By Avary Partin, Class of 2028
This article is a part of a series of student stories of growth curated for the 2025 One Event. If you enjoy this story, please donate and tell us which student’s story inspired you to give.
At the beginning of my journey at One Stone, I wasn't very confident in my skills and communication at all. I had almost never worked in a team before One Stone, and I didnt have a very good relationship with my peers in my old school. I was really nervous to see fellow students at all, let alone work with them. It was a new, unique, and unfamiliar experience, filled with challenges and fears, but I'm happy I persevered through. The first few days were filled with uncertainty. If I'm honest, it didn't feel like school at all. But, throughout all of this uncertainty, I was looking forward to one thing: Learning Experiences starting. Once I saw the option for a global warming experience, I jumped at the opportunity to join it. NOTE: At One Stone, we don’t have “classes” because students don’t sit in rows, we don’t raise our hands to speak, and we don’t ask permission to go to the bathroom. We believe learning is an experience that happens everywhere, and we are trying to change the perception of what school even is.
I was always interested in global warming, and I was extremely excited to learn more about it and discuss my opinions and beliefs about it. About half way through this experience, we were assigned the project to make a model for the Boise WaterShed. We had to choose a problem relating to global warming, and I chose natural disasters. I got grouped into a team with two of my peers, and I was extremely nervous in the beginning. My team and I began researching which natural disasters are affected by global warming and found the most connections in earthquakes. Global warming has been increasing precipitation in the world, and we found some evidence behind seismic activity being affected by precipitation. I thought this was good evidence, so I presented it to our group as important information to include in our model.
After our research, we began brainstorming about how we could construct a model. We wanted a shake table for our model, but shake plates are extremely expensive and way outside our budget. We brainstormed many different ideas, but, in the end, we decided that instead of purchasing a fancy shake table, we would have the participants in our activity shake the table instead. This way, it was not only easier but more interactive and fun. After solving this problem, we began constructing our model. We used cardboard, popsicle sticks, and lots of hot glue to slowly piece it together. About half way through was when we encountered a second problem. We wanted people to make a house for our model that they could then shake on our table to see if their house would survive an earthquake, but we had trouble figuring out what they would build the house out of. First, we thought of using Jenga, but I thought the kids wouldn't want to build the tower at all. We then thought of legos but realized they were way too grippy and wouldn’t fall apart. Lincoln Logs could have worked, but they were pretty expensive. Finally, we thought of using magnet-tiles. They were just strong enough to stay together and just weak enough to fall apart. They were also toys that were appealing to our targeted age demographic. With that, we had finished our model.
It was finally time to go test our model at the Boise WaterShed. We set it up on a small outdoor table and watched as kids came by to try our model. Overall, it went great! Our model was extremely successful, and all of the kids enjoyed it. I was really happy with the results!
During this learning experience, I think I grew a lot in my brainstorming skills, and it was the first time here I felt confident enough to throw out ideas and come up with solutions in a group. I'm really grateful for the opportunity this experience gave me to grow. It was a ton of fun, and I could rant on and on about how much I enjoyed working and creating with my team!
