In this chapter, we break down what we believe would happen in a world with increased trash and technological advancements. Getting into the mindset of being in that reality we did ‘a day in the life as a student’. Often this turned into an overview/story with a darker theme. After we tried thinking of positive outcomes of this world and the benefits that would come from it. We then tried to imagine what school would look like. As we dove into the school we thought of possible classes and advertising the school might have, in this world, we focused on further developing technology with classes such as engineering and computer science.

A Wall-E World

A day in the life as a student

Welcome to A Wall-E World – where society is driven by vast technological advances. The colours around town are very neutral, with very little wildlife. It consists of smaller, minimalist houses that follow the same colour scheme. It is a quiet town where the housing market far outweighs the commercial, and this is due to the fact that all necessities are offered virtually… This includes jobs, schools, groceries, and even healthcare. When the rare occurrence of leaving the house does happen, cars with automated drivers are sent over by the government to control their exact whereabouts. Members of this society have been conditioned to love this way of life, as personal use of technology is not permitted. They do not know any better. Society is controlled by the government which consists of one being.

Bailey is a grade 11 student at Grey high school. She wakes up every morning ready to follow her routine and take on the day. She starts by getting ready for school; this doesn’t take much because she does school from home. Paper and pencils aren’t needed anymore, as everything is done on either a computer or tablet.  After school, she orders a snack at her front door and stays on her computer for another few hours while she works from home. Bailey then eats dinner with her family and finally has some downtime alone. She decides to go shopping – online of course.

Bailey then goes to bed with the intention of starting and ending each day the same. She is very content with hardly leaving home and can’t imagine doing life any other way.

A Positive Outcome

The positive outcome is an important part of this project as it gives another perspective on this world. The following outcome was written by one of the coop students, since each student had complete creative freedom the format and approaches may differ. In this case, the student took an essay approach to describe what they believe positive outcomes of this future may be.

At school, Bailey was presented with a project in History class. The assignment was to compare the last 50 years to the present day and discuss the benefits of technological advancements. She began by thinking about her education, how a lot of her classes are online and how she easily signed up for a free crochet class last week. Without the internet, it would be much harder to find things such as conversion factors and free access to learning new hobbies. She also thought about stories from her grandma and how in the past she would have to wait 12 hours in a hospital just to see a doctor, today the process of seeing a doctor was requesting an appointment and a doctor would call you as soon as they were available and the medicine would be delivered via smart robots or drones. If you need more attention than a consultation you simply went in, and with the majority of people using the call-in option to save them time it was empty and quick. Even the technology today was a lot better than it was in the past and saved many lives. The new technology that scanned your body and could detect cancerous cells saved thousands of people and hours of unnecessary laboratory testing.

Today the mall experience was similar to what she expected the past to be, only now a lot more technology was incorporated. The change rooms were virtual rooms, where you can see the outfit on without having the clothes present, you could also style the clothes right there to see if it’s worth the purchase. As she thought more about it, this method probably greatly reduced the production of clothes to an on-demand type method, decreasing the production of fast fashion and environmental impact.

The streets were now always filled with people, laughter, and light rather than cars, horns, and street signs. There were designated pick-up areas for automated cars to pick her up and if one allowed, a carpool option to reduce trips. Compared to the past, this method was a lot more eco-friendly. In dangerous factories, most of the dangerous jobs were completed by robots, incident numbers were significantly reduced and these factories were no longer considered dangerous. Finally, she thought about the friends she has made and her increased knowledge of different cultures. The internet has made it possible to make tons of international friends and learn and experience different cultures in virtual reality. The experiences have been amazing and have made her more interested in seeing the world without the glasses on.

Courses

The course activity was a creative activity to connect the future to our education and imagine the impacts each future will have. For this future, the courses were more focused on basic courses and technology. They include communications and math but the big focus within this school would be the technological advancements. This includes courses to learn to code and also engineering classes since this future is heavily reliant on technology.

English

• Effective writing 1 & 2
• Communications

Math

• Statistics
• Calculus

Engineering

• Telecommunication Engineering
• Robotics Engineering

Tech/Comp Sci

• Intro to Computer Science
• Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
• Coding

Advertising

The first advertisement didn’t take a positive or negative approach. This poster is one that represents and describes the future, possible released by the government. It promotes the opportunities and the civilians and intrigues people to learn more about this future.

The second advertising created for this future is a negative approach. It is propaganda released by higher power to force civilians to conform to society. This type of poster would likely never be seen in the future but the goal here was to promote how we envisioned the sci-fi dystopian future.

The final piece created was related to the positive outcome. It is not propaganda or an advertisement but an idea of what the city could look like. In the positive take, the cities and towns no longer have roads or cars but instead, have green walkways and bike paths. There are designated areas for pickup and rideshare programs that reduce cars on the road. The city is very family-friendly with sitting areas, trees, picnic areas, and ponds.

Please note this image was modified, to view the original art please click here