Written Report

Theme: The Future of Human Society

The topic ‘The Future of Human Society’ was chosen amidst the world’s greatest technological
advancement eras. This sparked the researchers interest due to the familiarity of the elements
related to the developments of our society. This broad theme was broken down by each
researcher into units that related to the past, present and future advancements of the human
society. These are; “The History of Money: From Barter To Banknotes”, “Human’s use of the
Earth’s resources”, “The progress of A.I. Technology” and “ Colonization of Other Planets”.

In order to evaluate and divide this theme, the Snowballing and Jigsaw methods were
implemented. Similar to the ‘square’ approach mentioned in ‘Think-Pair-Square’, the
‘snowballing’ activity is another simple but very effective way of building upon ideas by starting
with small groups and expanding the groups in a structured way. As the metaphor of the
snowball suggests, you can begin with an individual response to a question; followed by then
pairing up students up; then creating a four and so on. It does allow for quick, flexible group
work that doesn’t necessarily require much planning, but does keep shaping viewpoints and
challenging ‘answers’ is a constructive fashion.

The ‘jigsaw method’ is slightly more intricate. Put simply, when researching a topic, like the
Future of Human Society, each member of a group is allocated an area for which they need to
become the ‘expert‘, such as ‘the history of money’, or ‘the effects humans have on the
environment’ for example. With five or six ‘Home‘ groups identified, the ‘experts‘ then leave
that group to come together to pool their expertise on the one topic; they question one another
and combine research, ideas and their knowledge. Then each ‘expert‘returns to their
‘home‘group to share their findings. It is a skilful way of varying group dynamics as well as
scaffolding learning, which allowed for individuality in the analysis of the main theme.

The sources of information consisted of documentaries, newspaper articles, research portfolios,

videos and online articles. In compiling several different sources and each topic, it is evident
that knowledge on the past has greatly contributed to present and possible future developments.
Research was done on the development of currency and human’s pre-historic technology,
Investopedia’s article on ‘The History of Money’ which proved to be beneficial in giving a clear
timeline on the advancements. This displayed human’s wit and strive towards innovation in
terms of creating fair transactions and for ways to open an international market. However, they
are consequences for the constant demand for development as indicated on the ‘Friends of the
Earth’ website. This spoke on over consumption of natural resources and the effects this has on
the environment as well as displayed ways to combat these negative effects to protect society’s
future. The video source Produce by Bloomberg entitled ‘The Rise of AI’ gave a detailed
overview on Artificial intelligence’s development as well as gave possible insights on the
possibilities for humans to explore beyond the reaches of our very planet. This spoke on the
earliest developments, its faults and its greatest accomplishments s as well as encouraged
viewers and students to join this research field.
Initially thinking that the topics that each researcher had done would not co-relate, group
analyzation brought each to understand how each individual element learnt, in fact all tied in
with the theme. All sources were reliable, despite many of which relating to an individual’s
topic, elements were found to connect the other aspects to the general theme. From the dates the
data was collected, the information still remains valid as well as many of the anticipated
developments are being carried as time progresses. This School Based Assessment has
contributed to the development of researching and analytical skills and gave incite on the
importance of team work. This allowed each member to realize how greatly the small steps made
in history has contributed to what we know today and creates a hope and desire for what the
future of human society holds.