HUMANITIES
VO GEOGRAPHY BIOMES
There has been a Zombie apocalypse, and we need to hide out in a biome! To extend our learning of the different environments of the world, in Term 3, we completed an assessment task investigating how we could survive a zombie apocalypse in our chosen biome. Students had to present the different elements of a biome in both a presentation and in a physical drawing or model. Some students chose to visually represent their biomes using Minecraft. These were then printed and labelled.
Mrs Michelle Winderlich
Geography, Humanities Teacher
AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS WEEK
From August 22 until August 26, Commerce and VCAL students participated in Australian Business Week.
The program involved being in teams of 13 students from a variety of classes. The team had to manage a hotel for the week, as well as come up with a product to market. I was appointed CEO of Team 5, who managed The Sunrise Resort. Our product was developed in conjunction with our hotel and was a holiday childcare program.
The program allowed children to experience fun-filled activities as well as permitting the parents a little 'me' time!
We marketed our product and resort through trade displays, brochures, posters, stationery (business cards, letterheads, pens, logos and ID tags), and advertisements. Each morning we began the day with team building activities and then divided into our groups to submit our plans and decisions to a hotel simulation. This then impacted the state of our hotel being financially dependent.
As well as the simulation, there were many other tasks to be completed, including media, advertising, stationery, reports and displays. I was involved in designing the trade display, which marketed our product visually, creating the product brochure, reading and justifying ethical case studies, and writing parts of the company report.
Coming from a Legal Studies background, I found ABW to be a very eye-opening experience. I had never had any opportunities to participate in business, marketing or finance areas and found myself learning a lot from my team members.
Overall, I view the experience as a positive one. I collaborated with different peers, learned many things in a range of areas, challenged myself and felt proud of our team's end product. However, it was very stressful nonetheless!
Matisse Hill (Year 11)
From August 22 to August 26, Year 11 students completing a Commerce subject or VCAL had the amazing opportunity to participate in Australian Business Week (ABW).
ABW is a program where students spend a week outside of timetabled classes and manage a hotel. They create their own hotel name, marketing, product, advertising and many more aspects of their company.
The week involves testing students' ability to work as a team, time management skills, and creative skills in the marketing side of running a business. While ABW can be described as stressful and intense, overall it was an extremely fun week. The groups were randomly allocated, making it even more enjoyable to work with individuals you may not get the chance to in other classes. I feel ABW and the numerous team building activities brought the Year 11 cohort closer together as a group to work together and have an enjoyable time and a bit of a laugh. Whilst ABW splits students into five groups to compete against one another, it was enjoyable to see all teams win in some aspect of the assessment criteria.
I gained numerous new skills from participating in ABW, which I believe can be generalised across our whole cohort. Working in teams helped us to build further collaboration skills, having deadlines assisted with our organisational skills, and working as a team to finally present on Friday allowed us to develop further communication and listening skills to ensure that we could perform as best as possible. The teachers strongly supported us throughout the week, ensuring we were up to date with work and could reach success. Thank you to all the teachers involved in the program.
Students doing VCE Commerce subjects in the coming years should be extremely excited about ABW. It’s the perfect opportunity to not only have fun with your peers, but essentially learn the necessary life skills of being a part of a team or working in a business.
Maddalena Petrolo (Year 11)
