Rising to the challenge
Teams from different schools brave difficulties to come up with community-friendly projects
[First published on 2 July, 2015] Team projects can be tough, even if your teammates are your friends. Imagine how much more difficult such assignments would be if your teammates didn’t even go to the same school.
The students taking part in English Schools Foundation’s No Ceiling Project had only four weeks to create and complete their project. They had to get to know their teammates quickly, and overcome the typical obstacles that come with a team project, as well as issues that arise when your teammates are spread out all across Hong Kong.
The No Ceiling Project brought together 27 gifted students from King George V School (KGV), Renaissance College, Sha Tin College, and West Island School (WIS). Students were separated into teams based on their interests, and were asked to come up with projects that would have an impact on the community.
WIS student, Archita Maheshwari, 14, wanted to do something about food. She was paired with two students from Sha Tin College, and another schoolmate from WIS. The team wanted to create a blog featuring simple recipes, as well as food science, to raise awareness of a healthy lifestyle. But getting their site up and running wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be.
“The biggest challenge during the project was coordinating with each other as we had such little time,” Archita explains. “We only had four meetings; the first one was the formation of the groups, the next two were practical meetings where we were able to work together, and the last was the presentation preparation.” In the end, Archita’s team managed to put together four dishes on the website.
