Tag Archives: natural resources

The Conscious Consumer

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This activity was implemented on 20-26 April in the eTwinning project titled ” Steam In My Life ”. Students aged 7-11 did this activity in our project.

The aims of our project are as follows; To enable our students to be a conscious consumer. It is to realize that our resources are not unlimited. It is to ask our students to design three-dimensional products using recycled materials. So, our students will solve real world problems with fun. The rote-learning approach will be avoided.

Our Real World Problems are:

What do people pay attention to while shopping? How should a conscious consumer behave, what should he pay attention to? Considering that our resources are unlimited, what can we do to use our resources more economically? How can we design products using recycled materials?

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

People shop for a living. What should they pay attention to while doing this? Our students, who researched the answer to this question on the internet, prepared a brochure. They stated that they should make a list in their brochures, look at the expiry date and first production date of the products, they should not buy products with torn packages, and that they should be in fresh and vibrant colors if they are to buy fruits and vegetables.They verbally presented these brochures to their friends.

A conscious consumer uses resources efficiently. People need various resources to survive. However, our resources are not unlimited in nature, so our resources may be exhausted. Countries that are aware of this danger attach importance to the recycling and use of wastes. Therefore, we designed three-dimensional products using recycled materials in our activities. By reusing recycled materials, we contributed to the protection of nature. We have saved energy. The products we designed are the indication of our imagination. We solved real world problems with fun. We avoided rote learning approach.

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY
The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

ARE WE ENERGY?

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Design of the project

“Are we energy?”

This is the first question we use to introduce our Project.

At Escola Mestre Gibert, teachers believe all knowledge is connected.
Thus, 4th level Primary School teachers have decide to plan an interdisciplinary Renewable Energy Project, where all subjects can be included. The name of the project will be “Human Activity is Energy”.

Critical thinking, cooperation, creativity and communication are our skills

To engage the children, we use inquire based-learning. We build the project while creating challenges that they will solve and answer along with adding achievements.

As a result, teachers create and launch a collaborative project, where students’ experiments prove that energy is everywhere. Consequently, all subjects can contribute to build meaningful and comprehensive energy learning.

In this way, through Arts, Physical Education and Music, children can experiment how to show and to play with their energy.

In subjects such as Science, Technology, English Language and First Language, students build knowledge about energy and its uses. The English Language is the vehicular language to transmit the result of the learning process.

Moreover, a father of a student whose task is related to Clean Energies, will come to deliver a speech as an expert.

The challenge of students’ teamwork is the study of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, doing an internet research. They use the DRIVE platform to organize their work and organize an exposition in class. In this activity, the peers assessment will be very important.

Project evaluation

As we mentioned before, co-evaluation among peers is very important in order to obtain a good assessment. Students have to participate actively in all the learning process and until the end. Children use rubrics to pay attention to peers’ exposition and to express their opinions.

The photos were taken and kindly provided by the author – Attribution CC-BY

Finally, the children will perform a choreography to conclude the project, playing with multi-colour satin ribbons. For the soundtrack, previously we will record children’s voices singing a song called “Energize”, especially composed for the final show.

The photos were taken and kindly provided by the author – Attribution CC-BY

The song’s message is about Energy Resources and Earth Planet Health. Children enjoy singing the song and are engaging with its message:

On the last day of the project, students and teachers will gather together for a manifestation with banners, all spread around the playground, shouting messages such as: “save the Planet”, “we must use sustainable energy”, “SOS, planet Earth needs us!!”.

To conclude, we are convinced the project will engage the children, because they will be the protagonists of their learning process.


Natural Resources (STEM Discovery Week 2019)

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We have organised the STEM Discovery Week 2019 activities in 6 Nisan Anatolian High School. I am going to write about my experiences connected with the activities of bioeconomy.

What is bioeconomy?

Students watched a video about bioeconomy, “The Bioeconomy starts here!” https://youtu.be/2xvXkOMRTs4. Teacher defined bioeconomy as the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, energy, chemicals and other materials. The EU definition of bioeconomy is “sustainable production and processing of biomass for food, health products, fibre products, industry, and energy”

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