Animas High School loves to challenge their students in many different ways, it helps students think deeper into a topic and also problem solve in difficult situations. The student-driven campus design was a project like no other, it was full of challenges that we students had to overcome in order to succeed. The teacher's goal for this project was for us students to design a whole new campus for our school by using sketchup and photoshop, also by learning new things like architecture, interior design, engineering, and so much more. For example we had to create our shared space with sketchup in order to create a professional design we had to learn about architecture and interior design. Through this project we have learned so many things that would be useful for us in the future.
When designing a building you always have to have a starting point. In order to have the building built the same way you designed it, you will have to start off by making a budget. Making a budget is super important when designing a building, you need to know if you have enough money to afford the materials and objects in order to make your building perfect. When making the budget in the student driven campus design project it was hard at first but after finishing it my biggest take away from it was that you have to be precise in all the materials you want and the exact amount of money it costs. For instance when I was creating our budget for our building it was hard, the first draft I made was not the best because I didn't get the right amount of materials we needed and I didn't get the exact total cost of everything. From that experience next time I create a budget I will be more cautious about my numbers.
When working in a group it always has its ups and downs to it. Group work can be very important in projects it challenges your communication skills, collaborating skills and so on. Every person could say a time when they were in a bad group, but we can also grow from bad group work. In my group we had some ups and downs, we had times when we worked really well together and times when we argued but in the end we overcame it and grew from our mistakes. For example there was a time in our group when we argued, the project was due at the end of the day and we were staggering to get it done. Some people in our group where doing nothing and they wandered off and hung out with their friends, so we had to communicate to them in order for them to do work. I have grown in many ways as a collaborator as an introvert person I would never imagine myself guiding my group in some situations, it helped me to collaborate more with my group and also be more involved and it was something I will definitely take away.
When we were little we were taught that adults are the leaders and we have to obey their every command. The saying that says treat your elders with respect, in some way the saying is right we do have to treat everyone with respect but we also need to reconsider that kids are capable of anything they put their mind to. For 5 days and about 7 hours kids spend there whole day in school learning new things, they stay in this school that some kids consider boring. They have no option to control their surroundings to help them be more engaged because the facility or the board is always choosing for them. I understand that it's important to make smart decisions when making a school by the structure to the design, but I think it's super important that the students have a say in the space they are learning in. The reason for that is because if students spend most of their time in a school they should have say on how they feel while being in that environment. From my experience having an opportunity to go to Animas that has a great school environment where I feel ready to work and engaged is the best thing I could ever ask for. So when the board makes decisions I think the best option would be to get children's opinion.