Implementation of ‘Let’s make green decisions’ (SOI-RO-260)
Context
The learning scenario “Let’s make green decisions”, created by Anita Lasić, was used as a starting point for an activity on environmental issues by the Romanian teacher Hortensia Bogdan with the 3rd grade students, attending Colegiul de Artă “Carmen Sylva”, Ploiești , Romania.
Subjects that were covered during this implementation are Natural Science, Arts and crafts, Civic Education. The implementation took two classes of 50 minutes as I adapted the information provided during the original scenario for 13+ years old pupils to 9 years old pupils.
Why this learning scenario?
Firstly, because we have an Erasmus+ KA201 partnership on environmental issues running in our school during 2020/2022.
Secondly, because this learning scenario fits the curricula for 3rd grade pupils, which requires learning about major habitats and negative effects of human activities on environment.
Steps
We started from the idea that humanity and nature are closely linked. The idea of having an entire planet at our disposal to use and conquer is totally wrong and led us to an unprecedented degradation of the natural systems balance.
If people don’t understand that their actions have direct implications on the natural environment and damaging the environment acts like a boomerang on own lives and future as a species, nothing good will happen.
Pollution, over usage, consumerism, waste are just some negative actions of man against nature.
Earth is home for humans and millions of species (about 8.7 million) of animals and plants as it provides resources which sustain life. Some of them are exhaustible, non-renewable such as fossil fuels, minerals, some other are inexhaustible, renewable, such as air, sunlight, water.
We talked about air, water, soil, and effects of human activity on natural environment. These effects are more and more dramatic, and it is vital for us to act in protecting our planet and ensuring humankind and life, generally speaking.
The aim of these lessons was to raise pupils’ awareness on the urge of changing our behaviour towards the natural environment and its resources.
At the end of these lessons, pupils will be able to name natural resources and divide them into exhaustible/ nonrenewable and inexhaustible/ renewable, to list negative effects of human activity on natural environment and find examples of positive actions which could prevent the situation to get worse.
Fortunately, this learning scenario was implemented during face-to-face classes. I used some videos and materials following some links given as references in the original learning scenario. As previously mentioned, we learned about living organisms and nonliving matter, Earth as a natural environment for humans, plants, and animals, general characteristics of natural resources, environment protection and negative effects of human activities on environment, climate change and how it can affect our and future generations life on Earth. By means of implementing this learning scenario, pupils refreshed their previous knowledge on these issues and learned something new on the given topic. Some information was taken by following the link below:
We watched some educational videos, such as:
Causes and Effects of Climate Change
We also danced on the following song:
We gave a special attention to water, its importance and role for life on Earth, water pollution and simple ways to save water and prevent water pollution. As a meaning of evaluation, pupils created posters to draw attention on the importance of saving water, as shown in Save waters, save lives!.
The posters were made during a special Arts and Crafts 50-minute class.
In a special Arts and crafts class, we used old clothes to make useful household items, as during Natural Science classes we also learned about recycling and upcycling (as an activity included in Erasmus+ KA201 project which runs in our school. This activity was held in cooperation with another 3rg grade in our school). Some examples of creative usage of old clothes may be seen in the Upcycling.
Did you find this story of implementation interesting? Why don’t you read about the related learning scenario?
Let’s make green decisions, created by Anita Lasić
You might also like:
- Coral reefs today, yesterday and… tomorrow, by Teresita Gravina
- Nurture Mother Nature, by Alexandra Duarte
- Take aim at climate change, by Emine Ertas
Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.
Public Domain Mark 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Albertina.