There's a place for us: Improving Environments
Suggested course duration: 5.5 - 11 hours
Places are always changing. Think about the changes that are happening in your local area. What about places in the wider world that you read about in the news – what's going on there and why? Some key questions that you might explore are:
- Why is this place changing?
- What's it got to do with me?
- What do others think?
- Why should I care?
- What can I do?
- What choices can I make?
This course is about making links between pupil's shared knowledge of place, local community expertise and environmental improvements through campus, community and curriculum – the three interlocking aspects of Sustainable Schools. You will have to think carefully about the prior knowledge your pupils have, and you may want to refer to some of the other courses in this family.
Completion of this course is intended to be a CPD activity, rather than a 'resource grab'. You are encouraged to adapt the ideas presented here to develop your own resources or unit of work. The intention is that completion of the unit will result in the development of new skills and pedagogical techniques, and offer opportunities for reflection.
If you are working through this course as part of a TLA learning journey at Stage One or Two it will be assumed that you have already completed Getting Started, where you will have decided upon a learning and change focus for your journey. Completing this course should enable you to refine this focus. As you work through this course keep referring to section two of the learning journal,
in which you create an action plan for your
learning journey.
View TLA Stage One Writing Frame
View TLA Stage Two Writing Frame
First steps
Suggested completion time: 30 minutes - i hour
The Eco-Schools framework has some very good pointers for an approach to environmental improvement in the school grounds.
You may also want to consider:
Existing knowledge: What do we already know?
Rationale: Why should we do this?
Global contexts: How and why do actions impact on the wider community and environment?
Participation: Whose views are important and why? Who should be involved?
Stewardship: How will the project be maintained and sustained over time?
Uncertainty and Precaution: Do we have all the answers? Is this the best solution?
Impacts and Outcomes: How will this impact on Campus, Community and Curriculum?
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Activity 1: Improving habitats for wildlife
Suggested completion time: 1 - 2 hours
A healthy and diverse piece of land will support a variety of wildlife – how does your school grounds measure up? Look at this overview of a project to improve owl habitats in the school grounds and wider locality.
Knowledge
Pupils familiar with their own school grounds and aware of declining owl habitats through changing land use in the locality.
Sources: Visit and talk from Hawk and Owl Trust; Input from local residents; Previous fieldwork in school grounds
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Rationale
Pupils identified the issue as being important and relevant to their locality and wanted to take action. Some members of the local community identified this as a relevant issue. Habitats declining on a global scale.
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Global contexts
Pupils began to understand how changing land use can affect biodiversity and how actions can impact on environments.
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Participation
Pupils identified their own questions and practical outcomes - to design, make and site owl boxes. Parents and local residents asked to help.
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Stewardship
Ongoing plan to monitor progress and use of nest boxes in school grounds, involved residents in monitoring boxes off-site.
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Uncertainty and precaution
Pupils were unsure whether their nest boxes would attract residents and how effective they would be. Pupils recognised need for ongoing monitoring.
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View this PDF which shows the impacts and outcomes across campus, community and curriculum of this project.
Now it is time to think about your own school context, and to reflect on the following questions:
- What would be the focus for improving your school grounds or local environment?
- Who decides? Who will be involved?
- Why and how can this kind of project contribute to 'identity'?
- What aspects of curriculum, community and campus will you be able to evidence?
Activity 2: Ask a friend!
Suggested completion time: 1 - 2 hours
Imagine you are going to do some fieldwork in your locality. As well as being prepared to evaluate and map landscapes and activities – have you considered the people who live and work there and how you might get their views too?
- What important local businesses and employers are there? For example: cafes, shops, factories, farmers etc.
- What about parents who live there? What do they think?
- What about local faith leaders?
- Have you considered views from different age groups?
- What about tourists?
Identify three or four local people who might be willing to either let you visit them or come into school and visit you. Choose people who have different backgrounds. Split your class into groups and ask each group to think of some good questions about the local area that might be relevant to that person. You may wish to consider:
- What makes a good question?
- Who will you choose to ask your questions to and how will pupils be involved in this?
- Why and how is this relevant to local communities?
- How will you ask local people to be involved? A phone call? An email? A letter?
Think about the following
- How might you develop this idea into a lesson before doing fieldwork ?
- How will you use the responses?
- How might this kind of activity build relationships with the local community?
Activity 3: Decisions, decisions
Suggested completion time: 1 - 2 hours
If you engage with participative work involving change then at some point, there are going to be some tough decisions to take. Who decides? Whose priorities? What do you need to know? What skills do you need?
- How can you get your pupils thinking about preparing themselves to be good decision makers?
- Can pupils identify necessary attributes e.g. skills, knowledge and values?
- How might you develop this into an activity focusing on talk?
- How can ensure that your pupils don't just take decisions but get the opportunity whenever possible to follow them through into actions?
Faced with real decisions, using statement cards can help pupils to prioritise different viewpoints. For example, in a debate about the merits of a newly installed wind turbine, pupils sorted these cards to decide good and bad reasons and to think about different viewpoints. It helped them to think about a sustainable solution.
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Some people think turbines spoil the view.
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Energy from fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil pollutes the atmosphere.
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We can sell extra energy that we don't use.
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The wind turbine will save money on fuel bills.
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When coal, gas or oil is used, it puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This causes global warming.
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When the wind doesn't blow, the turbine won't generate electricity.
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Our neighbour is worried that the wind turbine will be noisy.
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The wind turbine was very expensive to build.
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Birds might not want to nest near the wind turbine.
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Some people think that the wind turbine is beautiful.
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The wind turbine uses free energy from the wind.
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If we have a wind turbine we can get publicity.
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We can learn about renewable energy more easily now.
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Everyone has worked together to make this happen.
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The wind turbine will last for a very long time.
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If you use this approach to support teaching about an issue affecting your local environment what statements might you include?
How would you develop this idea to teach pupils about different viewpoints?
Finally, how will you ensure that any identified actions are carried out so that pupils can see tangible benefits and change?
Read more about pupil views on sustainability and climate change solutions in a series of three articles in the Autumn 2009 issue of Primary Geographer. If you are a GA member with a subscription to Primary Geographer you can download these articles for free.
Activity 4: Be the expert!
3D model from the GeoJoes project
Suggested completion time: 1 - 2 hours
Use a 'Mantle of the Expert' type approach to tackle thinking about local or global issues and get pupils thinking about actions they would take if they were in charge. For example, a year 4 teacher at St Joseph's primary school worked with Creative Partnerships, a Cambridge academic and her pupils to develop a new unit of work around St Lucia. Here is how it begins:
"Imagine you are a team of geography experts from St Lucia. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry and the Environment has asked you to prepare a report explaining how the environment and life on St Lucia is changing. He wants you to give recommendations about any changes that people might need to make so that the environment stays healthy and people can still live on the island. The Minister will want you to explain why you are recommending these things.” From the teaching materials resource link on the GeoJoes website.
The children involved in this project had to employ thinking skills to find practical solutions to the conflicting needs on the Island, e.g. those between tourists and fishermen. They realised how difficult it was to keep everyone happy and learnt a lot about compromise and different viewpoints. In the final sessions, they made group presentations to 'ministers' using a mix of reports, graphs, ICT presentations, 3D models and rehearsed argument.
Read a summary of the project in the following article.
Lewis, S. and Mawdsley, S. (2007) 'Geojoe's St Lucia Challenge', Primary Geographer, issue 64. GA members with a subscription to Primary Geography can download the article for free.
Your Learning Journey
Suggested completion time: 1 - 2 hours
Having completed the course, reflect and evaluate how you have engaged with the knowledge base to engage pupils and develop your own practice. Below are some prompts for you if you are still refining the preparations for your learning journey and some for you to consider if you are on your learning journey.
Preparing for your learning journey
Discuss with your year group partner(s) and / or mentor what ideas you might develop and how you will do this.
- How have these examples and ideas help you to plan coherent and relevant learning for your pupils?
- How did you adapt them?
- What curriculum links did you focus on to link with the geography? Why did you choose them?
- How have you enabled pupils to make connections between the local and the global?
- How did you place value pupils' contributions and personal geographies? How did this impact on their self esteem and the value they place on themselves as individuals and as a group?
- How do you think these activities contribute to sustainable thinking and social cohesion?
- How well did pupils respond to learning about and improving their environment?
- How well were you able to evidence aspects of the S3 using your links to the 'doorways' through work done across community, campus and curriculum? Read the S3 and identify where you could contribute evidence to your school SEF writing team. View the S3 Sustainable school self-evaluation form.
On your learning journey
- What changes, if any did you make to your original plan? How did professional learning conversations with your coach or learning mentor influence this and the outcomes of your learning?
- How did you evaluate your own learning?
- What feedback did you receive from pupils or colleagues?
- How did you share this learning with others? What feedback have you had?
Where next?
You may now wish to move on to another course in this family in order to widen and deepen your knowledge base. It is important that you end by completing the Plenary section, as this allows you to reflect on your learning and fill in part three of the TLA writing frame (and part four if you are working towards Stage Two verification).
The Courses
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