For my community project, I worked alongside others in a care home for dementia patients serving their meals and integrating with them in their lounge areas. From this experience I was able to understand the term dementia. Dementia can be described as the different symptoms that may arise which suggest memory loss in a patient (Alzheimer’s Society, 2019).

This type of work was a very new experience for myself as an individual. Before taken part in this project I had never worked with dementia patients before, however I have had a family member who had dementia therefore I had some basic understandings of how to encounter it.

The variety of forms of dementia really surprised me as I wasn’t aware there was more than 1 type of dementia. Some patients can suffer from day to day loss where they can’t recall what happened the day before or they could have problems with language and therefore can’t process a conversation properly.

When working in the care home, it was very challenging to understand some of the conversations patients were having with me. At some occasions, patients couldn’t finish their conversations because they were unsure of what they were trying to say to me and this was quite heartbreaking as I knew they were trying to ask me something they needed an answer for therefore I had to try and figure out what they were saying.

It was very enjoyable to watch how all the staff within the care home interact with the patients and really made their time there fun and engaging. It was also enjoyable to get to speak to the patients and other professionals and gain more experience in this area of work.

 

From this experience, I developed an understanding of those in the dementia community. I learned that these people are very fragile within our community and it is our role within the community to assist those with dementia and make sure they have a healthy and safe life throughout their later ages. The project also gave me the opportunity to gain multiple skills such as teamwork, communication and problem solving. Linking to gratitude attributes I was able to be emotionally intelligent around the patients and tried to be understanding of their situation and give them my absolute full attention if and when they were speaking to me.

This amazing opportunity allowed me to link skills that I had gained and transfer them into my teaching studies. These skills could be things like patience and listening for example. These are two very important skills I had further developed within the care home. These skills have taught me that it is crucial that we give pupils time to grasp what is being taught to them and try to be patient even if they may not be able to understand the concept your teaching the first time around. It is also important that we give our pupils our full attention when they have something to ask or to say, this allows pupils to feel like they are being valued and their thoughts and opinions are being heard and taken onboard.

When looking at my community project, I was able to make connections between my project and Sustainable Development. I found that my time at the care home linked with the Diversity section. This is due to the fact that although the majority of the patients had dementia, it was important for me to understand they were all very different and had their own characters ( Queensborough Community College,2019).

 

My project also linked to another module I have taken this year and that is Inter-professional Working. As I was working with dementia patients, it gave me the opportunity to gather how important it was for the all the patients to be a part of something within the care home. Carers would encourage all patients to get involved in the activities going on in the care home so that they were made to feel included in what was going on around them. This linked to the theme of inclusion from Inter-Professional Working, as it is important in teaching that we ensure everyone feels like they are included and no one is excluded from taking part. It is our role as a student teacher to create plans for teaching to include all pupils and ensuring our level of teaching is adequate for all learning abilities (Andy Thompson,2009).

Overall, this community project has allowed me gain a better understanding of dementia as a whole and how myself as an individual can further help those suffering from dementia. This opportunity has allowed me to gain and further develop skills which I can use within teaching and I look forward to doing so.

REFERENCES

Alzheimer’s Society.(2019) What is Dementia? [Online] Available: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/types-dementia/what-dementia [Accessed: 25Th November 2019].

Queensborough Community College. (2019) Definition for Diversity [Online] Available: http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/diversity/definition.html [ Accessed: 22nd November 2019].

Thompson, A. (2009) Why is Inclusion so Important? [Online] Available: https://senmagazine.co.uk/articles/articles/senarticles/why-is-inclusion-so-important [Accessed: 22nd November 2019].

Energy is the ability to make something work (US Energy Information Administration,2019). Energy can’t be destroyed therefore it goes from one energy source to another. These sources can be things such as wind, heat, light and turbine.

As a class teacher, I would demonstrate the knowledge of energy, linking with all the definitions and the sources etc and then I would link to this youtube video which really engages pupils into what energy actually is and how it can be performed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0_S5YpYVo

When teaching pupils about energy, it is important that we define it and we want our pupils to understand energy. We also want our pupils to have an appreciation for non-renewable and renewable energy. Non- renewable energy involves sources such as coal, natural gases and oil for example. Renewable energy is when we restore energy from another source such as wind, rain or heat for example (Aust,2014).

Before this session, I underestimated the amount of energy we actually use in our world on a daily basis. We use fossil fuels so we can burn them to make a source of energy. For example, we use transport fuels such as petrol or diesel to make our cars work. We also use natural gas in order to cook our food and heat our houses. As teachers, we should encourage our pupils to be less dependent on fossil fuels so that our world isn’t damaged and this then links with global warming as our earth is being trapped with all these dangerous gases caused by fossil fuels (Segal, 2018).

In our sections, we took part in a debate about alternative energy. In this task two teams had to debate for and against the subject of “Are wind turbines a viable alternative to fossil fuels?”.   In small groups we had to gather information that would back up a point we had suggested. I took part in the against team, this was something I had never took part in before so this was a challenge for myself to stand in front of peers and put my point across about the wind turbines and I gained self-confidence doing so. This allowed us to gain research skills as well as working in a team and listening to our opponent.  The task was better in groups as you learned more and were able to share the workload with one another.

       

If you were to take this lesson with pupils, it is important to ensure that all pupils are alright with the debate and consider how certain pupils may feel talking out in front of the class. It is important that you encourage everyone to be involved, for example, give everyone a role within the group which allows them to feel like they have had a part in the task.

This link demonstrates what debating actually is! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juuiZPQ1ZWk

Within our science session, we investigated different experiments we could complete that created energy. We took part in experiments such as creating a fuse and a solar panel car. The creating a fuse task allowed us to create a fuse on the circuit board using electricity and steel wool and the steel wool then caught on fire due to the short circuit being created to make the fuse. It introduced problem solving skills and critical thinking, however we established there needed to be health and safety due to the fire. So for this task it’s important that we do health and safety before using electricity with pupils. The solar panel car was very engaging for pupils to undertake as they could control the car by holding the solar panel to the light.

These tasks demonstrated that we need to ensure kids are kept safe when being taught about electricity or energy but they are also able to have fun.

Our last session was tinkering vs structured in technologies. This allowed both sections to create a vehicle using materials and finding the type of energy you would use to make your vehicle move. The two sections created the same model but the tinkering session has the freedom to design their own model  which made it unique, compared to the structured section that were given instructions on how to complete the model therefore everyone’s looked the same. Tinkering allows us to considered how something could work therefore it became frustrating when some of our materials didn’t work out and we had to change them. Our car ran on kinetic energy as we created a ramp for it to go down.  Here is our car;

This task was important as it highlighted how encouraging it is to see how you can make a young person feel capable to create something of their own. It also links to sustainable development as it highlights that we should encourage more STEM classes so that we can change and improve lives, especially for girls.

Overall, linking to the professional standard of social justice, it is crucial that we teach pupils different ways to use energy to protect our world from running out of natural resources. We must encourage pupils to demonstrate what changes they can make to the world by using less energy.

References

Aust,A. (2014) Non-Renewable and Renewable Energy Resources [Online] Available: https://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2014/02/13/nonrenewable-and-renewable-energy-resources-2/ [Accessed: 17^th November 2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0_S5YpYVo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juuiZPQ1ZWk

Segal, R.(2018) Should We Depend on Fossil Fuels or Renewable Energy? [Online] Available: https://www.theperspective.com/debates/living/depend-fossil-fuels-renewable-energy/ [Accessed: 17^th November 2019].

US Energy Information Administration (2019) What is Energy? [Online] Available: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/what-is-energy/ [Accessed: 8^th November 2019].

Natural disasters involve all kinds of severe weather types such as tornados or hurricanes that could threaten the life of humans and the risk of their safety (Homeland Security, 2018). Natural disasters can cause environmental losses as well as economic as communities struggle to deal with a natural disaster using their own resources.

When teaching pupils about natural disasters it is important that we ensure that what we are telling them isn’t too hard hitting. It is important that we try our best to avoid videos or news reports that involves recorded number of deaths for example. Attached below is an engaging video aimed at primary school level which develops pupils understanding of what a natural disaster is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaEmIakO7f4

Natural disasters are very unlikely to occur within the United Kingdom. However, there have been many disasters to occur across the world in countries such as Japan and Haiti. Before this session, I was unaware that there are different categories of disasters therefore I was able to gain some research skills as I was gathering information on the different types of disasters and how they occur.

Within the Science workshop we examined different types of rocks such as igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. We also analysed Volcanoes as a form of a natural disaster that could occur. There were various activities within the workshop such as Volcano making to classifying where the disasters would occur around the world.

The world of disasters task would be a good resource to use in the classroom. It allowed me to gain collaborative, research, critical thinking and discussion skills. The sheet could be used as an assessment tool to see what the pupil’s had learned and understood. The task would link to the professional standard of social justice as it would encourage pupils to learn about disasters and where they occur in our world.

The volcano making experiment was also another useful tool that could be used to introduce pupils to natural disasters. It allowed pupils the opportunity to investigate how quickly a volcano can erupt and the devastation it could cause. Safety is very important in this activity as something could go wrong with the experiment therefore safety procedures should be put in place, such as safety goggles.

Politics and the economy are also affected by natural disasters. The government have a huge role to play in the protection of their citizens in emergency of a natural disaster occurring. Their specific roles are to help communities and urban areas prepare, respond and recover from a natural disaster.

Depending on where the country is in the world it can either be a developed country or a developing country. If a natural disaster was to occur within a developed country they would have better economic factors as they have more money to create stronger buildings, put plans in place and are able to get warning of the disasters or evacuation. Compared to developing countries, they don’t have access to these things such as money to create stronger buildings or have access to technology to get warnings of disasters occurring near them.

Attached below are two videos which highlight the sheer difference between developed and developing countries within the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina. In these videos it shows the difference between Florida and Haiti.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-37576996/hurricane-matthew-leaves-at-least-283-dead-in-haiti

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-latin-america-37554065/how-haitians-have-been-evacuated-from-hurricane-matthew

These videos indicated the differences between developed and developing countries when dealing with natural disasters. Developed countries have more time to prepare, respond and recover from natural disasters compared to developing countries who struggle to even evacuate their citizens from their homes.

This then led us on to the tree activity. This was a good teaching resource to use, that again linked to the professional standards of social justice as allowed pupils to come up with causes, the issue, effects and solutions of a natural disaster. It could even link to problems within school such as littering, as this would show them the smallest impacts they could make on the world through littering and how this would affect our earth.

My peers and I created a presentation to present to our fellow peers based on Earthquakes. Within the presentation we came up with various activities we could use within the classroom to teach our pupils about earthquakes and how they occur. We gained positive feedback from our peers that our presentation was good through formative feedback such as thumbs up or down. This was a good task to complete as it was good practice for planning and delivering a lesson based on natural disasters. It was good to listen to the other groups as well as there was many different ways of presenting and delivering the lessons. Here is our presentation on earthquakes: EARTHQUAKES.pptx

Overall, my knowledge of disasters increased hugely after this session and indicated many ways we could impact on natural disasters. In regards to teaching, it is important that we allow pupils to learn about the world and the horrific disasters that occur (Halocha,2017).

REFERNECES

EARTHQUAKES.pptx

Halocha. J (2012) The Primary Teacher’s Guide to Geography. Witney: Scholastic

Homeland Security  (2018). Natural Disasters . [Online] Available: https://www.dhs.gov/natural-disasters [Accessed: 4^th November 2019].

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-latin-america-37554065/how-haitians-have-been-evacuated-from-hurricane-matthew

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-37576996/hurricane-matthew-leaves-at-least-283-dead-in-haiti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qbg7orb1lc&list=PLIuTwp02JWm1Zumv1Y9jOI7cltMiAXo0S

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaEmIakO7f4