Implementation of ‘Bees Teach Us’ (SOI-MT-511)

Introduction

The LS Bees Teach Us (LS-RO-88) was designed by Gratiela Visan from Romania. The lesson was designed for 8-year-old students. It aimed to show students of the importance of bees in their lives and how they can learn from bees.

The learning scenario was chosen because the students showed great interest in caring for nature after visiting the Salina Parks. The Bee Hotel greatly impacted them, and they desired to make something themselves on the school premises so that they could follow the process on a daily routine.

The subjects selected for the Ls implementation were Science, Maths, and Arts. The class consisted of 24 children between the ages of 5 and 6 from different countries in Malta. It was nice to hear students discussing bees and mention that they give them honey, and they usually take it when they feel sick because it helps them a lot to heal.

First Step

The topic took off with an avatar video in which I included pictures from the Europeana collection and briefed them about bees.

Students were asked to collect fruit that was no longer good to eat, cut it into small pieces, put them in the schoolyard to follow the process and watch bees come over.

This lesson helped children understand that, besides not harming the creatures and looking after nature, they can do something to help them. They also watched this video.

Second Step

For the second step, children were allowed to visit a field and get closer to nature by observing bees, using their senses of sight, hearing, smell, and touch.

During the outing, the children observed many things. They came across a bee hive, and their expression was beyond explanation. They started to call each other to go and look at it. Their joy in discovering the bee hive was amazing. The children managed to notice the shape of a hexagon through the bee hive.   They could also observe the bees passing from one flower to another. Interacting with a living thing helped them discuss and talk with each other and express their emotions about how they were. Some feared being stung by a bee, while others wanted to get closer to see how it was real.

Third Step

As part of the topic during the Maths lesson, children were introduced to 2D and 3D shapes. For the 2D shapes, they made hexagon stamp patterns using paint to represent the bee hive.

Children were given some information about bee hotels and how they can create a bee hotel on the school premises to attract bees and have a place where they can have their own home for their little ones. They were given some recycled paper to roll up and form cylinders.

The children enjoyed creating the bee house and even invited their friends to the school to show them what they had done, instilling a sense of how we can help the world around us.

Learning Outcomes Achieved

The students improved their knowledge about nature. They enjoyed asking questions related to the topic. They managed to recognise a shape through nature.

This is the list of Learning Outcomes:

Science

• Explore and observe a variety of living things.
• Observe different animals (including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and insects/minibeasts) and their characteristics e.g. land and/or underwater, type of habitat (farm/wild), size, wings, legs, body covering (fur/feathers/scales), movement, feeding, reproduction (live birth or hatch from an egg), breathing (nose/lungs/gills) etc.

Arts

• 1.1.2 Development of visual literacy.

Maths

• J.1.4 Identify symmetrical objects in the environment.

The Learning Scenario was tailored for 8-year-old students, but most of its content was catered even to younger students with a simple form.

Link to the learning scenario implemented: Bees teach us (LS-RO-88)  

Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.

CC0 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Wellcome Collection.