Sustainability Project Reflection
Written Description
My first thoughts on the project was how engaging and free it was, and I loved how we could express our creativity into building a structure or space with a sustainable design. I personally like being outside and so I loved being outside learning new construction building skills and also having a purpose to build these structures. It was also really awesome that we could actually make make these structures not only for a grade but so we can use them ourselves for our years to come here at our school.
During the field trips going into the community and also having guest speakers come in and teach us about sustainable design and how sustainability works, I learned how many different materials were used into building a sustainable house and how they are made and used. I also learned how gardens use different plants to keep their gardens thriving with good food. During this I learned how all the different plants work together. Through these field trips I also did have some questions unanswered like, How did they find these great materials to use on a sustainable house that work effectively? And I also wondered how the gardens kept their vegetation thriving even during colder times of the year.
Sustainable design comes in various forms and can be incorporated in the strangest places you would never even think of. It's all around us and we don't even notice it. Overall based on what I have learned on sustainable design I would have to define it as an eco-friendly balanced self maintaining structure or area.
Outdoor Prototype Description
After learning about sustainable design and how it works we were assigned to find out how people generally feel comfortable and peaceful in an area. We interviewed various people of different categories and found that many enjoy nature and natural things around them when they are at a peaceful state of mind and feel relaxed. The interviews helped us complete some needs and values to help us design and construct a structure that would meet these goals.
During this time we had freedom to be creative and design and construct an area students and community members could relax and maybe learn, study, or socialize in a peaceful environment. I took advantage with the time and freedom to help come up with ideas on how the structure could be structurally sound and how we could make the aesthetics of it look nice and inviting. Me and my group members also came up with other ideas along the way when things didn’t exactly go our way.
Thankfully we finished our small structure and had some successes that we had planned. We had it
built with a shaded sheet metal roof and had nature around the area and had a nice seating inside that has pillows and a weatherproof carpet that keeps you cool on a hot summer day.
Well me and my group members all helped build and stabilize the structure, but something I incorporated with the help of another group member was the graffiti art inside and all around it. We really liked the idea on how it could reflect the creativity of our animas high school culture.
TEA Paragraph
During this project a “HOHAM” or a Habit Of Heart And Mind that I grew the most in was Perseverance. The reason why I say it’s perseverance is because originally at the beginning we wanted to make a pergola structure above the creek and to get this done we tried to get permits and funding so we took up a week of our time trying to contact engineers and architects and have people pull different permits. Unfortunately by the end of our week we couldn’t get a permit on our limited time, so we had to switch gears and build something else, somewhere else. Through this whole process we had to persevere in failing to get our challenges done and when we realized it wouldn’t work with our time limit we immediately switched our idea with only a week left and we had to persevere to get this completely new project done.
A Habit Of Heart And Mind that I need to grow in to be the best project based learning learner is advocacy because when we were building me and my group members didn’t get much advocacy when we were having problems. If we had used advocacy we could of possibly realized we couldn’t get the permit in time and could of had more time on our new structure.
A time when things got hard and I solved it was when we realized we couldn’t get the permit and my group members wanted to keep waiting for it. I suggested moving on to a new idea and using our same principles that we were using on our old idea. Me and my group thought hard and came to a conclusion that this was our best option.
A time when things got hard and I couldn’t solve it was when we were trying to pull a permit. The permit was the one thing stopping us from building and it was taking a lot of time. This was difficult because no matter how much we called different departments and different people, it was still the same wait time and there was nothing we could do about it.
Success for the project when we started would look like planning ahead for certain legalities to our ideas and start funding sooner. It also would of had things planned out with more organization. Success for the project now looks like a nicely built structure that serves its purpose to have people enjoy the outdoors to help them concentrate on work and enjoy people around them.
If I were to give a new student advice on how to begin this project I would have to say to make sure to look at every aspect of the project beforehand, even if it could take away from some creativity. The realities should come first, then you can add whatever you want to make it nice and creative. I would also advise to use advocacy for any little thing so they can get things done faster and more productively.
My first thoughts on the project was how engaging and free it was, and I loved how we could express our creativity into building a structure or space with a sustainable design. I personally like being outside and so I loved being outside learning new construction building skills and also having a purpose to build these structures. It was also really awesome that we could actually make make these structures not only for a grade but so we can use them ourselves for our years to come here at our school.
During the field trips going into the community and also having guest speakers come in and teach us about sustainable design and how sustainability works, I learned how many different materials were used into building a sustainable house and how they are made and used. I also learned how gardens use different plants to keep their gardens thriving with good food. During this I learned how all the different plants work together. Through these field trips I also did have some questions unanswered like, How did they find these great materials to use on a sustainable house that work effectively? And I also wondered how the gardens kept their vegetation thriving even during colder times of the year.
Sustainable design comes in various forms and can be incorporated in the strangest places you would never even think of. It's all around us and we don't even notice it. Overall based on what I have learned on sustainable design I would have to define it as an eco-friendly balanced self maintaining structure or area.
Outdoor Prototype Description
After learning about sustainable design and how it works we were assigned to find out how people generally feel comfortable and peaceful in an area. We interviewed various people of different categories and found that many enjoy nature and natural things around them when they are at a peaceful state of mind and feel relaxed. The interviews helped us complete some needs and values to help us design and construct a structure that would meet these goals.
During this time we had freedom to be creative and design and construct an area students and community members could relax and maybe learn, study, or socialize in a peaceful environment. I took advantage with the time and freedom to help come up with ideas on how the structure could be structurally sound and how we could make the aesthetics of it look nice and inviting. Me and my group members also came up with other ideas along the way when things didn’t exactly go our way.
Thankfully we finished our small structure and had some successes that we had planned. We had it
built with a shaded sheet metal roof and had nature around the area and had a nice seating inside that has pillows and a weatherproof carpet that keeps you cool on a hot summer day.
Well me and my group members all helped build and stabilize the structure, but something I incorporated with the help of another group member was the graffiti art inside and all around it. We really liked the idea on how it could reflect the creativity of our animas high school culture.
TEA Paragraph
During this project a “HOHAM” or a Habit Of Heart And Mind that I grew the most in was Perseverance. The reason why I say it’s perseverance is because originally at the beginning we wanted to make a pergola structure above the creek and to get this done we tried to get permits and funding so we took up a week of our time trying to contact engineers and architects and have people pull different permits. Unfortunately by the end of our week we couldn’t get a permit on our limited time, so we had to switch gears and build something else, somewhere else. Through this whole process we had to persevere in failing to get our challenges done and when we realized it wouldn’t work with our time limit we immediately switched our idea with only a week left and we had to persevere to get this completely new project done.
A Habit Of Heart And Mind that I need to grow in to be the best project based learning learner is advocacy because when we were building me and my group members didn’t get much advocacy when we were having problems. If we had used advocacy we could of possibly realized we couldn’t get the permit in time and could of had more time on our new structure.
A time when things got hard and I solved it was when we realized we couldn’t get the permit and my group members wanted to keep waiting for it. I suggested moving on to a new idea and using our same principles that we were using on our old idea. Me and my group thought hard and came to a conclusion that this was our best option.
A time when things got hard and I couldn’t solve it was when we were trying to pull a permit. The permit was the one thing stopping us from building and it was taking a lot of time. This was difficult because no matter how much we called different departments and different people, it was still the same wait time and there was nothing we could do about it.
Success for the project when we started would look like planning ahead for certain legalities to our ideas and start funding sooner. It also would of had things planned out with more organization. Success for the project now looks like a nicely built structure that serves its purpose to have people enjoy the outdoors to help them concentrate on work and enjoy people around them.
If I were to give a new student advice on how to begin this project I would have to say to make sure to look at every aspect of the project beforehand, even if it could take away from some creativity. The realities should come first, then you can add whatever you want to make it nice and creative. I would also advise to use advocacy for any little thing so they can get things done faster and more productively.