BRIST: Case Study 2

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Pedagogical Focus

In the summer term, the teacher Shima wants to teach about climate change in a way that is more authentic and real for the children. Shima has the idea to link the pupils to another class in another country and then for both classes to collaborate on exploring their own environments, and then to share these with one another. The aim is to examine the ‘threats and opportunities’ that each environment has, specifically identifying the challenges that climate change will bring in the next five years. This is with a view to thinking about solutions at the local level, as each school and local community responds to the challenges and creates an action plan.   

The teacher has a contact in Botswana who puts her in touch with a school in Africa that wants to collaborate. So children in the geography class in England can work with the children in the school in Botswana. Each class has to choose a real-world issue to investigate that is related to the environment. Each starts by undertaking a SWOT analysis of their local areas (this includes recording the treasures/strengths and problems/weaknesses and opportunities to preserve the environment and protect against damage, and the threats for climate change going forward. 

  • The children in Botswana want to examine - the environmental impact of tourists on the Okavango delta, in particular the impact of pollution from tourism on the water in the delta. 
  • The children in England want to examine - the environmental impact of plastic water pollution on the local canal and river in the city. 

Both see their regional waterways as sources of local treasures to be preserved, for both human recreation and economic value (via tourism/water sports), but see the pollution as a threat to the quality of the water, its ecosystem and local flora, funa and wildlife. 

Focus - Year 10 geography project - to find out the environmental impact and write and present a report to the other pupils and other schools. This is a six week project, to gather data (SWOT data) and organise into a report and presentation to one another. 

Technology - for collaborating and sharing experiences between the children  - online platform, such as teams/moodle, which allows for: interactive ‘meetings’ between the classes (in small groups eg x6 from each country are assigned to a group); there is the function of ‘chat’, for text-based communication between the children, there is the storage area for ‘files’ for the children to share their data gathering and report writing. Each small group in each country has to produce a short report and presentation. 

Each class in Botswana and England has to use the technology to communicate, share their data/findings and write their reports (e.g. share drafts of writing), each report is to include a summative infographic. The final report is to be presented as a slideshow to one another at the end of the six week project.   

Technology for assessment

The pupils from  each class create one presentation to share with each other (eg using powerpoint slides on teams). These are presented across the countries.  

Teachers use the recording of the presentation to undertake the assessment of their work; this can include assessing the pupils' verbal/visual presentation, (their slideshow) and their final written report. 

Research Question

How can technology be used to gather data and share findings on a real world environmental problem to facilitate greater intercultural understanding of climate change/threats across two countries.