Questions and Answers

1. What was the major objective of your project and what was your plan to achieve it? 

       a. Was that goal the result of any specific situation, experience, or problem you encountered?  

       b. Were you trying to solve a problem, answer a question, or test a hypothesis?

The main goal of this project was to solve a problem. Nowadays with the pandemic, even more businesses, especially tourism are being hit, however by finding ways to mitigate the effects that natural disasters have on their business we can not only ensure their livelihoods but ensure economic stability. After doing countless research we came to find that thousands of local, family-owned business were being hurt because of the pandemic

 

2. What were the major tasks you had to perform in order to complete your project?

       a. For teams, describe what each member worked on.

Research - This task required a plethora of sources and data gathering to ensure the analysis could be done properly. Had this job not been done correctly the data analysis portion could have been very weak or even nonexistent. Additionally, background information regarding the effects and past events was necessary to prove the problem existed

Data Analysis - This task required computer science and mathematical knowledge as it implemented a self-made predictive modeling software to visualize data to show ways to lower the effects

Communication - This task required communication with various sources including industry leaders and those in certain governmental agencies who had access to necessary profit information.

Synthesis - This task essentially was formatting and completing the research paper into a finished product.

3. What is new or novel about your project?

       a. Is there some aspect of your project's objective, or how you achieved it that you haven't done before?

       b. Is your project's objective, or the way you implemented it, different from anything you have seen?

       c. If you believe your work to be unique in some way, what research have you done to confirm that it is?

This project was special because I had never seen a pure project that was based on predictive modeling software and its results. These results differentiated this research paper from any others as it proved a variety of ways to lower the impacts of natural disasters.

4. What was the most challenging part of completing your project?

      a. What problems did you encounter, and how did you overcome them?

      b. What did you learn from overcoming these problems?

The most challenging part of the project was actually finding the data. Data for these profit based sectors is often hidden and prevented from becoming public information, thus I needed to creatively find ways to circumvent these hardships by attaining tax records from governmental agencies in high tourism regions

5. If you were going to do this project again, are there any things you would you do differently the next time?

If I were do to this project again I would most likely choose a bit of a broader scope to look at this same lens from. I believe my specifically focusing on ski resorts rather than something larger the data collection process could have been less tedious.

6. Did working on this project give you any ideas for other projects? 

This project gave me an idea to make a similar project however relating climate change to the negative effects of the economy and how to prevent the economy from stagnating in a variety of ways.

7. How did COVID-19 affect the completion of your project?

COVID-19 made it difficult to get in contact with governmental agencies who were often at half or even less capacity. Additionally, speaking to mentors or getting advice from teachers during non-school hours became increasingly difficult.