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Sustainability really is something that can be taught from such a young age. As you said, your first class pupils can engage with challenging litter, saving energy and water and also raising awareness in the school environment.
Tallaght is an area that has lots of sustainable initiatives. As well as taking part in the tidy towns programme, our school runs the picker pals programme with 1st and 2nd class. We take part in the green schools flag programme every second year and the focus changes. The area also offers the Stepping Stones initiative which works with schools to plant thousands of trees and create pocket forests.
To link more specifically to aquaculture, TUD Tallaght has launched VASEACAD which is Valorising Seafood Side Streams, Residues, Unwanted Catches and Discards. The aim of the programme is to take fish bi-products and turn them into functional ingredients. This can help to reduce seafood wastage. They have courses on food biotechnology which if it was linked with schools would provide a very hands on and real resource to the children who have been learning about aquaculture. Furthermore, Lidl’s head office is located in Tallaght so the link between them and Origin Green will resonate quite closely with the children in the school I teach in.That’s a great idea about children creating their own seafood recipes. I think it would be a brilliant idea to do some taste testing of different fish within the school environment. I’m aware that there can be shellfish allergies but even for the kids to taste salmon or mackerel would be so good for broadening their taste buds and horizons if they’ve never had it before.
Seafood is one of the most nutritious foods that people can eat. As outlined through the presentation, there are so many benefits of eating fish and seafood, especially if it is responsibly sourced. The main take homes are how seafood are a great source of iron, vitamin and omega-3 fatty acids. Salmon as a food has so many health benefits, especially in the development and growth of children. Using the story of Fionn and the Salmon of Knowledge is a great stimuli for teaching the children about the health benefits of fish and how salmon is known as literal brain food for all it contributes. Along with that, it is very important to show the children about sustainability and how we know where our food comes from. A good activity would be to show them the logos and see if they can guess or know what they mean before teaching them explicitly.
I like your point about our national heritage. Apart from all of the concrete and physical learning about current aquaculture, you can link that as part of our history and how our country has relied on it through times gone by.
The Arc online resources are an excellent example of how to apply the key concepts and skills of the STEM curriculum.
The introduction lesson immediately hooks the children in by the use of the character Professor O’Mara. In a class there’s an immediate buy in from the children as most tend to love the idea of the professor and comparing what they know. You could begin the lesson by listing all of the things the children think they know about fish farming and add to their knowledge at the end. It encourages inquiry based thinking and support the goals of the STEM education policy statement. Within the first 8 minutes, the ARC has linked in history and the folklore around salmon. There is scope for replicating the two environments that fish live in and comparing them. These lessons offer a lot of opportunities for linkage across the curriculum in maths and literacy. There is a huge focus on the local community which is a big feature of the geography curriculum. This concept is so beneficial to be able to compare communities, especially for children who are not located close to the sea. It opens up their perspective and knowledge of the different ways of life in Ireland.Yes people and places are what underpins the success and viability of these farms. We need land and sea to work in tandem and we need the skills and resources of the people living in the local area to facilitate the fishing.
The location of different aquafarms of course holds a significant value socio-economically and beyond. By strategically placing aquafarms at different seapoi8nts around the country, we are opening up opportunities to the locals of that area. It has been reported that traditional fishing methods have seen a decline in return for both the fishermen and they consumers, so by creating these farming hubs, you are able to manage and organise the fishing. These fishing operations means that there are year round jobs available for the local people and therefore it supports the local community, keep families settled and together and in turn has a knock on positive effect on local businesses, schools and infrastructure in the area. The coastal residents are therefore given a responsibility to protect the integrity and management of these initiatives, which helps to sustain the marine ecosystem. These initiatives help to bridge the gap between traditional fishing and a new and efficient future of aquaculture.
That’s a great perspective to have about the farming sector in different parts of the country. I’d say your children will be even more invested as it’s something they know so well but get to employ their skills and knowledge to a different setting. It’s new and exciting so has the buy in from the kids but not so far removed that they’d feel overwhelmed or removed from it.
Before starting this course I didn’t realise how much education there was around the topic of aquaculture. Teaching in an urban school setting in Dublin, there aren’t as many opportunities to use the local amenities to teach about aquaculture. The workshops that the arc offer really stand out as a way to connect the children to the culture of the sea. One element that really stood out to me was the young chef ambassador programme. Cooking is something we have tried to implement in our school in previous years and it would be so beneficial to the kids to really understand where their food comes from. I also feel that the children who often don’t have as much access to the sea find it more intriguing as it’s not something they take for granted or experience as frequently. My classes are often very invested in the learning we do around beaches, seas and oceans so I would love to use some of the tools on this course in the coming year.