Geographical Association

This section of the course is a practical activity based on a real lesson that you can try out with your class. You might want to adopt it as it is or you may want to adapt it to suit your particular pupil and school contexts. This activity details one lesson and links with school resources from the Ashden Awards short films.

The pupils in this lesson had already been working as energy monitors both in their own classroom and throughout the school. They had knowledge of energy saving strategies both from curricular work and through their own practical and first hand experiences.

The pupils had also carried out a survey through homework in which they asked their own families questions about different energy saving strategies and reported back to class. This informed the class about the kinds of things people were and weren't doing at home with regard to energy saving.

In the UK, the vast majority of our energy comes from fossil fuels and so it makes sense to focus on reducing our overall energy usage before thinking about switching to using renewable sources - this means that practical action can be achieved easily, at no cost and can actually bring about financial benefits.

Whilst it's very desirable to have renewable energy technologies installed on the school premises, it's essential to first think about how we should be using a valuable resource as wisely as possible.

It is worth noting that from 1 October 2008 schools in England where there are buildings with a floor area over 1000m2 are legally required to display an Energy Rating Certificate showing energy performance on an A-G scale. The rating certificate will look a little like the A-G certificates you see on new fridges and washing machines.

Visit the Sustainable Learning website to find out how your school is likely to perform. You can register with the site and download your preliminary certificate.

Activity

This practical activity builds on work done by pupils through a home energy survey, although this is not an essential starting point. If you were to do this first, how would you structure it?

Jot down some ideas for a template for a simple energy diary for pupils

How would you involve pupils in devising questions to ask parents?

How could you involve parents in such a survey and engage their support?

Learning Objectives

• To know and communicate some ways in which energy use can be reduced
• To recognise (begin to understand) and describe (explain) how reduced energy use can benefit our planet and our everyday lives

Learning Outcomes

• I know some things that you can do to use less energy and I can tell others about it
• I can say how using less energy can help our planet (and reduce global warming)

Resources

• Film clip from Ashden Awards (optional)
• Energy leaflet template (a Publisher template file for this can be downloaded from 'Energising the Community' on the Ashden Awards website)
• Scrap paper
• Computers for research / text insertion 
• Pens and coloured pencils

Organisation

Whole class for input, mixed ability groups for design and discussion, individual for the final product.

When I led this session I invited the Energy Officer from the local council to come in and support the work. This is not essential but gives an added sense of purpose if you can do it.

I explained that we had been given an exciting challenge - we were to help the local council with the production of an energy saving leaflet to go out to our local community. We would design our own and the best one would be adopted (the local council also provided some prizes for the best ideas in the form of energy saving light bulbs).

We revisited what we had learnt from our home energy survey and responses from the questions posed. This gave us a starting point regarding local need and we then brainstormed some ideas and recorded them as a class using catchy phrases and additional illustrative ideas.

We discussed the qualities a leaflet should have in order to make it effective and this prompted some deep thinking about effective designs and content. One pupil suggested that the front cover should say something about looking after our planet and why we should be doing this and this idea was very popular.

Pupils had ten minutes in their mixed ability groups to brainstorm four of the five key ideas they were going to present in their own leaflet and the kinds of illustrations they would use. Having a mixed ability group in this session enabled better writers and artists to demonstrate and share their own ideas with others, pooling relevant vocabulary.

I also gave each group a printed sheet of useful vocabulary and additional ideas were written on the main board.

After ensuring that each pupil had some ideas to work with - and tweaking groups accordingly - pupils were given time to work on their own leaflet.

I gave pupils peer assessment time to view a partner's work against the success criteria with these instructions:

• Find two things about your partner's work that you like

• Find one thing that could be improved and say why or suggest how

We shared some feedback and ideas for improvement. The last five minutes were spent making adjustments / improvements or helping others to do this. Pupils' work and comments revealed that they had prioritised some of their initial ideas and were able to give simple reasons as to why it was important to consider energy use (several pupils also included water use).

Activity

What big ideas from geography underpin this piece of work?

Look at the learning objective 'To recognise (begin to understand) and describe (explain) how reduced energy use can benefit our planet and our everyday lives' and then at the level descriptions for Geography from the National Curriculum. What level do you think this is aimed at? What difference does it make inserting the phrases/ wording in brackets?

How will you tweak the learning objectives to suit the levels your class should be working at?

Remember that individual pieces of work cannot be given a definite level although they can be said to be showing 'characteristics of a level'.

At the end of a key stage, teachers should know what level their pupils are working at (although at Key Stages 1 and 2 there is no requirement to report this level for foundation subjects).

Aiming the planning at the expected level for the class (with differentiated work above and below) targets pupils' needs more effectively. It can also help easily identify those pupils who are achieving better than expected and those who are particularly challenged.

• See the National Curriculum site and the special assessment issue of Primary Geographer, Spring 2008 (GA members can access this online) for a more in depth look at both formative and summative assessment approaches for geography.
• The CPD unit on subject leadership on the GTT website gives practical examples of assessment in practice with primary pupils.
• On the QCA website you can see examples of pupils' work with commentaries and more information on assessment.

If you can work with your local council, ensure that some leaflets are chosen, published and given out to people in the local community. Publish a selection on the school website, invite the press and make it real!

Ashden Awards

Sustainable Learning 

QCA

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