We are approaching the end of the time we will devote to our Alpha project so that our teams can move into their Beta project. As is our practice, Bo and I are more directive with the choices during the Alpha project stage in an effort to help our learners understand how they will develop a game plan, communication strategies, collect data, and identify community issues as a team.
We used Jamie Oliver’s Ted Prize wish as a prompt for writing to find closure for our work on the Alpha projects. If you have not watched Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food I think you would enjoy taking 22 minutes to listen and learn.
We asked our learners to:
- Read Jamie Oliver’s Ted Prize wish.
- Create a one-pager about your sub-team’s Alpha project using Jamie Oliver’s – “The Wish,” “The Plan,” and “The Needs,” using one of your Ignite-lite revised slides as a visual.
- Post this one-pager on each sub-team members’ wmslearns blog.
We hope this experience and activity offers our learners an opportunity to find closure as a team. We also hope Jamie Oliver’s TED talk provides inspiration and offers an example of Synergy 8’s essential learnings in action.
I wonder how much we know about what is important to our students. How much time do we tell them what we think they need to know, learn, and do? How much time do we let them tell us what they need to know, learn, and do? Won’t they learn the same things either way?
We can easily find math, biology, health, writing, history, etc. in Jamie Oliver’s talk, research, and learning just by listening. (Can you believe the volume of sugar consumed by one child in the first 5 years of elementary school just from milk?)
Shouldn’t we listen to their questions, issues, and concerns and find our discipline within the topics of interest to our learners? Will we?
Here is just one of the wishes from our current Synergy 8 team.
We wish to rid [our community] of littering and engage everyone in our movement to make recycling contagious.
Our plan is to find the locations that have litter on campus, where they require more trash cans, and to keep the campus cleaner. We are going to do this by surveying the students to see their opinions about the matter. Then we [want] to change the trash cans to make them more efficient towards the environment and more convenient for the students.
This sub-team contacted our Assistant Director of Facilities and asked one question. Here are snippets of the electronic conversation:
HC:
Our group is doing a project about recycling and littering on campus. We were wondering if you could tell us what can be recyclable in the small bins located in each class room. We are going to make signs for each bin so people can know what they can recycle. Thank you so much for your support.SJ:
We do “single stream” recycling, meaning anything recyclable is put in one bin instead of separate bins, so anything plastic, paper, or metal can be put in those bins. When you’d finished designing the signs, I’d love to see them before they are printed.I replied to SJ:
Thank you for the quick reply to our 8th graders. Your quick response, especially when at a conference, shows them that their work is important and valued. We appreciate your help as we learn more about recycling at [school].SJ:
You are very welcome! Would it help for me to come to your class and talk about waste? Thursday and Friday are pretty open for me. I wouldn’t have a formal presentation ready, but the kids could ask questions.
Just the simple act of asking questions can lead to powerful learning, support, and change.
Jamie Oliver’s wish:
“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”
Do you have a wish?
What are the wishes of our children?
Have we asked?
Experiments in Learning by Doing 