Xavier's Digital Portfolio
Sustainable Design Project
How did the project "roll out"? What were your initial thoughts and feelings about the project?
The project I was assigned to was one of the many garden groups. I was put into a group with Leit, Alexis, Garrett, and Milo (who switched to another garden group later on). Milo was replaced by Colton. We came up with some ideas on how to build the garden and found a location at the school to make it. My initial thoughts and feelings on the project was like “Who’s going to take care of the garden?”, “What purpose does a garden at school serve?”, and “I don’t really know how we’re going to get the funding for a garden.” Some of my feelings for the project sort of went down because it didn’t really seem like anyone in my group was into this. I felt like I did most of the work while the others in my group went and did their own thing. After that I got the garden built after talking to some of my group members and we made it out of large stones.
What learnings or questions did you come away with?
The field trips were fun and learned a lot about how to make a sustainable home. I learned that people make their homes with windows that face south so that during the winter the sun will heat up their home. I learned that different types of materials have different resistances to fire and that most houses would be built with those types of materials.
What is sustainable design in your own words?
​Sustainable design is creating something that’ll be used even after the creators have left and will continue to have a use. It is also something that could be constantly refined by people who use the item or thing daily until it becomes something that has hit its full potential.
Some of the ideas we had as a group was that it needed a good source of water, used non toxic materials, and was eco-friendly. I came up with some designs of the actual garden and what types of plants/ small crops could go there. Some of the designs used the creek near our school as a sustainable source of water. And some of the other designs were mainly made for the aesthetics of the garden. Some included rocks, vines, flowers and nature.
The interviews that I did before I got into groups were about getting to know more people around the school and learning what their values were to aid us in our final prototype. Some of the values that I came across that people really valued was nature. Nature was one of the main things that people valued. After being put into groups I had an idea to make the garden feel more like nature and that it felt like it belonged there.
What I specifically did in the project was gathering the rocks, collecting water, and turning the soil. When we finally had Sara Price help us get started, I immediately went outside to see how she made her garden and started to get an idea of what I should gather for the next part of the garden. She asked Garrett, Leit and I to help her gather rocks at this hillside near the school. So we got in her truck and rode to the hillside to gather large stones and rocks. We did 2 trips of rock collecting to get enough to build at least 3 more gardens. We set the last stones into place and the I went to collect water in a 25 Gallon bucket and watered the area that needed the soil to be turned. That’s what I did to contribute to the prototype.
Reflection
One of the 21st century skills that I grew most in during this project was Curiosity and Imagination. I grew in that skill the most because during the prototyping stage we had to come up with ideas for how it would look and how it could be sustainable. I came up with a design that looked good and was sustainable. It was a drawing of the garden but it was made of rocks and had vines and flowers in it. And it was located near the creek so that the water collector thingy could water it every day without needing someone to come to school during the summer to water it.The reason why I chose that skill was because I felt like that was the one that mostly fitted me after going over this reflection. I’ve noticed in my drawing that I have more of an idea of what to do then going to look at another artists’ work to get inspired. This project has also made an impact on the types of video games I play. Like survival games, I needed to make a sustainable farm in a game called Ark: Survival Evolved. I used the skills I learned to create a garden that I don’t really have to tend to and still get crops out of it with very little effort.
One of the 21st century skills that I need to refine and grow in would be Initiative. This skill is sort of a hard one for me because I tend to procrastinate until there’s barely any time left. So during the project I didn’t get important research done and was only working on the physical prototype. I didn’t do very much research until the last 2 days of the first week.
There was a time in this project where we didn’t know what to do so one of my group members talked to Sara Price and she told us that we could collect rocks to help her build a garden. So that was what gave us a push to do something towards our project.
There was only one problem that we had in this project that we couldn’t solve and that was how we were going to get money to help us get some seeds for native flowers. That was a problem that most of the other groups ran into except for the geodome group.
I thought that success would look like a beautiful garden filled with flowers and small herbs in the start. What we got was a beautiful garden that only has 3 flowers within the actual garden and no herbs. I think what success looks for the garden now is getting the seeds for different native flowers and watching them grow.
What advice would you give to a student who was about to begin this project?
Do something that you’re really interested in doing and come up with ideas for the project before actually making mini prototypes. For the physical prototype be prepared for things to change because sometimes the ideas you have could be to expensive or not possible if you don’t have the tools to do that. If you’re not really interested in doing what you were assigned, talk to one of the teachers to see if you could switch or could help another groups physical prototype.