Sarah & Sukhi

SARAH'S INTRODUCTION

My name is Sarah Williams and I am a ninth-grader at Darien High School. This is my sixth year in the IDEA program and I’m excited to create my own project this year! I am working with my good friend Sukhi Mohan to combine cookies and women in government. My favorite subjects in school are math, science, and history. I play tennis and squash and was on the cross country team in the fall. I enjoy spending time with my family, friends, and dogs. I am also a member of the yearbook club, the She’s The First club, and Freshman Community Group.

Welcome!

Hi! We are Sarah & Sukhi, and we are completing our Achievers' Project as a team.

SUKHI'S INTRODUCTION

My name is Sukhi Mohan and I am a freshman at Darien High School. This is my sixth year in the IDEA program and I am so excited to be doing a project of my choice this year. For my project I will be working with my good friend Sarah Williams to create a book of cookie recipes inspired by women in government who we look up to. My favorite subjects in school are probably science and math. This year, I am on the school’s cross country team and I play tennis as well. I am also a member of the Freshman Community Group and the She's The First club. In my free time I enjoy baking, playing piano, and spending time with my friends and family.

Our Project

We want to bond cookies and women in government by creating a collection of cookie recipes that are inspired by women we believe have made important contributions to the government. We chose this project because we both have great love for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the work she did for women, and we also feel it is extremely important that ones government reflects and represents who they are.

OUr mentor

Our mentor for this project is Mrs. Galligan, a local freelance graphic designer. Her expertise and background in the field will be extremely beneficial to us as we create our final project. We are so grateful she has agreed to mentor us and look forward to working with her throughout the year.

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Sarah's Reflection:

This has been a wild year. When, in the past, I have thought about what my ninth grade Idea Project would look like, I definitely did not expect this. This project was fun, personal, and honestly very enjoyable and challenging enough so that I felt like I was accomplishing something but not too challenging, so I never really felt overwhelmed. I have learned a lot from our book, and not only about cookies and women. I have learned about collaborating, time management, giving and receiving feedback, and working with my peers. Doing a group project meant lots of hours on FaceTime and learning how to split up work appropriately so that we were both producing our best work. Working with Mrs. Galligan taught us how crucial it is to respond to emails. Giving feedback to others helped us improve our own project. Time management skills are so important for this project.

If I had to do it differently I think I would try to get my work done sooner so that I would not be as stressed as I was the weekend before Achievers' Night. I would definitely recommend working with a close friend, because Sukhi and I learned a lot more about each other through this work. For example, Sukhi is far better at typing and spelling than I am, but I tend to have a better creative eye. My advice to future ninth graders would be to really love something before you commit to it. Take that as you will.

Sukhi's Reflection:

This year I definitely learned a lot about time management and collaboration. I got to do a year-round group project for this class and it was a learning experience. We had to learn how to make sure we were equally dividing up the work while still communicating with each other and working efficiently to make sure our book was as great as possible. I really enjoyed working on our project this year because it gave me the opportunity to design my own book, which is something I had never done before. It was super fun learning how to create different layouts on google docs as well as being able to add certain elements that were personal to us. Throughout the year, one of my favorite parts regarding our project was being able to conference with our mentor, Mrs. Galligan. It was interesting to work with a professional in graphic design, and she really helped when it came to giving feedback about our book and helping us print it. It was also nice being able to take feedback from our classmates and listen to their suggestions because it helped to make sure our project made sense to everyone.

If there was anything I wish we had done differently it would be starting to design the layout of the book sooner. Although the book turned out beautiful and I'm thrilled with the result, I do wish we had more time to edit it just to fix any formatting errors there might have been. I also wish that we had started working on our actual presentation for Achiever's Night sooner because the weekend right before was hectic as we were trying to get everything done as fast as possible. If there is any advice I would give to rising 9th grade students in the IDEA program it would be to have as clear a picture of what their project is as soon as possible. That way, they can plan out each of their steps and make sure they have as much time as they need to complete their project.

Work in progress presentation #3

For our third progress presentation, we had another meeting with our mentor. We discussed bindings for our book, and then we started the layout. We wrote bios, finalized some cookie recipes, and started baking! Unfortunately, we had to cut Jayme Stevenson from our line up because she did not respond to our emails.

WIPP #3

We will be continuing to write bios and finish our layout. We will also send the book out to print thanks to our lovely mentor.

Work in progress presentation #2

For our second work in progress presentation we added two more women to our project: Condoleezza Rice and Jayme Stevenson, as well as cut Jo Ann Emerson. We also finalized the base of our cookie recipe after comparing numerous recipes. Additionally, we decided that we want the final product of our project to be a book.

Work in Progress Presentation #2

Up next

Sarah - my next step is to further research the women I chose, especially the ones whose research has gaps. After that, I will work to finalize the list of cookies that represent the women.

Sukhi - my next step is to finalize which cookies will represent each woman and to find a way to make each cookie specific to the person.

We will both also look for a graphic design software to design our book.

Work In Progress Presentation #1

This is our presentation for our first mini-goal, which was to figure out which women we are basing our project off of. We created a slide for every woman, all fifteen, including a photo of them, the title they hold/held and a bit of general information on them. At a later time we will go back and research every woman more deeply, but this is what we have so far. Some of the feedback we recieved while presenting was that we should have a more diverse group of woman from the 19th and early 20th century, as well as more women who represent all parties, so we will work to incorporate these critiques in out project.

Sukhi Mohan & Sarah Williams - WIPP #1

Our Next Steps

Sarah - My next step is to create a base recipe for our cookies. To do this I will research a wide variety of cookie recipes and take note of the overlaps in order to come up with a basic recipe. I will then test the cookies to come up with the best recipe possible. I will then start to research the women more deeply.

Sukhi- My next step is to research the women we are choosing more in depth while also keeping the feedback from our first WIPP in mind. I do not think that this will take all of six weeks, so my third mini goal is to create a base recipe for our cookies. I will do this by researching what makes a truly successful cookie.

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