Matlala Sefale, Grade 12
UWCSA (Waterford)
Every year IB students all over the world participate in a project titled the Group 4 Project, and at Waterford Kamhlaba UWCSA, this is done by first-year IB students. The students collaborate on the project in small groups of ten to twelve depending on the number of students in that year group. This happens in the third term of the year, which is in September, October and November, and which is also the busiest time of the year - especially academically.
The Group 4 Project is a collaborative and multidisciplinary activity, which encourages IB Diploma Programme (DP) science students to appreciate the environmental, social and ethical implications of science.[1] Contrary to the past years, the Environmental Systems and Society (ESS) students participated in the project in 2019.
In the months leading up to my year group’s very own experience of the Group 4 Project, excitement was nowhere in sight. This was mainly because of the perspective of the Group 4 Project we only knew - that of the second year students above us. Unfortunately, their experience of the project was not delightful, and so a lot of my classmates were not looking forward to experiencing it for themselves.
The question that lurked around in a lot of conversations regarding the project was “why do we even need to do it?” A lot like Theory Of Knowledge (TOK), many students did not understand the necessity of the project, and again similarly to TOK, we were all yet to realise it in due time.
As the date set for the project approached and our teachers told us more about it, a lot of the students’ hostility towards it lessened; even though that was probably mostly due to the fact that we would be getting a break from our daily lessons on the two days when we would be working on the project.
For 2019, we were told that the theme for the Group 4 Project was ‘Plastic’. In addition to the theme, we were told that “You have absolute freedom over what you choose to make your project about, as long as it falls under the theme and it incorporates all the four sciences,” and thus the scramble to come up with ideas and complete the project in two days began.
There are four Group 4 subjects available at Waterford: Chemistry, Physics, Biology and ESS. Each of the groups of ten to twelve students that we were divided into to collaborate on the project had students who study each of these subjects. This was done so that the groups would be able to incorporate aspects of each of these sciences into their desired project idea.
My group agreed on the idea of ‘EcoBricks’ after a while of debating amongst ourselves whether to go with a more experimental project or a practical one. We made this choice out of four options of ideas by voting amongst ourselves for the idea we preferred the most. This idea entailed reusing plastic to make bricks by stuffing pieces of plastic bags into plastic bottles to the extent that the bottle cannot bend or get crushed.
We spent about an hour brainstorming our approach to this idea, and we settled on making a small model of an ‘Ecobrick Wall’ to illustrate what the “Eco Bricks” are, how they are made and how they work. To implement this idea into a feasible project to showcase in front of a panel of our teachers and non-teaching staff members such as members of the maintenance department, we began by delegating tasks amongst ourselves depending on the strengths we know each other and ourselves to have as well as the different subjects we take in Group 4 of the IBDP course. Students taking each science got the role of collaboratively gathering scientific information specific to their science to use in our oral presentation and visual presentation of our information chart. Each one of us participated in scavenging for plastic from bins all over the school campus and stuffing the bags into the bottles with sticks. A few of us who have experience using mechanical tools - myself included - were tasked with constructing a structure to enclose the model of the ‘Ecobrick Wall’. This, to me, proved to be the most difficult part of the project; not only because only three of us were working on it but also because we had to move around a lot looking for the planks and tools to make it from. In the end, however, with a lot of effort and collaboration, we successfully completed our model.
When our turn came to present our project before the panel, we took turns talking about the part of it that we each did and then answered questions from the audience after.
What stood out the most for me was the progress we made as a team, which was a result of our teamwork and mutual respect for each other and the knowledge in each of our sciences.
With this project, we were able to inspire a lot of fellow students to reuse plastic to make their own ‘Ecobricks’, contributing to the success of the school’s anti-plastic policy.
The Group 4 Project is a collaborative and multidisciplinary activity, which encourages IB Diploma Programme (DP) science students to appreciate the environmental, social and ethical implications of science.[1] Contrary to the past years, the Environmental Systems and Society (ESS) students participated in the project in 2019.
In the months leading up to my year group’s very own experience of the Group 4 Project, excitement was nowhere in sight. This was mainly because of the perspective of the Group 4 Project we only knew - that of the second year students above us. Unfortunately, their experience of the project was not delightful, and so a lot of my classmates were not looking forward to experiencing it for themselves.
The question that lurked around in a lot of conversations regarding the project was “why do we even need to do it?” A lot like Theory Of Knowledge (TOK), many students did not understand the necessity of the project, and again similarly to TOK, we were all yet to realise it in due time.
As the date set for the project approached and our teachers told us more about it, a lot of the students’ hostility towards it lessened; even though that was probably mostly due to the fact that we would be getting a break from our daily lessons on the two days when we would be working on the project.
For 2019, we were told that the theme for the Group 4 Project was ‘Plastic’. In addition to the theme, we were told that “You have absolute freedom over what you choose to make your project about, as long as it falls under the theme and it incorporates all the four sciences,” and thus the scramble to come up with ideas and complete the project in two days began.
There are four Group 4 subjects available at Waterford: Chemistry, Physics, Biology and ESS. Each of the groups of ten to twelve students that we were divided into to collaborate on the project had students who study each of these subjects. This was done so that the groups would be able to incorporate aspects of each of these sciences into their desired project idea.
My group agreed on the idea of ‘EcoBricks’ after a while of debating amongst ourselves whether to go with a more experimental project or a practical one. We made this choice out of four options of ideas by voting amongst ourselves for the idea we preferred the most. This idea entailed reusing plastic to make bricks by stuffing pieces of plastic bags into plastic bottles to the extent that the bottle cannot bend or get crushed.
We spent about an hour brainstorming our approach to this idea, and we settled on making a small model of an ‘Ecobrick Wall’ to illustrate what the “Eco Bricks” are, how they are made and how they work. To implement this idea into a feasible project to showcase in front of a panel of our teachers and non-teaching staff members such as members of the maintenance department, we began by delegating tasks amongst ourselves depending on the strengths we know each other and ourselves to have as well as the different subjects we take in Group 4 of the IBDP course. Students taking each science got the role of collaboratively gathering scientific information specific to their science to use in our oral presentation and visual presentation of our information chart. Each one of us participated in scavenging for plastic from bins all over the school campus and stuffing the bags into the bottles with sticks. A few of us who have experience using mechanical tools - myself included - were tasked with constructing a structure to enclose the model of the ‘Ecobrick Wall’. This, to me, proved to be the most difficult part of the project; not only because only three of us were working on it but also because we had to move around a lot looking for the planks and tools to make it from. In the end, however, with a lot of effort and collaboration, we successfully completed our model.
When our turn came to present our project before the panel, we took turns talking about the part of it that we each did and then answered questions from the audience after.
What stood out the most for me was the progress we made as a team, which was a result of our teamwork and mutual respect for each other and the knowledge in each of our sciences.
With this project, we were able to inspire a lot of fellow students to reuse plastic to make their own ‘Ecobricks’, contributing to the success of the school’s anti-plastic policy.
Bibliography:
https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2019/03/25/collaborating-internationally-on-the-group-4-project/
https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2019/03/25/collaborating-internationally-on-the-group-4-project/
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Image Citation: https://www.trashrebel.com/ecobricks-value-lombok/
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