During this project, we were tasked to create a perfect community. This project spanned across term 2 and 3 with separate tasks from each subject starting with The Giver in English which was set in a perfect (utopian) community. I worked in a group of 3 to collate all our ideas of what we thought a community is.
We learnt about sustainability. Here in science we learnt to value the importance of renewable and non-renewable sources and how they can benefit our utopia. We gathered this knowledge to work up to our next assessment, by creating a sustainable house. In this project we learnt water and energy saving strategies and how they can help sustainability. Learning about sustainability and renewable sources, I recognized the importance of these strategies and how they can positively affect the establishment of a utopian society.
During term 3 we researched the importance of the UN global goals and how they could be included in our community as part of Innovat-ed. The global goals are desires that the whole world wants to have for a more sustainable society. With this knowledge, we could go for accreditations to show that we addressed various goals in our Utopia, for example, no poverty and zero hunger. I addressed these goals by explaining how they impacted my utopia and what the benefits are. With all the information I had, I could clearly explain the global goals my group were accredited for.
In HASS we learnt about the constitution, which gave us an understanding of democracy and civics/citizenship. This helped me in establishing a government, along with setting rules and guidelines. With this understanding, I could form a proper constitution for our utopia by describing its purpose and defining the duties and responsibilities.
I improved my public speaking skills by making sure I learnt PVLEGS (poise, voice, life, eye contact, gestures, and speed). This helped me in explaining and answering questions regarding my utopian society to my peers on presentation night.
My group decided to create a physical model for the utopia. We faced many challenges with constructing and designing the buildings. I found this part difficult at first because I was not organised, but I realized that if I stayed focused and worked together with my group members, we were able to finish our project on time.
I found that the ASC capabilities were very effective during this task, especially organisation. I found this tool to be very useful during this project as it helped in resolving issues and kept my group focused on the task. I learnt that being organised not only helped me with this project but also with other day to day challenges such as getting your diary signed or making sure your bag is ready for the next day.
After finishing this project, I have realized that if we were given time to finish the project outside of our class, we would not have been rushed in constructing the building models. Having time to work on our project during HASS and English was helpful.