Think Tank

Topic

Building up Your Own Environment and Taking Responsibility for It

Age

10-13; 14-15; 16-18

Subject

Applied Arts; Career Education; Class Education; Geography; History; Physics; Science

Country

France; Latvia

The contest aspect gives positive stress to the students who get more and faster involved in the activity. The fact of being in a group allows a better cooperation: at the end, the creative side (drawings) motivated the students who asked for more time to complete their work, to embellish it furthermore. 

I saw the creative students; I had the feeling that I was truly an accompanist more than a holder of knowledge. I was surprised by some of the solutions imagined by the students“.

General objective

  • To raise students’ awareness of the social and political issues of the context they live in, to make them active in decision-making processes and giving them the opportunity to be active citizens.

Learning objective

  • To encourage students to use the knowledge gained in the lesson to apply it by getting involved in a group project.

Results, hints and inspirations from the experimentation

Click on the following boxes, each one will show you the results of project experimentation in each country (and useful suggestions for your implementation).

France
Age:

11-16 years old

Subject:

History, Geography, Science, Applied Arts

Local adaptation:

This activity has been adapted in multiple contexts and with different subjects. First, the teachers used this activity both with small and large group (up to 62 students!), thus proving its flexibility.  Before the implementation of the activity, teachers used some materials/tool to allow the good functioning of the activity. Specifically, according to the subjects in which the activity was used, the following tools were brought in the classroom:

– History & Geography: Tablet to be used to record the group’s speeches.

– Science: Students were asked to bring their laptops/ ICT classroom with computer, if any.

– Applied Arts: It was requested to bring colored paper, scissors, glue, a deck of cards to draw groups at random.

When necessary, the class has been divided into 4 groups and not 2, if the number of students was too high. In another case, it has been preferred not to create a final jury but rather organize a discussion at the end on the different choices made and their relevance, followed by an agreed selection of the most relevant choices coming from the group works. This has allowed to make the implementation smoother than foreseen.

How did the teachers implement the activity?

The implementation of the activity followed the main instructions of the manual and – together with the abovementioned indications – was furthermore adapted according to the subject, specifically:

History & Geography

The teachers used the activity to make students think more about the content of the subject, letting the students assign themselves to a specific group by affinity, in groups of 5. At the end there was no jury, the goal was not to vote for the best project, but to work through this activity on the subject itself. The teacher preferred to give the students an extra hour to discover the subject and prepare their poster in the best way,

Science

The activity was on resource management (water, oil, soil, minerals). The students were given specific instructions divided per group. They were asked to propose possible resource management choices to save the planet’s environment. However, this proposal was asked to be developed in the context of a potential videogame.

Applied Arts

Preparation, selection, colored papers course sheet (color vocabulary) argumentation preparation form to be filled in by the groups.

The teacher changed somehow the main objective of the activity to make it fit with the discipline in the best way. Moreover, the students had to debate among themselves and make choices (but the teacher avoided to focus the discussion on a societal issue).

How did students react to the activity?

This activity had a very positive impact on students: all students had the chance to express themselves in their groups, and teachers noticed a rather good involvement, even for those who are usually reluctant to work. The students were active, they were stimulated to reflect on the topic and to compare their results with the ones of the other groups. The group dynamics were great and in some case the interaction among groups generated a sort of emulation among them, with a positive final outcome.

Other comments:

Teachers really liked the activity since it allowed students to be more involved in a collective creation, enabling them to better understand the notions of tomorrow’s cities, specific vocabulary and development issues.

One teacher declared:

“The contest aspect gives positive stress to the students who get more and faster involved in the activity. The fact of being in a group allows a better cooperation: at the end, the creative side (drawings) motivated the students who asked for more time to complete their work, to embellish it furthermore”. 

“I saw the creative students; I had the feeling that I was truly an accompanist more than a holder of knowledge. I was surprised by some of the solutions imagined by the students”.

Teachers suggest being careful with the timing: this activity is pretty complex so it can take more time than foreseen, depending on the number of students and on the topics to be discussed (since this can generate a long debate).

Latvia
Age:

14-15 years old

Subject:

Physics, Class Education, Career Education

Local adaptation:

Latvian teachers implemented the activity for a younger audience than foreseen, trying to make it fit with their learning need. The discussion part has been simplified and the teacher intervened more than foreseen to allow the activity to flow.

How did the teachers implement the activity?

As hinted, since the students involved were pretty younger, the role of the jury was hard to be played, since the jury members were not able to analyze the proposals constructively. Therefore, the teacher helped to formulate the idea for both the team members and the jury.

As young students involved in the activity didn’t have a lot of experience in constructive discussion, sometimes the dialogue became very sharp, and at times it was necessary to encourage more active involvement.

How did students react to the activity?

If most of them were interested by the method, some of them weren’t completely convinced or they had some difficulties in implementing all the rules.

Other comments:

Teachers suggest taking into consideration the age hinted by the manual in this case thus allowing to exploit the potential of the activity.

For specific information on this activity, download the worksheet: