Lakeshore Lacquers Business Plan: Behind The Scenes

Our winter term Final Presentation plans are a little different this time. Usually, we conduct Final Presentations at the school as an open house where guests come and see our work from the term. Due to this unprecedented situation with the Corona Virus, we had to conduct our Final Presentations virtually. This presented some challenges, but we were able to come together to make a final presentation virtually. The theme of this Final Presentation was guiding questions. We use guiding questions to drive the work in a certain unit or class. We had to pick a guiding question and present how we either answered it or what it means to us. I chose the question "how do you make a business plan?" This was the guiding question for the second action project for my STEAM class Social Entrepreneurship & You. I chose this question because this was the work I was most proud of and enjoyed doing the most over this term. I walked through how I created my idea, business plan, elevator pitch, and business pitch. Enjoy my Final Presentation. 

 

In conclusion, I enjoyed making this project. I did not enjoy the format of doing this from afar. I liked talking more about my project and getting to describe my process. I would have liked to present this project in real life, but this is the next best thing. I would have liked to work more independently, but we had to work together to keep a sense of community during this time. In the end, I am happy that I was able to continue my work on this action project. 

Where is Equality Going?

This is the last unit of our winter senior humanities course Equality. In this unit, Herstory, we looked at what equality could be in the future. By investigating the history of equality, we were able to make assumptions on what equality would look like in the future. We read various articles about how inequality affects people today to get a better understanding of where we are coming from and where we need to go. We had a guest speaker from UIC come in and talk to us about how we see inequality in our lives. He talked to us about how our society still treats people like the school to prison pipeline, police brutality, and more. It was very interesting to hear about all of his experiences in life and what advice he gave us as young adults to navigate a world that looks down on young people and treats them like they are less. I really enjoyed listening to him. For our final Action Project, we had to imagine what equality would look like in the future. Our job was to think of an event that could happen in 100 years from now that would represent society moving forward. We had to write a newspaper article about it and then open a time capsule-like we were living 50 years after our fictional event happened. I chose the election of a physically disabled president. I hope you enjoy my project.

In conclusion, I didn't really like this project. I thought the newspaper part was interesting, but I think the rest was completely unnecessary. It felt forced and a little childish. I like the concept of the project, but I think it would be better suited as just a newspaper article or maybe an essay. Nevertheless, I am happy with how my project came out. I am proud of the visuals I did and the content.

Lakeshore Lacquers Business Plan

This is the second unit of our Senior STEAM class Social Entrepreneurship and You. In this unit, we learned all about businesses. In the first unit, we examined ourselves and others' behavior. In this unit, we looked at how to actually run a business. We looked at different legal structures, mission and vision statements, demographics and physiographic, and marketing. We also looked at business concepts like the Triple Bottom Line and the Hedgehog Concept. We examined different companies and how they use these tools in their businesses. We had a couple guests come in and speak to us about starting their own businesses. We had one man come in and talk to us about his small construction and handyman business. We also listened to a man who started a non-for-profit called Greenwood to help underprivileged students get internships and jobs in finance. We were able to learn about how businesses work and how they got started. For this action project, we had to create our own business plans. This rubric was a bit different as we were able to choose how many points we want. We had to create a product that helped a social cause and create a business plan. I decided to create a nail polish brand and donate a portion of the proceeds to help the Great Lakes. Enjoy my project.

In conclusion, I really liked this project. I have always wanted to create and design a nail polish line. I love how this turned out. I feel confident about all of my decisions and my marketing. I also love the logo I made. I did this project in a very busy time and I think I managed my time well. Maybe one day I will actually create my own nail polish brand.