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Being at an inland school, the lessons included in the ARC alone would be of huge benefit to the children we teach. Getting to experience the sea on land might open up the children’s eyes to more of the world around them. Others mentioned here on the forum about using the methodologies and topics of the ARC for perhaps other issues around sustainability and environmental responsibility as well as community involvement and interdependence. In being towards the east coast here, another possibility for bridging the gap of distance for us can be a video call. Now that the technology is there, just because we might not be in close proximity to a particular aquaculture site or farm, with some research ahead of time, we now can speak with experts via video call. Perhaps even with us being closer to the ‘shop’ end of aquaculture, there might be the possibility of tracing the food chain back to its source. E.g. with a shop bought salmon, trying to research the various steps in how it got to the shop in the first place. As there are so many types of jobs associated with aquaculture now, the children could research one of the jobs and learn about what they might do on a typical day. Integrating with Drama, the children could host their own ‘careers day’ in school outlining life as a commercial diver or oceanographer for example.
Hi Diarmuid, I love your idea of a comon termly STEM activity. What a wonderful way of ensuring all classes participate and STEM learning is a lifelong thing.
For me too, Rebecca. It can sometimes be difficult to break down content for senior classes to those for a junior class. Thinking about how STEM can be about inquiry based learning, asking questions, collaborating with peers as well as other 21st century learning, there can be enough here if even these concepts could be included across all class levels.
Very true, Shane. So many children have no idea where their food comes from. Most might think of it coming from a local supermarket chain or from a packet in a freezer. Having them think back to where it originally came from, they might appreciate the effort it took to get their food from land or sea farm to fork.
Being an island off the Atlantic, much of the west of Ireland, including areas of Kerry and Galway as only 2 examples, has huge opportunities to be engaged with aquaculture in all its forms. Employment as a result of this aquaculture is vital to local economies, towns and villages along the west coast. Being on the east coast here, from a Mathematical perspective, the children could investigate things such as the travel time from their school to a specific place on the Atlantic coast e.g. Galway, Kerry or up to the likes of Killybegs. They could work out the best mode of transport to get there, the potential cost of getting there or maybe they could compare the geographical and topographical make up of a coastal region. They could also compare weather forecasts and temperatures for their area with a town on the coast, and perhaps even compare timings of sunrise and sunset, high and low tides etc. There are many possibilities. In areas where there are aquaculture farms, the community around them will be key to the survival of the farm too. If people are working at such a farm, they are going to need homes, shops, transportation, health facilities, maybe factories to take the produce on to other regions etc. All of these depend on the aquaculture farm being sustainable and working correctly and efficiently.
Like many other people who posted here, I hadn’t known much about aquaculture before this summer course. I also liked how others mentioned potentially teaching the term of ‘social licensing’ through the concepts of fairness and caring for our world. I am sure many of the children are unfamiliar with aquaculture and only know it as simply fishing or maybe where their dinner comes from i.e. the shop. There are also many potential opportunities for employment in future years. The 3rd video from the BIM website talked about this. The 4th video spoke about sustainability. In learning about and aiming to be awarded Green Flags for the school, there is a lot to be learned about sustainability of resources. Aquaculture is an important resource for all so children should learn about this too. There are many opportunities to learn about aquaculture while integrating with the curriculum, especially in S.E.E. curricular areas but there is potential to link to other subjects.