Project utopia is an assessment where we have to create either a model or a cospace of what our perfect society would look like. We did this by getting into groups and collaborating to come up with our own personal utopia by using the global goals.
LEARNING AREAS
In the project, I feel 4 subjects related to the utopias the most. The first being English as we read the Giver book which gave us a better understanding on what a utopia was and what can be included into a utopia. In English we also made speeches to present our final utopia to the class to showcase all the hard work we had done.
The second subject being HASS as we first were introduced to liveability factors. This helped us learn about what cities and countries can do to function well. I used this understanding of liveability to contemplate what different people may need and what our community needs to be liveable. During HASS we also made individual utopias that included our ideas of what a utopia should look like. I had to negotiate with my group to have bits of everyone’s utopia put into our final product. After this, we made our constitutions in HASS which helped us learn about civics and citizenship because we found out what the layout of a constitution looks like and how to change the constitution.
The third subject is science as I was introduced to sustainability for the first time. I learnt about how to keep a community sustainable and to show our learning, in pairs we made sustainable houses. In the sustainable houses we had to have 35 different sustainable features. This helped me have a better understanding on various aspects of sustainability such as water saving and energy saving. I used this knowledge to make our community sustainable with different aspects such as bay clean up huts, solar panels and green roofs.
The fourth subject that connected to our utopia is InnovatED. InnovatED was when we started learning about the global goals. We made a chart that had all the global goals and what they link to. During InnovatED time was the time to build/think about our utopias as well. We had to think of ways to get various accreditations and ways to make our community more sustainable. We had to then build our utopia models which required hark work and dedication to get it done on time.
ABOUT MY UTOPIA
We named our utopia Anaea Bay. We called it this as Anaea means butterfly and we feel butterflies are peaceful animals and we would like our utopia to be peaceful. Continuing with the peace aspect, we have a dove on our flag, so everyone knows our utopia is peaceful. We have a dove on our flag and not a butterfly as doves are more well known for being peaceful.
One main cool feature in my utopia was edible water bottle stations. They are wrapped in a seaweed casing making the entire water bubble edible, this cuts down on single-use plastic. We have these edible water bottle stations all around the community so you can get them at any time.
ACCREDITATIONS
During the final presentation of our utopia my group and I handed out brochures to give more information on our accreditations. The accreditations we received were for good health and wellbeing, sustainable cities and communities, reduced inequalities, and quality education. I will be explaining why we achieved two of our global goal accreditations.
We are addressing the goal good health and wellbeing by having a recreation center with many activities you can do by yourself or with a group that can strengthen relationships and bonds. We have activities such as a pool with water aerobics and swimming club, dance and drama lessons, sporting events and a games room. This helps your wellbeing as you can do fun things with your friends and family.
Continuing with good health and wellbeing, we have many green spaces around our community. Some green areas we have are parks, picnic spots and a bushwalk. Green spaces are scientifically proven to improve mental wellbeing as you are outside in the fresh air and with something colourful around you. We have healthcare, which is the same amount for everyone as we don’t want people’s health to be dependent on the income they make. We also have minor emergency stations around the community, so if you don’t want to go to a doctor as you are surrounded by sick people and there is always a long line, you can go to these stations to get a quick fix-up. They are also a lot closer to any area in need of immediate medical help.
The next global goal we got an accreditation for is quality education. We have 1 school that is religious. We only have 1 school because it will not cause conflict whether being religious or not. We also have University and TAAFE combined and the name for this is TUNI.
ASC CAPABILITIES
During the utopia project we had to use many All Saints’ College capabilities. The main College values that I feel I used in this project were organisation, leadership, and collaboration. I feel organisation is important as I had to remember all the different things to bring on each week. I also had to stay on task and have a plan on what I was going to get done that week. This helped me improve my organisation.
The next capability I feel was important was leadership. At several points throughout this utopia project, I had to take charge and say what I thought we needed to do to stay on task. I also had to say my ideas clearly all speak up when nobody else in my group could. Having leadership as a capability for this task really took me out of my comfort zone and helped me speak my ideas.
The final capability I thought I used in the utopia project was collaboration. Collaboration played a big part of the utopia project as the entire activity was done in groups. My group was Amelia O and I and even if we had separate ideas, we had to negotiate to get a better outcome. This value links to problem solving as through collaboration, you problem solve to get things done. Another time we collaborated was working together to get the work done. We worked well together, and we barely ever had a disagreement in the utopia project and if we did, it was probably over something small. This is why collaboration was a big part in this project for me.
DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF THE PROJECT
During the utopia there were many moments I thought were extremely enjoyable and other parts I found challenging. I got through all the challenges though and turned out with an awesome piece of work and ideas. Some of the aspects were…
MOST CHALLENGING
The thing I found most challenging in the utopia project was getting the building finished one time. I was so focused one our presentation and accreditations that sometimes, I did not get as much building done as I had hoped. This was okay as we took time out of class to do various aspects of the building and altogether, got our utopia built to a high standard.
Another aspect I found challenging in the utopia project was talking to the guest on the final presentation. I found this hard as parents, students and special guests were asking us many questions we had never considered. How we got through this challenge was, taking 10 seconds to think of an answer and giving it our best go.
MOST ENJOYABLE
The part of the utopia project that I found most enjoyable was when we talked to the experts. I liked this part of the project as we got to learn new and innovative ideas which helped us have a stunning end product. The experts also gave us confident with ideas we were not as sure about, such as our edible water bottles, and helped us improve ideas to have them better than before.
WHAT DID I GET OUT OF THIS PROJECT AND WHAT WOULD I CHANGE?
Something I got out of the project utopia was that you may not succeed on the first try. My group and I were going to make edible water bottles but the ingredients to make them did not come in time. We had to improvise and make something new. We had the idea to make them in zip lock bags but, the bag burst, and the water leaked all over the floor, so it didn’t work. We ended up on the idea of having a photo and explaining and this worked quite well as everyone was intrigued and asked us questions about this idea.
Something I would change if we had to do the utopia project again was that we could get accreditations from all facilitators not just some particular ones. I think this would have worked better as there would not be such long lines on waiting to get an accreditation as more facilitators would be free. This would help as we would have more time to work, not just waiting in line.
I would not change anything about the making of our actual utopia as I really loved our end product especially the constitution and model as they had a bunch of cool features I liked.
In all, I really enjoyed the project utopia because I got to come up with creative ideas and do hands on making with friends.
