Working with other people is an essential skill in life, and utilizing the power of multiple minds makes a difficult task much easier. Classes at New Technology High School are designed around the concept of working with other students to complete a project, solve a problem, or to share ideas.

An example of good collaboration can be seen in my American Studies project, “Together We Stand,” where our group constructed a newspaper. Since the content of the newspaper was coming from different people, but was only being assembled together by myself, I had to make sure that I had good contact with all of the group members to ensure that they were getting work done, and was aware of their roles in the group. If they were not submitting work to me, I had to have the initiative to make sure that they got their act together.

Evidence:

• Scientific Studies - 'Population Explosion' project - Collaboration 100/100 - This project takes on the state of California's rapid population growth. In order take control of overcrowding we had to do a number of calculations to predict the population in a variety of years, and figure out exactly how much living space each person could have. Because there were three people working in my group, we had to properly divide up the various research and math; that was my major role in the project, and I had a considerable leadership role throughout.

• Scientific Studies - 'Pathfinder' project - Collaboration 90/100 - In this project our group was to take the role of scientists working on creating a landing device for the Mars Pathfinder. Because the spacecraft impacts the surface at a high speed, a series of balloons were put on to ensure its safety. We had to learn the physics behind why that idea worked--particularly the ideas of momentum and impulse--and them create our own mini-lander (using an egg in place of a spacecraft), which would demonstrate these ideas in action. Working with the other group members was essential to create a successful mini-lander--we needed to be able to communicate ideas that were important to its smooth operation but were not previously incorporated.