This term, our Year 9 students began their Human Technologies journey with the unit Stories for Making Sense, which asked the core question: How do humans make sense of the world and their lives?

Through myths, science, and philosophical inquiry, students explored how stories, whether ancient creation myths, cultural narratives, or scientific theories like the Big Bang, help us explain who we are and how we relate to the world around us. These explorations encouraged students to see that stories are more than entertainment; they are a powerful technology that shapes human understanding, values, and identity, especially when we all believe in the same story.

Building on these ideas, classes 9.3 and 9.4 undertook a deeper study of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, a novel recommended to our students by Tom Murphy, a self-described “recovering astrophysicist” and professor of Physics at the University of California. Murphy previously joined our Year 11 panel discussion on Technologies for a Sustainable Future, where he shared how Ishmael deeply influenced his own worldview, prompting him to think differently about humanity’s relationship with the planet. On such a compelling recommendation, I felt this novel could serve as a powerful gateway for our students to reflect on what it means to be ethical users of the technologies they use. Human Technologies aims to graduate students who bear the hallmarks of sustainable people, equipped to thrive within and contribute to a complex, interdependent world - this is our vision of "The Good Life".

The novel Ishmael challenges readers to rethink the modern story of progress, human dominance, and consumption. Through Ishmael’s metaphor of captivity, students contemplated how modern civilization’s patterns of consumption can trap both people and the planet in unsustainable cycles.

The unit culminated in The Stuff Project: a creative and reflective exploration of the personal stories we tell through the things we own. Students were invited to analyse their own “stuff”: their clothes, possessions, and digital goods, to uncover what these items reveal about their values, priorities, and lifestyles. The project encouraged critical thinking about consumer culture, sustainability, and the deeper human desire for meaning and belonging.

To share their insights, students produced an exciting range of creative works, including poems, short films, artworks, musical compositions, and multimedia pieces. This unit not only deepened students’ understanding of how humans use stories to make sense of life but also invited them to question the story we live by today. Are we shaping a story that truly serves us—and the planet—or is it time to imagine a new one?