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

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