Introduction
In this experience we start from the learning scenario called Food for thought: sustainable learning experiences.
It was carried out in an early childhood education classroom with 15 3-year-old students. It is an urban school where the students are of different nationalities and most of them have communication and language problems.
As it is an early childhood education, this topic is not introduced as part of a specific area or material, but is carried out in a globalised and interdisciplinary way. We start with a moment in the day, the assembly, to decide what we are going to do and to brainstorm ideas to guide the project; where I start from and how far I want to go.
For the implementation, the activity was initially carried out in a large group through daily assemblies. In them, the topic of food was introduced, we started with some images from Europeana to describe what we were seeing and to get to know the students’ previous ideas.
After introducing the topic, we worked in small groups of 3-4 students to facilitate the understanding of the content.
As for the teaching staff, in addition to myself as the tutor, the support teachers at the same educational level also participated.
We used different materials: audio-visuals through the Euopeana platform and also manipulative material such as card games and toys,
Stages of implementation
The implementation story starts with an exploration of the Europeana website with the students; we look at different content and analyse what catches their attention.
What did they find interesting? What motivated them the most was precisely what they know a bit more about: food, where it comes from, what it looks like, its colours, shapes, origin, etc.
Once this focus of interest had been established, we looked for images on the web related to food in order to find out previous ideas and encourage dialogue in the large group.
How did we structure the activity?
The activities were structured in several sessions of 40 minutes per day, mostly during the assembly time in the early morning, although we also used other times of the day, such as breaks and other class times.
What does the activity consist of?
One of the key aspects of the learning scenario I used was sustainability in the field of food and where it comes from, so the activity consisted of :
- Working with specific board games related to the origin of basic foods such as wheat to make flour, or the apple tree as a tree that provides fruit.
- We watched Youtube videos about farm produce, fruit and vegetables.
- We germinated a chickpea to see how we could create a food from a seed.
- We worked in the school garden doing different tasks such as watering, pulling weeds, planting, picking fruit, etc.
- Finally, we made a mural of fruit and vegetables with our photos. This serves as an evaluation of the activity.
Outcomes
With this implementation history, positive results were visualised among the students involved but also among the teaching staff.
Student learning
The children got to know and are learning to use a new content platform such as Europeana, but it also helped us to democratically choose a topic of common interest to work on in the classroom. Something we had not done so far.
On the other hand, we also highlighted the research capacity; how, starting from food, we wanted to look for more information about it on the web, and other materials such as books or games.
Through the final mural we made a joint evaluation of everything we had learnt from the beginning. The mural thus becomes a large-scale portfolio.
Teacher learning
As an educator it was a very significant experience because I learned how to use the Europeana website, which I didn’t know before, and I discovered the wide range of resources and I was able to share the experience with other colleagues from the school.
We used to do similar activities before but never using such a global and versatile digital tool.
In addition, seeing the experiences of other teachers from different countries is an incredible opportunity to carry out in the classroom.
Personally, I think it is an experience to work in a globalized and multidisciplinary way on different aspects of the curriculum, and that it can be perfectly adapted to all students and their abilities. At first, the website seemed complicated and complicated, but as you work with it, it offers multiple learning tools.
Link to the learning scenario implemented: //teachwitheuropeana.eun.org/learning-scenarios/food-for-thought-sustainable-learning-experiences-ls-pt-532/
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PDM 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology.
