Abstract/Introduction
Observing and living the dramatic effects of human interference to the Nature like floodings, fires, pollution, destruction of natural habitats, draughts, lack of products, climate change, motivated me to choose this scenario aiming at promoting the idea of taking action to my students. It has been implemented to 20 students of 5th grade of Primary School, aged 10-11 years old during their English class.
Content
-Introductory activity: brainstorming about environmental issues consisting of class discussion and completion of mind map: //coggle.it/diagram/Zgw-2bxGjUG8eh1l/t/environmental-issues.
–A flashback in the past: Have environmental issues been a problem of our planet nowadays or were people concerned about them in the past? After reading the Europeana resources in the blog students understood that the environmental problems were apparent in the past too: //www.europeana.eu/en/blog/green-through-time-four-historical-figures-who-raised-awareness-of-the-environment.
-Students’s online research and creation of a poster with information about the four historical persons who were concerned about the environment.
-The students read the online resources that the teacher gives them in the Wakelet and create a timeline on environmental history on Canvas.
-Present days problems: Students using Miro upload photos with images of nowadays environmental problems.
-Making comparisons between past and present environmental problems. The teacher shows students some photos taken from Europeana collection titled Environment and a discussion follows about the similarity of the problems which are written in the Lino.
-Ways of facing the problems. The students after discussing in class the possible solutions for these problems create a presentation collaboratively in Prezi
-Let’s make green decisions: The students are creating a poster with the decisions they have made to contribute to a sustainable future.
Supplementary material: the photos of the project.
Procedure
-Introduction of the topic: The teacher asks students to tell the most important environmental problems we face. A mind map was made in the board and then the students created an online mind map on Coggle (20 minutes).
-Making a historical recall: The selected scenario gave me the idea of a historical flashback investigating the environmental issues using the activity of the scenario taken from the Europeana’s blog . After presenting the information of the blog to the class students(picture 1) were asked to make online research at home and find more information about these historical figures and their connection to the topic of environment. (15 minutes at class). Then we created a poster which we hung on the board. (picture 2). (15 minutes).
-Expanding the research in the past: As students were surprised of the environmental issues in the far past, the teacher decided to expand the investigation. Therefore, she gave the students some online resources in Wakelet which students had to read and then they had to create a timeline using the Canvas. This activity was given to be done at home and the students were separated in 4 groups. After doing the activity they presented it at class and a discussion followed between the students asking questions and stressing the most interesting points.(20 minutes)
– Present issues: The students were asked by the teacher to upload in Miro some photos showing the environmental problems we face nowadays at home and a discussion followed at class. (picture 3) (10 min)
-Connecting the past to the present: The teacher showed students some photos taken from Europeana’ s collection titled Environment made by the students at home and an interesting discussion followed about the similarity of the problems ( picture 4),(10 minutes) which were written in Lino by the students after the discussion.(picture 5), (15 minutes)
–Possible solutions: A discussion was made in class about what it can be done to reduce these problems (20 minutes) and then the students were asked to work collaboratively and transfer all the ideas of class in Prezi at home which was presented at class the next day(picture 6) (10 minutes)
-Poster: As a closure of this project students created a poster with the decisions they have made which will be promoted to their families to ensure a sustainable life. (picture 7) (15 minutes)
Outcomes for the students
-The Europeana resources inspired students to start their research on past environmental issues as stated by four historical figures. The Europeana collection titled Environment created by the students collecting all the relevant pictures showing some of the most serious environmental problems offered the students the chance to investigate the Europeana platform and discover the variety of the topics presented. As a result, they acquired new contextualized knowledge, and they became Europeana’s followers. By doing so, some of them were motivated to create their own collections according to their interests. Regarding our project, it offered them ready material which enabled to make comparisons between the past and the present environmental worries. Of course, most of the activities done by the students either at school or at home, focused on collaboration, communication, and discussion. Apart from the social and intellectual skills, the students developed digital skills as well, as they used a lot of web 2.0 tools to upload their findings. They also created tangible outcomes like the posters showing their research on the four historical figures mentioned on Europeana blog and the poster with the green decisions the students have taken(picture 7). To conclude, Europeana encouraged the students to investigate the topic of environmental problems, to make a flashback to past environmental matters, to present these items using online tools and having acquired a more complete picture of the environmental background they took some decisions to activate in oder to reduce these problems.
Outcomes for the teacher
Europeana stimulated the teacher to present the topic of ecological issues in a different and more interesting way introducing this platform of cultural wealth and variety to her students. The teacher could also measure the skills of her students not in a traditional lesson of English, but she offered them the opportunity to apply their knowledge of English in a real context, choosing the suitable information from the suggested online resources and transferring it on online collaborative tools. Of course, there were challenges as well, starting with the lack of equipment, so they had to do a great deal of activities at home with their laptops and the lack of time which was inadequate. Conclusively, the teacher has been quite satisfied with the whole project because the students worked happily in a different way, which stressed their intellectual, social and digital skills and she got a total picture of the abilities of her students.
Link to the learning scenario implemented: Let’s Make Green Decisions (LS-HR-573) – Teaching With Europeana (eun.org)
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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 Nationalmuseum Sweden.
