MESHGuides

The teacher reflected on the first trial of using the technology to teach this topic. She was able to assess their final reports and presentations to see if they understood the topic and had gained intercultural insights into the local nuances of the environmental threats.

She also collected and analysed data from the pupil questionnaire about which aspects of the technology the children found engaging and helped their learning.

Cycle 1 

This is a six week project, in which the pupils work across each country and meet each week to share what they have found out about their local environmental issue. This data can be gathered via secondary sources (of environmental reports/news items) and primary data gathered through local experts/community members - by asking what the ‘threats and challenges’ are to the local environment.

During the first cycle, the teacher wanted to make the lessons more engaging for pupils through using technology to communicate with other children, in another country - to bring the issues to life. 

Reflecting on this process, she could gather information on what worked well from her observations during the lessons each week, alongside looking at what aspects/functions of the technology on the online platform had been used. 

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.

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The initial aim was for the teacher to engage her geography class in a real world problem by connecting with children in another country experiencing the effects of EI first hand. This was to bring this climate change issue to life, rather than reading about it in a textbook. 

This case study presents a cross country (intercultural) experiment in using technology to communicate between children to gather data from their respective local communities, to enable the ‘voices’ of those at a local level to be heard and for the children to understand the impact.  

The lead-school is in a large urban city, with high rates of poverty and geographical movement of families and children, with newly arrived citizens seeking asylum alongside other migration and movement patterns. The city has a long tradition of being multicultural with an ethic majority and the school has 68 languages spoken. This means that there are many EAL (English as an additional language) pupils and many are entitled to free school meals.

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Climate Change - intercultural collaborative project, using digital technologies

Executive summary - Project for pupils age 14-16 years to learn about climate change, with another school in Africa, using digital technologies to collaborate, collect data and create a presentation.