DIFFICULTIES IN ESTABLISHING\CREATING SUSTAINABLE CITIES

Student: Fernando da Costa Tourinho Leite

OBJECTIVE A: PLANNING

1. Personal Inspiration

Sustainable cities in my school were always targets in subjects such as science and
geography. Because of this, for as long as I can remember I have known its meaning and
how beneficial they are for us and the various ecosystems on earth. However, I only went
deeper into this idea at the end of last year with a school project called “Land Talks”, this
was the first time I thought, “If the majority agrees that sustainable cities are glaringly
superior technologically and sustainably in relation to standard cities, why isn’t there at least
an equivalent number of these two models?” and besides being sustainable, are there other
points for a city to be considered sustainable? And does a 100% sustainable city really exist?
And if not, why?
With so many questions in my mind, at the beginning of the year we were
introduced to the personal project. At the beginning, my idea was to make a game with
topics from different subjects, but as the year progressed, in a Portuguese class, sustainable
cities were mentioned and like magic, all the questions I had before came back. Right after
that class I changed my learning goal and my product goal. Furthermore, I looked for
writers, sociologists, philosophers and others who have already written about something
related to my topic, I found one of my favorite philosophers today, the Frenchman Jean
Baudrillard, one of my biggest inspirations for doing work on sustainable cities, because him
in one of his works, more specifically the book “La société de consommation”, a book that
has the opposite theme of what I wanted, but even though I haven't read it completely, it was
extremely important in my work both as inspiration and information to complement the
project.
Using my IB profile: Open-minded and my IB profile: Inquirer, I understood that
sustainable cities are not a simple topic, and that they require a lot of attention, because even
if they are complicated and require extreme planning, this model has the potential to reduce
or even, over time, eliminate the problems caused by high pollution caused by humans. The
world is a mess, people always want to improve something or reinvent, but they don't want
to see the problems caused by it, words alone cannot deal with such consequences, it's not
wrong to evolve, it's a standard animal instinct, but as rational animals that we are, we have
to compensate for the problems with something. All of this made me think: Why can't we
create sustainable cities?

2. Learning and Product goal

 For this work, based on my reflection on “personal inspiration”, I started with the
idea of ​creating a game about questions from various subjects, such as the “Kahoot”
platform, but as the work progressed I realized that I didn't want to do that, so in a class in
Portuguese, the sustainable city theme appeared, returning to the curiosities that I already
had before.
Still, I wanted a more specific learning goal, so I could delve deeper more easily, so
my learning goal was defined as: discover why it is so difficult to establish sustainable cities,
I also wanted to put my learning objective into the steps necessary to have a sustainable city,
but I realized that just the topic of the difficulties of establishing a sustainable city can
already cover such stages. And for my product goal I wanted something that reflected my
learning goal, and that wasn't a text, because I wanted something more solid for my personal
product, so I decided to make a model of a sustainable city for my product goal, complying
with all the steps to have a sustainable city from my research.

3. Success Criteria

Criteria Type Criteria for my Project How will I achieve that?

Resources I will use as resources I intend to

for my project: spend my first
few months
I intend to read the book studying and
“La société de acquiring
consommation” by Jean knowledge
Baudrillard, using some About the
passages from the work subject.
to complement my
research.

Discover necessary steps

to have a sustainable
city.
Target audience My project is aimed at students. Using didactic words
Especially those who intend to and showing how the
work in politics. future can be changed,
and that by working
Everyone knows that students hard when they grow
are the future of the world, so I up, anyone can be a
hope that my work sparks hope key player in this.
in them that there is a solution to
problems such as depletion of
the ozone layer and rising Earth
temperatures.

My target audience has no age

group, as I believe that all
students are studying for
something, so even someone of
advanced age, if they are a
student, is working to have a
place in the future. So she is still
the future.

Visual Aspect I intend to make a Giving time

model as simple as and
possible so that it importance
does not deviate from to the
the focus: presenting details of
all the steps to have a my model,
100% sustainable in addition,
city, but I will add at the end I
details as much as plan to talk
possible. about each
part of my
model.
 I intend to represent The way I
in a didactic way all will do this
the requirements is by
necessary to have a valuing
sustainable city, and ATL
read and research “communic
these steps to make ation skills”
sure that everything by making
Function is correct. For my it easy for
sources, I intend to everyone to
prioritize articles and understand.
books, to obtain more
accurate data.

Quality My final product will be made with I plan to reuse resources

all the material I have at my such as packaging, for
disposal, the one that best example, to create the
represents what I want will base of some structures,
probably be used. and I will prioritize such
materials over materials
for the purpose of doing
what I want.

Reach My project will reach many people, but I will achieve that by presenting
mainly students, Land School teachers and my model at my “Land School”
visitors who come to my school will have school, making it easy for my
full access to my presentation explaining presentation to reach everyone
every detail of my work. mentioned.

Size It won't be a very large model, it will I will do this by choosing a not so
probably even be considered small, but for large base for my model,
me that's not a problem, the purpose of my summarizing the needs of a city.
model is simple, to show what a 100%
sustainable city would look like.
Time My model will probably take about 1 and a I will do this by summarizing parts
half weeks to make, I don't think it will of articles read and what I have to
take long, but the presentation of my work say, thus shortening my speaking
will take about 10 minutes time.

4. Plan for achieving the product

MONTH WHAT I'M GOING TO WHAT WAS DONE:

DO:

February 8th - february brainstorm and search to find a I researched and looked for a
25nd good learning and product goal theme that suited my
personality, but I found it faster
than planned.

February 25th - April 1th choose a topic to delve deeper I looked for ways to delve
into the topic and start deeper into my topic and
planning my final product planned my final product

April 1th - May 8th start creating my final product I stopped for a long time, but I
and start making my journals started creating the designs for
the game's characters

May 8th - July 31nd perfectly understand my I changed the theme of my

learning goal and continue my personal project and started my
final product final product

July 31nd - September 25th finish my final product, read at I finished my final product and
least 1 book on my topic and read a book by Jean
start my report Baudrillard (The Consumer
Society)

September 25th - October 1th finish my report During this month I worked on
my report and I'm about to
finish it
 OBJECTIVE B: PLANNING

1. Learning Goal ATL’s

ATLs are extremely important for a student's development as a student and as a person,
with ATLs being the skills and knowledge developed by the student throughout a study.
Therefore, in this project that, even though I didn't finish it, already marked my career as a
student, it is common for me, as a student, to have developed several ATLs in the course of
it.
In my view, the ATLs most used for the learning goal were Thinking Skills (since my
topic is not something that common to find on the internet, I used the thinking skill more
than research, because to have a source there is this work I had to read about similar topics
and understand what fit with what I wanted to use as a reference using critical and creative
thinking).
Another ATL used was the Self-Management skill (with it I reflected on similar topics
to use the thinking skill. Furthermore, it helped me organize my reading schedules, making it
easier to alternate time with the final product ).
To serve as an example, one of my biggest sources for this project was the previously
mentioned book by Jean Baudrillard “The Consumer Society”. It does not have the exact
theme I was looking for, but it fits my work like a glove.

Image of the exact book I read as the basis for the project
2. Product goal ATL’s

For my final product it is much easier to define the ATLs used, as for me it is so
obvious that it is impossible to choose another one. The final product was an extremely
hectic part of the work for me, as it occurred at the time of my change of theme, this made
the work extremely heavier for me, time was scarce, I couldn't sleep well thinking about my
model.
That's why the self-management skill was so relevant to me. She relieved my stress and
made me feel like doing the project, giving me hope that even with limited time, it would be
possible to finish it, I believe that organization and affection for the work were one of the
most important things for completion of the model.
However, going to the technical side, the ATL that helped me the most in the project
was the Research skill, because with it, through time-consuming research, I took the steps to
place a 100% sustainable city in my model. So through reliable websites and my
interpretations I completed my model of a sustainable city.
 Images of my final product

OBJECTIVE C: REFLECTING

1. Social and Cultural Impacts

At the beginning of the personal project, when people were still deciding what to comment on, I
had a rule in mind “do something big, something that stands out, something black and white” and in
 my first theme idea I followed this to the letter. I wanted, a virtual game in which there were questions
from all subjects, it was definitely an ambitious idea. I wanted to get points just for the idea, and even
if the game wasn't that good, since I've never made or played a game creation program, I wanted to be
praised just for trying. I wanted my project to have a huge social and cultural impact, to break the
bubble of models, websites and articles, the projects that everyone chose to do.

But maybe being too ambitious can be harmful, and I learned the hard way that it's better and that
what you're going to produce has more impact than how you're going to produce it, I think the shooter
is more important than the gun. There's no point in wanting to innovate on how you will present your
idea if your idea is more of the same, so your project will not stand out.

That's why I changed the theme and my final product, so that I could make a social and cultural
impact through my deepening of my subject.

2. Success Criteria Evaluation

Criteria Type Evaluation

Resources In my view, the

sources for my
work are very
good, they are not
just websites but
also books, written
by great
philosophers.

Target audience In my view, my project

has a good target
audience, one that aims at
the future, but this topic is
very relative, so other
target audiences can also
be extremely important.
Visual Aspect In this topic I
admit that my
project leaves
something to
be desired, not
that it is ugly,
but I found it
very empty,
perhaps even
too simple.

My model
serves its
purpose fully,
it is an
example of a
sustainable
city, and
follows all the
Function steps I
established.

Quality It's a model with most of its

materials being recyclable,
but I had to resort to biscuit a
few times, so it's not 100%, I
think I'm partially happy at
this point.
Reach My project reached all those I
coveted, so it was a great success in
that area.

Size Maybe I exaggerated how small I

wanted my work, I regret that, I wish it
was bigger

Time The presentation time for my work is

great, it is exactly as planned.

3. My Evolution With the Project

This project was different from any I have worked on in my academic life before. Normally I
already have pre-defined what I'm going to write about, I think that's what sets this personal project
apart. I can talk about whatever I want, this was so different that at first I didn't understand how this
work worked, it was confusing, strange, at the beginning all the boys joked “I'm going to write
about football!” and it was normal for people not to take him seriously, because nobody really
understood this work. The teachers always warned and reminded about the project, but no one
really felt or felt about the work, today I understand what was missing in the personal project
classes, “practicality”, that was the key. Teachers use difficult terms and acronyms that no one
knew the meaning of to make the project more complex, perhaps to give us more relevance, but I
think this is wrong, we should never complicate something to be taken more seriously, this caused
me enormous discouragement . In the end, now that I am observing the past, I realize that a lot
could be improved in my work with a simple change of word from a third party, perhaps not just
mine, I participate in conversation circles and I know that several students, even those who are very
intelligent they are becoming discouraged. For me, the personal project is something incredible and
even if I don't win the famous certificate, the work I did will be unforgettable for me.
The “x” of the personal project issue for me is the in-depth analysis, even if you do a work on
football, and it is a topic that is not so important to the world, it will not change anything about a
work with a relevant topic, as it is a personal project , only if the topic is important to you will it be
taken into consideration. Now there are not only flowers in the forests, no matter what topic you
choose, for this work you need to delve into it as much as possible, so I advise you to choose a
specific topic, because the broader the topic, the more difficult it will be to delve into it. . So even if
you take a topic about football, you have to find a way to delve deeper into that topic, an idea of
​how to do this is related to the topic with a space, for example: “importance of football for
Brazilian culture”.
During my work, I had to face modern man's greatest enemy, time. Time is a very important
factor for work like this, as it makes human beings try to exceed their limits due to a short deadline.
With this project it was no different, especially with the “Report”, because a week before the report
deadline we had the final product deadline, and the report was in practice announced within the
final product deadline, that is, we had a week to do it. So, for me it was terribly stressful, and I
literally spent a sleepless night, but thank God I decided to use the ATL “self-management” skill
and reflected on my work and organized myself, I discovered that it is much better this way, than
doing everything in a hurry, this is something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Another thing I learned from the personal project is certainly one of the most important, and
one that will make me stand out in the job market in the future, the habit of reading. I may not
change, but this is one experience that I enjoyed and want to implement into my routine. To do this
work, I read excerpts from about 5 books and articles. I haven't actually read any complete books,
but I think completing the books now isn't that important, since the part I want to learn is only in
one part of the work. But I still want to plan to read them in full, without the pressure of the
personal project this time.
I wanted to make it clear, I have obviously evolved as a person because of this project. Maybe
not in the expected way, planning myself with an agenda and organizing each topic that I think
should be studied for a test, but rather in the little things, like organizing my materials or my clothes
in my room. And I'm happy with that, it's like my father always tells me “with small seeds we reap
big fruits”.
To finish my report, I wanted to share a reflection that has been following me for a while. I
think that freedom makes us want to do our best, because we can go after what we truly want.