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“Home” is a documentary film that looks at the impact we have had on our planet. It uses stunning imagery of our planet from areas all over the world. Along with this imagery voiceovers give us information that highlights what humans have done to damage the planet in a short space of time. It shows how agriculture, manufacturing and consumerism has greatly accelerated climate change. One particular area that I found interesting was deforestation. Not only was the mass sourcing of eucalyptus damaging to the trees, but it also greatly impacted the ability of other vegetation to grow. This highlighted how Eucalyptus, palm oil and other farms can have a hugely detrimental impact on our planet. It also highlighted how the poorest countries economies are propped up by this farming. This means that should we stop the farming of these products we will also decimate the livelihoods of the poorest people on the planet. It’s a shocking example of how businesses have incentivised countries to destroy their own climate to create jobs. Situations like this seem dire and leave people wondering at solutions. Overall, the film does a great job of highlighting the issue of climate change while showing the beauty of the planet that is worth saving.
There are great points to be made around fear and anxiety. However, as many have pointed out, the resources on offer are all very positive and promote positive solutions to these problems. For primary school students, showing them simple effective solutions to the problem of climate change will hopefully lead them to discover lasting and more complex solutions in the future.
Both the Paxi video and Activity three of the ESA’s Weather vs Climate workbook provide a good point for children to begin predicting our future climate. Using the video the students will begin to understand climate change, the factors that contribute to it and the future outcomes. It gives a quick insight into the information they will need to help come up with predictions for the activity in the workbook. In activity three, the students will look 26 years into the future and try to predict the impact of climate change on the world in 2050. Combine the tools that were already discussed in this course and there are a multitude of extension activities that can help develop the understanding of climate change. The layout of the questions is well done as it means the students will need to explore the consequences of climate change before focusing on solutions. Making sure we fully understand the problems we face is a good way to make sure we develop well thought out solutions.
A sundial is such a nice and simple way of exploring multiple topics. It uses telling time in maths, our place in the solar system in geography, climate in science as well as the designing and making element. It would be a great project to explore over a number of lessons.
Paper Review
Having read “Unravelling STEM: Beyond the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics.” (Liston, 2018) it is evident that the author believes that STEM is greatly missing the ‘E’ from STEM. The examples of STEM events outline that they could be categorised as Science events or Maths events. Without incorporating Engineering into STEM events the true benefit is not being felt. The paper is an encouragement and challenge for teachers to begin to explore ways to incorporate all of the elements of STEM. The paper outlines the many benefits of STEM such as creative, problem solving, critical thinking and communication skills. Further to this the paper highlights that STEM also brings Economic, Social and Cultural benefits. With so much to gain from STEM it makes sense that teachers should do everything they can to fully understand how best to implement STEM in schools.Weather and Climate Activities
Activity One:
Activity one is a good conversation starter regarding the weather and climate. It uses the student’s prior knowledge to build up a bank of words and vocabulary that will be useful as the topic is explored further. It also starts from observations which can be then explored and developed further to determine why the things we observe can be connected to the prediction of the weather.Activity Two:
Activity two looks at how our senses will give us an indication of the weather and how we can determine what will happen in the short term. However, it further explains the need for the scientific method and more rigorous ways of giving an accurate forecast.Both of these activities are good ways to approach weather and climate in a primary school classroom and set up plenty of conversations and ideas that can be explored in further lessons.