Over the past few months the Year 6 students from rooms 13 and 14 have been involved the ‘A Week in the Life’ Global Project with schools from Bulgaria, New Zealand, Thailand, Nepal and the United States. It has been a great learning experience. Each student has summarised their learning on a slide in the following slide shows. Please feel free to leave comments by clicking on the title of this post.
This afternoon the Year 6 students connected with students from Sophia, Bulgaria. We provided an audience for the Year 3s whilst they shared highlights of their learning throughout the ‘A Week in the Life’ project.
We were able to connect with them through an online forum called Fuze. Fuze enables people to enter an online ‘classroom’. We had participants from Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand and America. At 3:00pm our time it was 8:30am in Bulgaria. Many of our students stayed on after the end of the school day to enable this to take place.
It was great to hear the students from Bulgaria share the varied knowledge, skills and new understandings they have developed as a result of this project.
Our students have been busy each preparing a slide to contribute to our school’s slide show, which will highlight our learning over the course of the project. We will participate in another Student Summit with the students from New Zealand soon.
Students have been working on international teams to collate and share their learning on their various topics through Voice Thread. The final products, which are still being added to, can be viewed here:
http://aweekinthelife15-1.wikispaces.com/Final+Project+Showcase
The Flat Connections ‘A Week in the Life’ Project has provided some great opportunities so far. The ‘Handshake’ phase has enabled students to introduce themselves and connect with students from Nepal, Thailand, the United States, Bulgaria and New Zealand. Skyping with the students from The American Pacific International School has been a highlight so far. Students were able to pose questions of each other and were very interested in the evident differences and similarities. Meals, school times, environmental conditions and school year were some of the topics of conversation.
Students have also enjoyed viewing the photos and videos shared on the Wiki by each of the schools.
Students have recently been introduced to their small team topics, and have begun to develop an understanding of who they will be working with and what they individually and collectively know about their topic already. Posing questions which will guide their inquiry has also been a focus.
Use the Question Matrix to pose questions related to the topics.
Think of how the issues affect both locally and globally. What questions would be good to use in a survey on your topic?
Global Warming
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/
http://www.climatehotmap.org
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/
http://www.abc.net.au/science/earth/climate/uncertain.htm
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/
http://www.makemegenius.com/index.php?type=0
Clean Air
http://education.usgs.gov
http://www.clean-air-kids.org.uk
Human Rights
http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/human-rights-education-and-training
http://www.pdhre.org/rights/refugees.html
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/education/human-rights-school-classroom
http://www.crin.org
http://magnacarta800th.com/history-of-the-magna-carta/the-magna-carta-timeline/
http://www.amnesty.org.au/refugees/archive/C12/
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/publications/2012-face-facts
Animals
http://www.allaboutanimals.org.uk
http://australianmuseum.net.au/australias-extinct-animals
http://www.mammalwatching.com/indozmammalshome.html
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/
http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl?wanted=fauna#birds%20that%20are%20Critically%20Endangered
Shrinking Habitats
http://a-z-animals.com/reference/habitats/
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153224/
Marine animals
http://www.mbgnet.net/salt/oceans/index.htm
Poverty
http://www.antipovertyweek.org.au
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/schools/index.shtml
Food
https://3things.org.au/programs/food-4-thought/
Water
http://www.sawater.com.au/SAWater/Education/
http://water.usgs.gov/edu/
Natural Disasters
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/
http://www.christianaid.org.uk/resources/games/index.aspx
http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/Earth.html
Drought
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/
http://www.planetdiary.com
People
Impacts on Environment
http://calc.zerofootprint.net/youth/
http://ecologicalfootprint.com
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-footprint/
Deforestation
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/
Pollution
http://pollution.com
These are the final broad themes for the project. Groups will be added to Edmodo once we decide what sub-topics are needed.
What do you thinks of these topics? What would you like to find out more about?
1. Food – shortages, water issues, wastages, quality (hormones and antibiotics in meat), GM foods, fresh and local food, soil erosion, water
2. Global Warming – effects on plants, deforestation, increase in natural disasters, greenhouse gases, droughts
3. Pollution – toxic waste, fresh air and poisonous gas, littering, electric cars, rubbish dumping, landfills, e-waste, nuclear power, recycling, traffic
4. Animals – introduced pests, impact of pollution, destruction of animal habitats, endangered species/ endangered sea life, cruelty by testing, animal rights
5. People – over-population, health issues (obesity/ mental health), safety from natural disasters, human rights
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Check out the map to find out where the other students in this project come from.
The year 6 classes have signed up to be involved in the global project titled ‘A Week in the Life’. Students will join others from the United States, Thailand, Nepal, Bulgaria and New Zealand to connect, communicate and explore environmental issues of local and global significance.
The essential questions we aim to answer:
1. What are the similarities and differences among children around the world?
2. How can we connect with each other through our commonalities?
3. How does your geography, history and lifestyle of where you live impact your topic?
4. What are essential solutions to researched global issues and how can we share these?
Students will communicate through Edmodo – an educational ‘Facebook’ type environment, and create artifacts in teams with students around the world.
The first part of this project is the Handshake phase where students introduce themselves to each other.
I will look forward to sharing some of the learning throughout this project.