SCHOOL NEWS

9UP

9UP (Year 9 Urban Project) is a key part of the BYTES program that all Year 9s undertake. It began with us choosing a societal topic that affected Melbournians on a daily basis. For the next few weeks we had to investigate our topic, prepare surveys sheets with relevant questions that would allow us to see people's views on homelessness, as well as a huge master sheet so we could input all our collected data.

Then, on Thursday 28 February, all 390 of the Year 9 McKinnon students caught the train into the city where we would be spending the entire day completing a scavenger hunt... in some pretty hot weather. Our whole group was a sweaty mess but we made our way around the city and answered every single question on the scavenger hunt sheet. This day helped us immensely with navigation. We learnt our way around different train platforms, as well as using google maps and working as a team. That day was probably my favourite day of this entire year so far.

Then, on Friday 8 and Wednesday 13 March, we went to the city to survey the general public and conduct interviews with people with lived and experienced our issue.

With our surveys, we had to go up to random people on the street and ask them if they could complete our survey. It was absolutely nerve-racking. We did this for almost our two whole days but got it done!

Finally, once we were back at school, we had to create a presentation of our findings in the city. We learnt how to use google sheets and make graphs, as well as decorate a slideshow nicely. Then, on the night of Thursday 28 March, we finally presented our six weeks of hard work to the rest of our double mentor group and an audience of about 100.

I am really proud of how our group did throughout this whole journey. 9UP will definitely be a highlight of my high school life, it was the most fun I've had in a while and I would 100% do it again.

Mia Ciccolallo

Year 9D