S3 have been doing a project called “Fishing by Numbers” since January and all of their work came to fruition this week when they shared their learning with Primary classes. In their module class every other Friday the class has been learning about the importance of the Sea Food Industries (Pelagic, White Fish, Shellfish and Salmon) to the Shetland and Whalsay community. They have also been planning lessons for the P6/7 class showing the connection between careers in the industry and the Numeracy skills that pupils are learning about in school.
As I posted earlier in the week, the culmination of the project has coincided with the So Much To Sea exhibition from Seafood Shetland being on display in Primary.
On Monday, the S3s did a presentation to the upper Primary classes (P3/4, P4/5 and P6/7), sharing what they had learnt about the importance of the Sea Food Industries. They then got the pupils to play with Top Trump cards they had made about Fish species. At the end of each session, pupils were given a chance to explore the So Much to Sea exhibition.
On Tuesday, the S3s took over the P6/7 classroom for the afternoon to deliver their lessons. Tom and Irena did a lesson on Shetland landings of different fish species, showing pupils how to enter the statistics on a spreadsheet and produce graphs.
Amy and Joe had developed a Fishing game based on Battleships with pupils hunting for shoals of fish instead of ships. This helped familiarise pupils with using co-ordinates to map an area.
Michael, Ellie and Mark asked pupils to design their own boat out of cardboard and modelling material. The aim of the exercise was to produce a boat that could hold the greatest weight before sinking. This allowed pupils to practice measuring and design skills.
During the afternoon pupils circulated the room so that they were able to try all of the activities planned.
On Wednesday, we had organised a Question and Answer session with a panel of distinguished guests. S3 and P6/7 formed the audience and the panel consisted of Ruth Henderson from Seafood Shetland and Colin Leask & Brian Irvine who are both crewmembers and engineers on local boats. The panel were asked questions about their jobs, how they use numeracy at work, what they remembered about Maths at school and a range of other questions.
We are very grateful to all who have helped with the project – Ruth Henderson from Seafood Shetland, Colin Leask, Brian Irvine and teachers Eileen Macgregor, Melanie Poleson, Julia Nairn, Pauline Irvine and Audrey Polson.
