Team

LaneKatherine Anne Porter School, TX, United States

RangerKatherine Anne Porter School, TX, United States

JamesKatherine Anne Porter School, TX, United States

MichaelKatherine Anne Porter School, TX, United States

Andrew Katherine Anne Porter School, TX, United States

Rex Katherine Anne Porter School, TX, United States

Age Range

19 & under

Coaches

Daniel BisettKatherine Anne Porter School, TX, United States

Category

Social Sciences & Culture > Cultures

Science & Technology > Earth Science > Energy

Audience

All ages

Language

English

Site Features

Quiz

Video / Sound

Team Collaboration

The team started with a brief discussion on possible topics and categories brainstorming the pros and cons related to each idea. It was decided that a radical topic choice would likely be less favorably judged, so a more mainstream idea was chosen; however, not wishing to release hold of all rebelliousness, it was resolved to integrate many of the less popular views in the topic. Thus, the team chose Going Green as its topic with a blanced emphasis on current global warming theory coupled with anti-green viewpoints.

After the initial decision was made, the group discussed all aspects they wished to include in the website and created a mind-map to document their ideas.

After the initial ideas were gathered and organised, the students split into research groups all targetting different aspect of Going Green.

Then they split into 3 focus groups (based on individual strengths and weaknesses): webdesign, flash/animation design, continued research and development.

Every three days or so the focus groups regathered and shared findings, ideas, asked for input/help, and planned the next mode of attack.

Because of a very short time frame, I only discovered this competition in late February, the students had very little opportunity to develop their skills. Therefore, all the technical learnings (Flash animation, CSS, etc.) each individual student made while creating this website will be shared after its submission in mini-lessons taught by the individual and the focus groups.

Team Diversity

As KAPS is a charter school, most of our student body comes from the lower socio-economic relm; however, this team also consisted of one individual with quite a 'priviledged' background. Regardless, the largest impact on the team was to be found in the students computer literacy/comfortability. Those with fewer strengths in copmuter programming found themselves to be much more affective researchers than the others. Therefore, the need to separate into focus groups utitilising the strengths of each student became apparent and easy to facilitate.

With students coming from different educational backgrounds (traditional public school students, private school and homeschool) a plethora of differing opinions were constantly expressed, requiring the team to analyse and debate issues most commonly found in university settings.

One of our team members is a cancer survivor and continually brought a 'Can-Do' attititude which never failed to motivate and refocus the team.