Written by Niamh, Year 9
As part of our work experience, some Year 9 students were in school building towers, formulating business ideas, and presenting them to potential investors.
At 9 a.m. on Friday 9th of June, we got to work after listening to a short presentation on what the day would involve. Our first activity was tower building, with only newspaper and sticky tape. The aim of the exercise was to work well as a team and understand what roles in a team we preferred, like leading, doing, or thinking. Once we knew that, we were able to go away in groups and come up with the initial plans for our companies. However, the challenge was made slightly more difficult by the fact that every business idea had to be based around sustainability.
My group decided that we wanted to build and run a floating hotel. Our idea was that if we located the hotel just off the coast of Gili Trawangan (an Indonesian island), then we could use desalination to power our water supply and solar panels to cover our energy costs. After many discussions on what shape the hotel would be and what we would call it, we finally decided that the hotel would be made out of strengthened sea glass, which would further our sustainable approach, and the hotel would be called Kura-Kura, which is part of the Indonesian word for tortoise. We quickly worked out our finances and created our logo before heading to lunch.
After lunch, we began to prepare our presentation, which included a PowerPoint presentation and a promotional video. A few hours later, we were ready to present to the other groups and judges. After a period of deliberation from the judges, our group won, and we received a chocolate prize! The work shadowing day was very helpful to me, as I was able to realise what kind of person I was within a team. I was also very pleased to create a product that we were proud of.
