The environment is everything around us. It consists of individuals, objects and elements influenced by the surrounding, thus it may be regarded as space where relationship and interactions between entities occur. People take care of it primarily because it furnishes us with resources. (Clayton, S. and Opotow, S., 2003) It is important to take care of it because, on the contrary, will appear facts such as contamination and global warm, what will affect our health and daily routine in future. Apart from this, it provides us and animals natural resources which make possible life on this planet so it is really important for us to maintain the environment the best as possible.

In relation to this, in class, we were outdoors to look for different plants and leaves. We visited the garden and the area around the uni because there is a lot of vegetation. We drew the shapes and the texture of the leaves, in consequence, we found different plants according to the size, the shape, the colour… we also put a paper above a trunk to draw its rugged texture. Thanks to this activity, we realized that it is possible to find several species of plants in a small area and it was really interesting to be able to touch them and appreciate the colours of them.

Then we went to class to observe snails in a box, we even could use a magnifying glass to see them closer and identify the parts of its body.

For me, it was very fun to know different plants that were around me at the same time it was possible to touch them. In this way, we could point out the parts of the plant and learn them. It is really interesting to have an outdoor space to learn contents because it is a place in where we are not costumed to do it. This broke the routine of learning in a classroom while we are listening to the teacher or reading stuff in the books, on the contrary, I think this promotes an autonomous learning for the children because they can learn by themselves using what is around them. Apart from this, it is as well a way of learning that catches the students/children attention and it is a more dynamical learning process because they can explore the natural environment. I am sure that children would have an effective learning because they would have fun in the garden. It is important to have different locations to learn because staying at the classroom all the time can be boring and a routine, thus they can know that it is possible to learn outdoors and they don’t relate the classroom as the only space to learn.
My peers had fun because we had photos and names of some plants, so we had to identify them at the garden by the colour, shapes and size. So the activity it was not only based on look plants but we had to look for some of them between different species and check if they were the same plant that we had on the photos. It was really interesting to learn different plants in that way because it was possible to interact with each other and share common ideas, so it promoted communication skills between them while they were learning.
It is essential to teach children to participate in the environment and made them aware of the impact that people has on it. “It is important to involve children in understanding and being to influence their own physical environment. We need children to become highly reflective, even critical participants in environmental issues in their own communities. We need them to think as well as act locally while also being aware of global issues.” (Satterthwaite, D. et al, 2014, p.6) For this, we as teachers could provide some activities or resources to let them participate in how to take care of the environment through simple actions. Different litters to different materials should be there in every class, children would learn that it is important to recycle and it would be easy to learn that the blue litter must be for paper, the green one for glass and the grey one for organic. Another activity could be planting a community garden where every child participates on planting herbs, fruit or vegetables, in this way children will learn how plants must be taken care.
According to generic skills in Primary teaching, being analytical, collaborative, socially responsible and motivated is part of this, because it is required to analyse the impact that people may have on the environment and the consequences that may exist after our actions. It is important to value actions we did before and change those which aren’t good to the environment. For this reason, we have to be responsible for our actions and behaviour and be aware of how can we act the best as possible. In this way, we have to think that every action it will have a consequence and it depends on us if that consequence is positive or negative. At the same time collaboration is crucial because it is needed to interact with people and act as a team to achieve the same objectives. Finally, motivation is part of this because we have the aim of maintaining the environment good so we have something to work on it and we can think of this as a challenge. Motivation requires an objective to achieve or a reason to act, on the contrary, we would act without aim and we weren’t too interested and motivated on it.
In relation to specific skills relevant, I think the most appropriate are the following ones.
2.1.2 Communicate effectively, using a variety of media, to stimulate pupils and achieve the objectives of lessons.
2.1.3 Employ a range of teaching strategies and justify their approach.
2.1.4 Set expectations and a pace of work which makes appropriate demands on all pupils.
They are important because stimulating pupils through different activities and media and using different teaching strategies makes an easier understanding for the children. At the same time, as I said before collaboration between children is required so it is necessary to have a good atmosphere in class to work to make possible a good communication and interaction and in this way they can improve the communication skills while they are learning. I think I am achieving in these in a high level because I was able to see the ease of learning using them and for the teacher it is fun as well to organize different activities and stuff to do to learn about any topic and personally, in my experience I saw how useful it is to promote learning activities in schools and makes children participate in the learning process. Experience is the best learning and I wouldn’t like to teach in such a boring way like my teachers did in my Primary Education class as a child. Despite this, it takes much more time to organize but I think finally it is worthy for children and teacher. Pace of work in the class is important because it promotes that every child in the class get on well each other and the teacher has to be sure they interact each other because sometimes children use to be with the same group of people and they don’t speak with other people in the class, so it must be there a pace of work within the whole class. We can use the skills in any area of learning, for example, we could use them in Maths class, in which they could work on things they use in their routine to make operations or go outside using outdoors things and they could work in groups, in this way they have to interact each other and think about the correct results as a team. It will improve the team working skills and the respect between every child.

Clayton, S. and Opotow, S. (eds.) Identity and the Natural Environment: They Psychological Signifance of Nature. [Online] Available: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Wwf0oVe2rHIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=identity+and+the+natural+environment&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU8Y_szf7eAhU9UBUIHYIICZwQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=identity%20and%20the%20natural%20environment&f=false [Accessed: 1 December 2018]

Satterthwaite, D. et al. (2014). The environment for children. Understanding and acting on the environmental hazards that threaten children and their parents. [Online] Available: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cB1pAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=environment+for+children&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfz–o0P7eAhVpx4UKHTkWC6cQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=environment%20for%20children&f=false [Accessed: 1 December 2018]