way they should have. This was also important for model building because if something didn’t go right,
we would need to prioritise quickly before that problem got worse. Another capability used in Project Utopia was organisation, especially in preparing our speeches. Our speeches were based on what was going to be included in the new design. I needed to be organised and practise before we were going to perform in front of the class. If I wasn’t organised enough before this happened, I wouldn’t know the speech well enough to perform. Overall, Project Utopia was a good experience and has definitely improved lots of my skills.
-Speeches & Cospace (Term 3)-
In Term 3, we were working on writing our speeches, making the model, and creating our cospaces. Cospaces are digital 3D models that you can use to create different scenes. We all had set topics to write and create, then we would present to the parents about all our ideas. To learn about public speaking, we practised some of the skills such as body language, eye contact, speed, and expressions. This all helped us to present in a formal but informative way. We had to collaborate as a class to put all of our ideas together to help make the final model . Clear communication was key in this because if we weren’t focusing and working as a team, we wouldn’t have been able to get the full model done in time. My topic that I had to write about was the town square. I had to present about how the town square is liveable and how it would benefit many people. I also had a cospace to accompany it, featuring a water fountain in the centre and many retail buildings surrounding it. On the model, which was to scale, the town square equalled a total of 100 metres by 100 metres, as said in my speech, it was better for people’s eyes visually and they feel a lot safer in a smaller space.
-Some Showcase Pictures-
