Skip to main content

The great water experiement


Regular readers will know that I've been experimenting with ways to encourage students to use and, more importantly, interact with blogging. My first real attempt is a project that challenged Year 10 students to reduce the amount of water the consume. I am pleased that there are now 41 comments on the post! I especially appreciate those of you who have added your own comments. These have made Year 10 feel like they are writing to a real audience!


I am pleased that the classes have posted again afetr the two week period to report on any reduction. However, as I left the task fairly open ended, most comments don't go into how difficult (or easy!) reducing their water use was. This is something that I will need to improve, especially as the next attempt (the carbon project over on the KS3 blog) will be with Year 7. I'll need to come up with some sort of guidance sheet.


I'll end with an example of what I want to achieve. This comment was left by a pupil:


'I think I reduced my water amount a lot by turning off the tap when brushing my teeth and only putting the dishwasher on when it's full.Convincing my family wasn't so easy, my step-dad muttered about Global warming increasing the rain fall and then causing an Ice age so we shouldn't worry about saving less water...'


This comment will allow a discussion to take place! It also raises the question of whether we should be following linear Schemes of Work. Since the project kicked off we have moved onto looking at Shanty Towns. I plan to use a lesson next week to explore the feedback left on the blog. Hopefully this will allow pupils to evaluate and explore the issue further.

Comments

  1. Anonymous6 October 2007 at 15:18

    Your dad should think of the polar bears being killed! Well done for using less water though

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

High Impact, Low effort

This month is the start of the #29daysofwriting challenge.  I enjoyed this last year and will be using my Staffrm account to post.  I'll also be reporting here, both to give a little more detail and to keep a log of what I have written. The challenge developed a great sense of community last year, which is why I'm choosing to write on Staffrm. What I would say to those who are new to writing or don't want to run out of ideas is: Write for yourself. Clarify an idea, write something out loud. The process of distilling thoughts into writing is immensely beneficial to your practice. If other read, comment and respond, that's a bonus. Ignore the muppets who know nothing of your context, style or students. Mix it up - I like to read about real stuff from real classrooms and schools and also about other stuff.  If we always write about school, how does that work for workload? If you've nothing nice to say, don't say it. So, the following has been 
5 comments
Read more

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey.  As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others.  Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up.  I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions.  From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment.  From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die.  How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach?  Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment is not always conducive to profound
4 comments
Read more

The danger of Teaching and Twitter conversations: poorly formed bipolar arguments.

Sometimes in life, there really are only two options.  Get the wrong one and you can look like a muppet.  Take this useful sign for the toilets in Morocco.  I successfully navigated it, choosing the right option.  The result? No egg on my face.  As a mountain leader, there are many right or wrong decisions that I’ve faced, as there are all over life.  It’s not a good idea to let inexperienced young people walk themselves down Snowdon.  They may die or be seriously injured.  If someone is showing the signs and symptoms of hyperthermia, you need to treat it fast in a specified way.  There is no real arguing with this sign: Other options are less obvious.  Take this sign recently spotted near to where I live: Now, I wouldn’t consider sleeping in a bin.  However, faced with a sub-zero night, I could see the appeal.  The danger? Being tipped into one of those huge lorries with a compactor. (by the way, I only really considered all of this thanks to questions from my four year old boy).
1 comment
Read more