Interdependence

The following blog is going to look at interdependence.

Interdependence is when two or more living things depend on each other in order to grow and stay healthy. There are three main components of interdependence and these are economic, social and environmental. I found the WWF living planet report, 2014, contained a lot of facts about our planet. I found out that forest ecosystems provide shelter, livelihoods, water, fuel and food security for  more than two billion people. This shows the importance of interdependence as it demonstrates how each one of those components link together to create a positive outcome for so many people as there is strength from all of those components linking together in an ecosystem. Another fact that I found from this report was that fisheries supply 15% of the animal protein in our diets, rising to more than 50% in many of the least developed countries in Africa and Asia. This again demonstrates the importance of interdependence as we rely on fishermen to catch fish for us to purchase in order for us to have a healthy and nutritious diet. This links to the group task that I completed as fishing was discussed within this. In our group of four we were to create an infograph on interdependence. The key topics that we discussed were fishing, endangered species and farming. By doing this we were using our ability to work together to find out information on the topic which demonstrates group work skills. This is an important skill to have as this is useful for me as a teacher as I will have to work with other members of staff within the primary school in order to achieve positive outcomes within the school. A UWS attribute that can be related to this group work task is research minded as within our group we chose one topic each to research and then came back together as a group and shared our findings in order to create our infograph. This allowed me to be able to become more knowledgeable on each topic, which is also another UWS graduate attribute, but it also allowed me to work individually which I will have to do when I am a teacher when organising work for my class, for example. From this group task, interdependence can be portrayed as we all relied on each other to find out the information for each topic and if one person did not contribute we would not have been able to complete this task efficiently. Group work is also beneficial within in the classroom as it allows pupils to work collaboratively and share ideas with each other thus expanding each others knowledge on the topic that they are discussing. This allows pupils to be effective contributors, which is one of the four capacties, as they are working together and it also allows them to be successful learners as they feel motivated to learn. Another aspect of this is I was able to work individually which is also a useful skill for pupils to complete their work independently as they become a confident individual as they are able to work alone and still be successful without consistently relying on other people.

Farming is another example of interdependence. There are two different farms that I am going to briefly discuss. The first farm is a technology assisting farm. A lot of money is spent on these types of farms, there are less staff working on these farms which means that the farm could be running more efficiently as the cows are trained to  go and milk themselves. The cows are kept inside and made by embryo implantation, they are breed to produce milk however the calves are seperated from their mothers. The second farm is an organic farm whos aim is to educate the consumers of tomorrow. This type of farm organise food and farmers days. Their cows are grass fed and are allowed to go outside but are brought in at night. The customer is able to see where their milk came from. RHET’s , the Royal Highland Education Trust, links into farming. They work with teachers to enable real-life learning opportunites linked to the CFE. This would be useful if I was doing a topic on farming in the classroom as I could take the class on a visit to a farm to expand their learning. RHET’s also give in school talks about farming which would also be a valuable learning experience for the pupils.

Linking to theory and practice, an experince and outcome that could link to interdenpendence is “I can describe how the interdependence of countries affects levels of development considering the effects on peoples lives”. (SOC3-19a). The world beneath our feet by the Scottish government is about soils and demonstrates how to incorporate learning about soils into the CFE. For example, in maths you could measure the yields from different types of soils which links to outdoor learning.

References:

Piktograph: https://create.piktochart.com/output/41754797-untitled-infographic

RHET website: https://www.rhet.org.uk/teachers/

McLellann, R. (Ed) (2014), Living Planet Report 2014, World Wildlife Fund (online) Available at:  http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/

Scottish Government, (2016), The world beneath our feet, connecting soils and the curriculum. (online). Available at: https://www.owlscotland.org//images/uploads/resources/files/world.beneath_June_16.web.pdf

Scottish Government, Education Scotland, (2017), Curriculum for excellence: social studies experiences and outcomes. (online). Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/social-studies-eo.pdf

Climate Change

Our climate is continually changing. If the climate does not remain constant, this is called climate change. The following blog will look at the various aspects of climate change.

Climate is described as the average weather at a given point and time of year over a long period of time. Climate change has many effects on society as a whole. One of these is agriculture. Through the process of desertification, significant amounts of the deserts agricultural land is unusable. In addition to this low lying areas can suffer from flooding and this means that crops could be wiped out which results in farmers losing their crops thus a major part of their business. Another massive effect of climate change is the rising in sea levels. Costal land is at risk and sea defences are under more stress.  I found a useful clip on Youtube which explains climate change from a child’s point of view and thought that this would be a useful resource for the classroom as children could engage with the clip when learning about climate change.

I watched the Antarctica on the edge documentary which was very interesting.

I learned that parts of Antarctica are warming faster than any other areas on the planet and and that carbon dioxide levels have risen and also contribute to climate change. I also became more knowledgeable about the air in Antarctica. Being knowledgeable about this area will be useful for me to use when teaching this topic but it is also one of the Graduate Attributes. Aerosol particles are very important for the water cycle and form clouds.  These particles are very vital as without them it would not rain which would lead to many disadvantages. This could link into a science lesson within the classroom when learning about the water cycle which could then lead to the pupils being creative and drawing out how the water cycle works allowing the pupils to learn about the environment whilst enjoying the lesson. I found a short clip that links climate change and the water cycle together that could be shown when learning about this topic.

Another issue within climate change is Greenhouse gases. Some scientists believe that the build up of gases in the atmosphere act like a blanket around the planet. Heat is therefore trapped inside the earths atmosphere and this is called the greenhouse effect. The increase in these temperatures is called global warming. From reading parts of the climate change for Scotland act 2009, I learned that Scottish ministers must ensure that the reductions in net Scottish emissions of greenhouses gases account for at least 80% of the reduction in the net Scottish emissions account in any target year. This shows that the Government is making a conscience effort to try and tackle things that are effecting us and our planet. This links to the workshop that we had on politics and global warming as the Government ensures that society can adapt to changes like these.

I used the WWF carbon footprint calculator to calculate my households carbon footprint which I have added a link to here:

https://moodle.uws.ac.uk/mod/url/view.php?id=27803

The first set of questions surrounded diet, how much you spend on food and how much food you waste. The next set of questions were about what kind of transport that I use and how often that I travel. The following set of questions were about the type of house that I live in, the use of heat/electricity and what types of energy efficiency improvements are installed in my home. The last set of questions were about spending habits, including spending money on pets but also what type of recycling and compost my household does. The result of the test showed that my carbon footprint was 136%. As part of the UWS graduate attributes I feel that I am socially responsible to make a difference and try to decrease my carbon footprint. I could do this by using public transport to reduce how often I drive places and I could also ensure that I buy food that is in season so that there are less air miles used when transporting this to our shops thus making a small effort towards reducing my carbon footprint. I feel motivated when it comes to this topic as I already recycle every type of waste in my household in specific bins. This could be linked into my teaching as I could encourage the pupils in my classroom to recycle their waste and also help them towards being an Eco school.