Month: November 2017

Climate change is a topic that is very current in our lives today as people are beginning to debate whether it is a natural occurring process of our planet or if it is a more man-made process due to effects such as the industrial revolution causing decades of greenhouse gas emissions.  Having read the Climate … Continue reading “Climate Change – Directed Study Task”

This week Diarmuid presented us with the opportunity to explore the Children’s Art Archive This included work from children from all over the U.K. It was laid out into early, first and second level examples.

At early level, (McAuliffe, 2007) states that children tend to move their whole arm to create art as well as stabbing like motions. This piece is what looks to be a child’s interpretation of a rainforest. You can see the while arm movements in the trunk of the tree, and I must admit that I was blown away with the creativity and standard of the work.

 This first level piece is also of a high standard; however, it looks like part of a teacher-lead activity and not as spontaneous or creative. It is at a much higher level of detail and the attention to this detail is overwhelming. This could have been part of a topic related IDL.

This second level artwork definitely looks like topic related IDL. At this stage, children become aware of artists and their styles and become more critical of their own abilities and inhibitions. This is referred to as the ‘gang stage’ (McAuliffe, 2007). I really like how this particular piece tells a story of what the child imagines pre-historic times was like.

Overall this lesson provided me with an insight into children’s art and how to handle and not assess – but to appreciate it, and to display it with pride.

 McAuliffe, D (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Art and Design 3-11 (ed). London: Continuum.

This week was our first week in Integrated Arts.
 
In art, we were asked to note down our experiences with the arts – both negative and positive. Our lecturer taught us about how when children scribble, it is art. If children are creating art to show us how they see the world, it is important that we take care and interest and engage with their art (McAuliffe, 2007).

During Music, we were learning about Music Appreciation. To start off, we listened to five sound bites and we were then asked to write down how they made us feel. Bloomfield & Childs (2000) suggests that art gives us a chance to all appreciate the arts individually. This was the first time I feel like I really understood this concept. In the classroom, this concept could be introduced to children in a very similar way.

Our next activity was to listen to a longer piece of music and create a storyboard of what we thought was happening. The music was the Tin Soldier from Disney’s Fantasia. What was interesting is that although each group had different ideas, we all had similar themes. In a classroom situation, this would be a great stimulus for imaginative writing and would also cover music E’s & O’s too!

 

Bloomfield, A and Childs, J (2000) Teaching Integrated Arts in the Primary School. Oxon: David Fulton Publishers.

McAuliffe, D (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Art and Design 3-11 (ed). London: Continuum.

 

 

Interdependence is the way in which two living things depend on each other to grow and remain healthy. There are three main components on interdependence;

• Economics
• Social
• Environmental

The economic takes in the global markets and financial institutions. The social takes in the media advertising and cultural integration. The environment needs to look beyond the local area and look at our global responsibilities that everyone has a job to maintain the web of life. Interdependence has an effect on the food supply and food chains, plant and animal breeding and crop protection and animal welfare. Furthermore it affects symbiosis, social behaviours and there is the fear of extinction with the threats due to biodiversity.

An example of interdependence problems that has been going on for years is the pollution in the ocean. This affects the water due to the chemicals which end up in the water because of the pollution and therefore the plants take on these chemicals and the fish eat these plants and then we eat the fish therefore causing harm to the ocean, the fish and to us. In the classroom you could  make an interdependence cycle where the children have to fit the flashcard with words or picture in the correct place in the cycle, thus reinforcing interdependence. An infant class could do this with pictures only. It could be differentiated in middle school with flashcards and explanations and upper school they could make their own cycles. I myself am now aware of the pollution can be caused in the ocean due the task I completed in my group. I was shocked and disgusted at the pollution that even I am involved with the things I through out.

When on work experience I was in a P2 class and they were doing a topic on interdependence, they had to go out with me to the school grounds and look for all sorts of mini beasts. We brought these back to the classroom and discussed how the fox – mouse – spider – fly – grass and how it was all interrelated through interdependence. I was actually amazed at how the children grasped the concept.

Research using the computers would be a good way of letting children find out about endangered animals and how in some countries large animals are killed for example an elephant being killed for their tusks and there is a chance of extinction if this continues.

This section also looked at two different types of farms and how this related to the economical factors of interdependence to maintain these farms, which I have previously discussed in my independent study task which can be found on my previous blogs.

Climate change is an up-to-date topic that is frequently discussed on the news. In the lecture we discussed the effects that climate change is having on our world today and it is a topic that I feel should be discussed in school, as we need to look after our planet now rather than when its too late and the climate has been completely damaged. Climate change is the average weather at a given time or point over a long period. If the climate doesn’t stay the same it can be called climate change.

Evidence for climate change is collected by weather recordings, ice cores, rocks and fossils and analyses of pollen and trees. There are several significant dangers of climate change;

• Desertification
• Damage from flooding – crops or house damage
• Sea level changes
• Sea defences under more stress
• Flooding of low lying costal areas

Climate change is effecting our weather and therefore the British farming industry is suffering by producing poor quality crops which the farmers have a problem selling and even  in some areas the crops are completely damaged due to flooding. We have seen a lot of flooding in the past couple of years in the UK and more recently the hurricane Irma that has destroyed hundreds of homes and killing many many people in Florida and the Caribbean.

In the first workshop we researched and worked collaboratively in a group. We had to research the effects climate change would have on a family living in the Borders of Scotland. We had to present our work to the rest of our peers and each group member had to contribute. I think this would be a good activity to use in the middle or upper school as the children could use the researching, ICT skills or produce a poster full of information to present to the rest of the class. This task really made me think about the impact of climate change on family life, it was very interesting to hear about the other groups and one group  had a family in Indian to research and it made me imagine  what that family had to suffer because of climate change. In the second workshop, it was a carousel of activities that we had to work around in groups. This was an excellent means by which we covered several different areas and we all got to participate in it all relating to climate change.

The government in the UK is very involved in climate change and are looking for many ways to reduce it.The climate change Scotland act 2009 is trying to reduce admissions of dangerous gasses by at least 80%. These targets have to be met by 2050. There is also the greenhouse effect to considered, many scientists believe that due to a build up of greenhouse gasses around the world that heat becomes trapped inside the earth’s atmosphere and therefore it results in an increase of the world’s temperature  and is called global warming. Furthermore I have learned about the ozone layer which is meant to protect the earth for harmful ultra violet rays, however the ozone layer is becoming thinner and more or the harmful rays are reaching the earth. These are all areas that children need to be aware of and learn about as it has an impact on the environment and their lives. I now have a better understanding of how to tackle climate change and the impact that climate change has on the world and me. I now feel more confident about helping the children to understand about climate change and activities I could use with them in the class.

The environment has been my first introduction to sustainable development. “The goal of sustainable development is to enable all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life without compromising the quality of life of future generations.” (Scottish Government, 2010, p. 4) We looked at two environments the natural and the urban. Because of task 1 I am more aware of what the urban environment is. As a teacher I now see the importance of educating the children about sustainable development. It is important to educate children to care for their environment as they live in it now but also for the future generations. We will be teaching them the values of sustainability about a healthier, happier, environmental friendly world that will develop benefits in health, the environmental improvements, better use of resources, makes education relevant and will help with policy making at government level.

I am very aware already of the damage that the environment has encountered as its good to teach children from an early age how we can contribute in protecting the environment where we live. “The disproportionate overuse of resources by industrialised nations has raised living standards in many countries but at a huge cost to the health of the Earth’s living systems” (Scottish Government, 2012, p.6)

The natural environment has to do with human relationships with nature, the biodiversity of the local area and interdependence.

One of the first workshops we had to look at plants and living things. This involved identifying the living parts and dissecting the flower. We then had to match the parts of the flowers to a diagram on a worksheet. We went outside to be nature detectives and we were looking at air quality and Lichen.  The Lichen can be used to find out how much air pollution is in the area and what affect this is having in the area. The children can look for Lichen and find where it is and why it is there, for example on trees facing a specific way.

The second workshop involved looking more at living things in our groups. We looked at snails in the classroom and I can see this as an excellent activity in the primary class by getting out the microscopes, looking in detail at the spirals, the tentacles and the air hole on the snail. The children could then draw their snail looking in detail at all of the colours, spirals and details of the snails.

 

Reference

Scottish Government (2012) Learning for Sustainability: The Report of the One Planet Schools Working Group. Edinburgh: Scottish Government

 

 

 

 

References

Scottish Government (2012) Learning for Sustainability: The Report of the One Planet Schools Working Group. Edinburgh: Scottish Government

Week 1

My knowledge of natural disasters was very limited prior this week’s learning in Sustainable Development. Our lecture reinforced what I already knew about disasters, i.e. types of disasters, what they look like through video footage, the primary effects they can have such as high rate of mortality and mass destruction of land and infrastructure. Middleton (2013, page 367) suggests “natural hazards should be defined and studied both in terms of physical processes involved and the human factors affecting the vulnerability of certain groups of people to disasters”. Thus looking at socioeconomic and political aspects of certain areas, such as government policy and access ,  is essential to understand why an area does not tackle a natural disaster well. This is something I had not recognised previously as a student.

I had the opportunity to further understand how disasters are inherently political by comparing case studies of Japan and Haiti. Both country’s government response to their natural disaster were very different from one another, this is for a number of reasons. With Japan being exceptionally more wealthy than Haiti, the funding  and policy towards preparedness for disaster events was well prioritised. Wealthier countries will tend to have more allies, meaning in the case of a disaster they can rely on international help such as extra resources. Japan being heavily organised for such an event made recovery and mitigation a more fast effective process. Contrary to this, Haiti having levels of corruption in government the response decisions were not all made based on human principles. Their unorganised planning for example slow distribution of supplies and poor search for survivors caused detrimental effects to the country, this also resulted in protests and outbreaks of violent behaviour from the public. Effectively evaluating and analysing these two case study texts allowed me develop my higher-order thinking skills as a student.

The American government’s handling of Hurricane Katrina is a powerful example of how being socioeconomically disadvantaged stimulates a weak recover from natural disasters.  A lack of social capital can hinder the ability to generate both the conditions necessary for mutual support and care and the mechanisms required for communities and groups to exert effective pressure to influence public policy (Nix-Stevenson, 2013). New Orleans is mainly populated by working class African-American people, therefore the people did not have the power to create change and get the help they desperately needed from the government. I found this to be the most interesting part of my learning as even in one of world’s most wealthy and powerful countries, a lack of social justice and political action created ruinous effects on one it own states.

We later discussed the questions of how and why should we teach natural disasters to primary children. Personally I feel growing up disasters were not spoken of much by my teachers, this is most likely due to teachers being uncomfortable talking about the subject, therefore I had the misconception that I could not be affected by one. If I take the attitude as a teacher myself I feel my pupils would have the same misconception. The Grenfell Tower disaster is an example of how important teaching disasters is and shows children that they could potentially be hit with a disaster in the UK. Looking at disasters in this way enhanced my knowledge by recognising that teachers should open about these subjects to children in order to prepare them for real-life situations.

I was able to expand my skills by taking part in a number of disaster-related science experiments. One example activity was using vinegar, fairy liquid, food colouring and bicarbonate soda to represent a volcanic eruption. I could use this activity in a lesson to also allow the pupils’ science investigation skills to develop as well as my own, such as: hypothesising, evaluating and observing.

Week 2  

The second week of our learning of natural disasters required us to prepare and give a group presentation to the class on a chosen type of natural disaster. After being given the topic of volcanoes, my group and I came together to  create the structure of our presentation and fairly allocate each person to  a specific research area they would later present.  Leading up to the day of the presentation, we all remained in contact with each other so everyone knew what each individual had worked on and what they had prepared to talk about. This was mainly to see how we could interlink each of our parts so that the presentation was cohesive and would flow better. The role of effective communication played a crucial part in the success of our presentation, a skill which is used extensively in a student’s university career. With having the opportunity to develop this skill I feel much more confident in working as a team and relying on others to produce the same standard of work as I would myself.  My research skills as a student further developed as I investigated topic I had little knowledge about. Furthermore I enjoyed the experience of listening to my classmates present on topics such as floods, typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc, as it helped increased my overall knowledge of natural disasters.

My role in the presentation was to produce and present a lesson plan in which I could teach the topic of volcanoes to a primary class. Having the opportunity to do this independently (for the first time as a student teacher) really opened my eyes on how work and planning goes into a lesson. Specifically, researching information on a topic that could potentially disturb and frighten pupils of a class, such as high death rates of volcanic explosions; I had to find websites, image ands videos that were child-friendly. This developed my evaluation skills as a teacher,  looking for appropriate resources and information is highly important to not only effectively inform the pupils but also to protect them.

The aspect of presenting in front of an audience enhanced a variety of my skills. In relation to my skills as a student, group presentations are a brilliant way to build a person’s confidence and speaking skills in front of colleagues. This will not only prepare me for future projects within university but also for future meetings and seminars with other professionals once I am qualified. Being able to communicate efficiently to an audience is one of main success criteria of teachers. By presenting my lesson plan and explaining the instructions I would give to a group of children, further built on my presently skills as a teacher. In addition, watching others present allowed me to develop my observational skills as I saw how each person engaged with the audience, e.g. through their body language, and what technique I thought worked best. I intend to take that knowledge on as a teacher in order to be the best communicator I can be to my pupils.