Building Better High School Clubs with Blockchains

Abstract

School clubs continue to be a popular extracurricular activity, especially in high schools. The number of new clubs and their membership has exploded in recent years. Many students participate in clubs over their four years of high school to explore interests, develop skills, engage with peers, and serve their community. The wide spectrum of member talent in a club, however, presents a challenge for the club leadership. In keeping with their mission statement, club leadership must continually train their teams to drive progress season after season. Leadership must collect, analyze and share vast amounts of member data. In this paper, we will examine a new data-sharing model a school club can use to manage its most important asset, its members. Our inspiration comes from commercial enterprises that deploy blockchain networks to manage assets through their supply chains. We will first explore the importance of member management for a club’s success, before delving into the structure of a blockchain network and how its properties are well-suited for a club’s data management. We will then create our own blockchain network, using open-source software from the Linux Foundation, before finally creating a prototype model that can be used by a school club.