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I would definitely be interested in exploring the Blue Schools programme too, had never heard of it before. Even though we are a city school, we do learn about the sea and it would be a great excuse for trips to the beach!
ooh, a demonstration from a young chef sounds like a great idea. I know my students are so reluctant when it comes to trying new foods, and especially fish or shellfish. Maybe they would connect with a young chef and give it a go.
your location sounds amazing, very jealous! Visiting the oyster farm would be a great trip, and prep your students very well for Secondary School geography
I live and work in Dublin city. So our examples of sustainability are probably more artificial or thought out than what is going on in a rural area. But, saying that, there are plenty of examples. Local supermarkets have sections of local produce. There are some markets nearby (although these run at the weekends, so not possible to bring students). There are also some funky cafes in our locality with upcycled furniture and local food suppliers.
We always do a ‘measure your carbon footprint’ online with our students as part of our CSPE course. We also do a little exercise of picking a favourite food or drink from the supermarket, and working out how many miles it has travelled. Results are then put into graph maker online for cross curricular work with Maths. So students are exposed to the notion of sustainability in many different subjects, including of course Home Economics. We have also achieved 4 green flags over the years.
I think I could use the materials of this course to do a a mini project on aquaculture, maybe tie it into a section on ‘the sea’. And as part of this, could visit the supermarket and look at labels to find the sustainability marks
students love learning about the heart and the brain, love seeing videos inside the body, all the gory details. It would be very easy to introduce the idea of what nutrition is needed to keep these healthy, and how these are found in seafood.
The nutritive value of seafood is huge, but Irish people do not eat a lot of it. I work in Dublin city centre and my students have tasted very little seafood except for fish fingers or maybe a cod from the chipper. Students from 10 -15 years ago would have also eaten winkles if they went on a daytrip out to the sea. This seems to not be a thing anymore.
My students are Junior Cert level in a high support school. We do Home Economics with our students, and cookery lessons. I don’t tend to make fish with my students but it would be good to try some new things. Students learn about the nutrition on each shelf of the food pyramid. I usually push the milk option for vitamin d, we do learn about how Irish people are deficient. Maybe a fish curry could be worth a try as I don’t think they would be brave enough for mussels or oysters just yet.
We also do lessons on sustainability and food miles, but again I never use labels for fish. Could also be worthwhile particularly in learning about the sustainability piece.
The topics covered in the ARC lessons are very useful and practical. I could definitely adapt them for use in my own classroom-teenagers in a high support setting so need adapting as a little bit too childish. I would take the topics and mix them materials up with some of the Junior Cert material. The fact that the ARC lessons are so specific to Ireland is great as this will help me to come up with student led tasks that would use our STEM skills of critical thinking, some hands on learning tasks ,and all with a real world focus. I, too, particularly liked the piece about the different career areas in the aquaculture industry.
In terms of SSE, using the materials within this is a much broader area. The school would need to pick STEM as the focus and then we could use the lessons in a cross curricular way-e.g. through geography (setting of aquaculture in Ireland), or Home Economics (nutritive qualities). It is great to have access to a local resource.
Really interesting mapping exercise. I work with Junior Cert students in a special school. This exercise would fit right in with their Geography course. Students love looking at google earth and aerial photos to find features, but as city folk we usually concentrate on urban features. I could definitely use some of the info here about location of different types of aquaculture and ask students could they figure out a good spot. We also learn about coastal features so it could be tied into that too.
This would lead into the idea of how the location of industry effects local areas, both positively and negatively. Positively, aquaculture will bring employment to an area, both directly and indirectly. It may sustain the population levels of a rural place, which could keep schools and local businesses open too. There could possibly be some negative effects, not mentioned in this module, such as pollution, or a blot on the landscape.
As a city native who still lives and works in Dublin, I was totally ignorant as to what aquaculture is. I’m glad I’ve started this course now, and am starting to see lots of potential for the materials in my classroom.
I work in a special school for 12-16 year olds, many of whom will do their Junior Cert. I think that some of the materials of the BMI would be very useful for geography lessons, learning about industry and the the different sectors e.g. the stuff about Clare Island, and also useful in Home Economics, learning about nutrition. Who knew muscles and oysters had more protein than beef!
I’m not totally sure I fully understood the idea of social licensing projects. I did enjoy the piece about oyster rewilding in Wicklow, and also about cleaning up the marine waste.