My students – landscape architects

Students were informed about green roofs via some educational videos and sources on the Internet. As we know due to the number of dark coloured and paved surfaces prevalent in cities the temperature on a hot day can be warmer in the city centre than in rural areas. This heat is called as urban heat island effect. Green roofs can be helpful to reduce this effect. A green roof creates an area with a living system of soil, compost and plants. The birds also can have an area to look for food and nest thanks to green roofs. Students were landscape architects for one day and they drew out a plan of their own green roofs.

They also focused on the advantage of green roofs while drawing their plan. The learning scenario was integrated as a cross-disciplinary project % the Environment unit (7th grades) which is a part of the Turkish National Curriculum for English language lesson.

What we have learned?

Students became aware of Nature-Based solutions, the urban heat island effect, the importance of plants for the Earth and biodiversity. They also learnt unfamiliar vocabulary about the topic. After the students drew out their plans via online board apps, there was a class discussion about the green roof designs. Each student also uploaded the photos of their drawings to the digital board and commented on each other’s works. Besides learning unfamiliar vocabularies like landscape, weed, drain, drought etc, they improved their ICT and Art skills. For evaluation, students answered quiz questions including gap-filling activity about the topic and facts about green roofs. They decided whether the sentences about green roofs are true or false. Students were also asked to give feedback about the course via a reflection rubric prepared by the teacher. They filled the rubric online and they have positive impressions about the topic and course. Overall, this was a quite good experience for students to learn English vocabulary related to the environment in a cross-curricular way.