Week 9, Term 2

Hello Everyone!

We have started our next immersion block for the year.  it is inspired by the NCREL research and is 21st Century skill of Digital-Age Literacy.  In LC1 our key concept taken from this is 'Change'.  We have begun by looking at pollution.  This week we have looked at water pollution, with a specific focus on powerful digital images that evoke wonder and inspire thinking.  Below are some of the immersion workshops and independent learning we have been doing around this:

Hexagons

We asked the children 'What is Pollution?'  We gave them no clues or insight and they recorded their thinking on a hexagon.  From there, in smaller groups of 8, we shared our thinking and discussed any shared understandings that shone through.  There were three main ideas that came through:

Pollution is ... working together

Pollution is ... working by yourself

Pollution is ... something to do with rubbish

Alongside the main thinking there were many stand alone ideas, here are a few of them:

Pollution is ... a mermaid's house

Pollution is ... a rainbow

Pollution is ... a star

Powerful Images

To engage the children, we have looked at a range of digital images this week.  We have discussed our thinking, feelings and wonderings about the images and it has left us with many unanswered questions!  Below shows some thinking about water pollution.  The children sorted them into two groups - oil pollution and plastic/rubbish pollution.  

Can We Clean Polluted Water?

On Wednesday Yodette led a workshop on cleaning polluted water.  She filled trays of water with oil (from the kitchen!), food colouring and chopped up plastic bags.  Then the children had to try to clean the water! Hmmmm this was difficult.  They tried to sieve out the plastic... but that was only part of the problem.  They tried to make it rain (with a watering can) ... but that wasn't enough!  

They then explored this further independently.  Ashley realised that if you only use water the oil doesn't come off, but if you use soap you can get rid of it.  As I was cleaning up and emptying the dirty water down the sink Nathan turned to me and said 'Rosie, does that water end up in the ocean? That's not very good pouring it down there is it?!' Wow!