Super-teacher-librarian Jackie Child from Brisbane’s St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School shares, below, her student’s innovative ways of showing Leadership for Literacy, gaining an understanding of Australia’s neighbouring countries and contributing to our 2016 Room to Read World Change Challenge. Thanks Jackie!
At St Aidan’s Year 6 Geography curriculum invites students to understand the connection Australia has with neighbouring countries in the South East Asian region. The last couple of years our students have researched, investigated and made connections through social, economic and environment to gain a better understanding of our relationship with these countries.
To engage our students and make the learning meaningful we have incorporated the Room to Read World Change Challenge into our project. Last year our students selected one Asian country to research and compare to Australia, presenting their information in an infographic. The students invited the school community to share their learning by creating artefacts in our Makerspace to engage younger students and parents in understanding the connections to that country that we have as Australians. Tristan Bancks Skyped in for the occasion and delighted the school community with stories and feedback on the activities the students had created. Donations were accepted which were sent to the Room to Read World Change Challenge.
This year our students are focussing on Nepal. They were particularly moved by the video of Suma’s Song and the Kamlari tradition. The students this year are once again researching and investigating social, economic and environmental aspects of Nepal and presenting the information in an infographic. The students will be designing and creating an artefact in the Makerspace in response to their Inquiry Question, which they had formulated during research, to enhance or impact the Nepalese community. These will be presented to the wider community. As part of the challenge the girls will be ‘working and raising money by doing chores’ for their families and sharing Suma’s story.
The girls are busy designing and making such things as 3D printed safer elephant seats for tourists (as tourism is over 50% of the economy), methods of transporting children, in particular girls, in mountainous villages to school. They are making survival kits for after an earthquake, caring for the many homeless dogs and devising ways to collect water and purify it!
It’s exciting to see the creativity and engagement the students are using to gain a better understanding of the Nepalese people and their environment and to be authentic in their learning by contributing to Room to Read World Change Challenge.
