Looking around, I see 140 students and 6 teachers earnestly working together and towards a common goal. Building an eco-city with all its detailed elements to scale! In the two hour session we had to pull students up for mess with painting but only one single student I saw was not engaged or off task! The kids were totally engrossed in the process (the learning)...
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Running Eco Warriors again! This time we are combining the unit for all Upper Primary in years 4-6! Lots of work has gone into tasks thus far with the building of our EcoCity finally underway...
Again, scale is a challenging concept. The design and build elements are by far the most engaging aspect and students have embraced collaboration between genders and year levels. Having recently joined a new school community, I have been blessed to pass on the idea of the Eco Warriors unit to a colleague who studied, adapted and implemented it again but in a different context, with different students and within a different scale to what was done previously. Over the course of a term, I have watched the same idea unfold differently. The stage was set and the planning was the same. A grid was set up and teams were created to start planning, designing and working on the collaborative project. It was interesting that the same important lessons were learnt early on about scale and size relativity. This was not an intended learning outcome for the unit but in both contexts, a major learning obstacle to overcome early on in the project. Students designed Eco buildings, roads, housing and community facilities similar to the ones done before. This city called the 'Township" had less of a city feel and more of a beach side town vibe....very reflective of the community the school serves. I took pictures along the way to compare and reflect upon. This has been the most fascinating professional observations for me. The program, yet the same, offered such different opportunities, learning outcomes and conversations. However different, each implementation reached the objectives of the unit and saw students learning through application, by asking questions, making and producing work and challenging themselves as they overcame obstacles. What an incredible journey! The Eco Warriors project took a great amount of investment from both students and teachers. The project had several phases and elements including teacher and student safety training and the introduction of our new 'maker space'. The students were excited in the final week as their ideas and visions began to take shape. Teachers were motivated to see the project finished in time for the Exhibition night which was held on the last Thursday evening of Term 2.
The picture below is of the final product, the city in completion. The end product of this project was surprising, not only for the amount of detail evident in student thinking and planning but also the immense collaboration that had taken place. In addition to the excellent team work that was on display throughout the term, we could also show that all syllabus outcomes, with the exception of 12 (overall) were covered and documented within this unit. A wonderful journey of learning, making and community collaboration in action! The space has been cleaned, the movies have been made and the city has been built! Well done Stage 3. Mrs Worthington |
AuthorsThis BLOG is administered and authored by the Stage 3 teaching team in The Zone at NBCS. Archives
March 2017
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