EDUC 5500 – Inquiry Brainstorm
Angelina Thomson
July 16, 2020
Key questions About my Project:
Key questions for Place-Based Learning:
- What is place? What are some ways in which people experience place? How can you gain a sense of place in your local environment? How can you share your observations and ideas about living things in your local environment to help someone else learn about the place? (https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/science/)
- Who am I? What is my place?
- How does the story of the universe relate to my place in the world?
- How did it come to be? Looking at growth, life cycles of animals, humans, the earth, the solar system, trees etc.
- How does the story of the universe shape how we view the world?
- What do you connect with in nature? What are we curious about or wonder about the world around us?
- How do you look at a plant? Western vs.Aboriginal perspectives. What plants live here?
- What are the natural landforms of Kamloops? Why are they important? What do they provide?
- How does our universe shape and influence who we become?
- In what ways does the natural world reflect human experience?
Description of my Unit Plan
The inquiry approach will be enhanced by a place-based approach called the “Sit Spot”. This is a term from Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature (Young, Haas, & McCowan, 2009). A sit spot is a favorite spot you like to go to in nature which helps you to cultivate awareness of the world around you and expands your sense of local plants, trees and animals. Students will choose one place outside to visit over and over again. This teaches them to develop human awareness and acquire a sensitivity to nature in order to enhance scientific inquiry. As they connect to nature they watch the naturalistic elements and how they change over time. The sit spot will enhance inspiration and interest about the outside world and allow students to engage in meaningful learning opportunities. (Complete Guide To Using A Sit Spot in Nature, 2020).
In the sit spots they will write in their scientific notebooks to encourage inquiry and development of their observations. The science notebook involves keeping a regular record, in drawings and in words, of the students experiences outdoors. Some specific tasks to accomplish at their Sit Spots could be to find a bird and describe it, describe what the weather is doing, or draw plants at the Sit Spot in detail and write about them. Another example is to find something that interests the student and then draw and label it. Lastly, another task could be to write three “I wonder” questions about the observations seen in the Sit Spot (Complete Guide To Using A Sit Spot in Nature, 2020).
Another way to build on their inquiry is through storytelling which will ignite wonder and curiosity. The narrative children’s story by Jennifer Morgan called“Born with a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story” shows how life is complex and interwoven into everything. The narrative of the big bang tells the story of the earth and the solar system. As students look at the history and structure of the earth they gain a curious attitude about the world around them and their place within the universe. The awe inspiring narrative of the earth teaches how the universe, life, animals help contribute to life on earth. Students discover how the earth was formed and build on their interests and curiosities. According to Egan and Judson (2015), helping students create mental imagery and imagining scenarios with different mental components can help students to think more deeply and powerfully. When we can use mental imagery to teach students we are making stories vividly memorable. It’s the process of creating curiosity, enthusiasm and inspiration along with their Sit Spots that helps them to discover something on their own. Through wonder the students and teachers identify for themselves what is emotionally engaging about the topic and what is interesting and amazing about the topic (Hadzigeorgiou and Judson, 2017). The students are becoming aware of the world and their place in it by seeing the big picture of the world and life.
It is important that the students know that this is only one theory of how the world came to be and that there are many different ways to view the way the world was born, but this is the one that is most common and scientific. This is also a good opportunity to build in First Peoples Principles of Learning and creation stories of night and day and the story of the sun and the moon.
For primary students writing and communicating through a visual story/loose natural parts is a good way for them to engage in the content of what they are learning. Students can use a hula hoop in their sit spots and gather natural artifacts around them to build a story about the place. The children will document their world by displaying their natural artifacts and share what they have found in a creative story form. It is a fun and exciting way for students to build on their ideas of what they see and know. These stories stem from their Sit Spots and storytelling about the universe.
Students can also create a map with the natural artifacts that they find. A map of their Sit Spot location can be a good way to incorporate place-based learning. It helps them to understand the diversity and biology in their Sit Spot. According to Jagger (2015) mapmaking can be a way to make sense of the world and our place in it, at the same time helping us understand and gain knowledge about our local environments. Through mapmaking the students will draw and collect natural artifacts to share their visualizations of their places and explain why they are important.
The students could also collaborate in groups to create a sound poem. As students observe the sounds, sights, and smells of nature they can create poetry. Poetry can be a way to share their unique experiences and observations individually or in groups. When students experience and explore nature by getting outside they are able to find inspiration from their senses about what is around them.
By encouraging the students to be poets and storytellers it is giving them the tools to build on their own ideas and interests of the world around them. Writing is a way for students to share their knowledge, understanding and feelings of what they see and know about the world. Writing their thoughts down in their scientific journals, through poetry or stories is a way to express their wonders, questions, feelings, and inquiries about the world. It can be a good starting point and brainstorm to where they want to go for further investigation for a larger project.
Learning Principles-
Grade 1 Science
Learning Principle 1: All living things have features and behaviours that help them survive in their environments.
- Naming common, indigenous and scientific of local plants and animals- living things in the local environment
- Structural features- How do shells, roots, leaves, skeleton or no skeleton or exoskeleton, lots of legs, few legs, eyes etc. help us understand organisms?
Learning Principle 2: Light and sound can be produced and their properties can be changed.
Learning Principle 3: Observable patterns and cycles occur in the local sky and landscape.
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/science/1)
Grade 2 Science
Learning Principle 1: All living things have life cycles
- Metamorphic and Non-metamorphic life cycles of different organisms.
Metamorphic life cycles: body structure changes (e.g. caterpillar to butterfly, mealworm transformation, tadpoles to frogs)
Non-metamorphic life cycles: organisms keeps same body structure through life but size changes (e.g., humans) - Similarities and differences between offspring and parent
- First People’s use of their knowledge- Stewardship: sustainably gathering plants and hunting/fishing in response to seasons and animal migration patterns (e.g., clam gardens, seasonal rounds, etc.), sustainable fish hatchery programs run by local First Peoples
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/science/2)
Grade 3 Science
Learning Principle 1: Living things are diverse, can be grouped, and interact with their ecosystems
Examples:
- Biodiversity in the local environment-biodiversity: the variety of different types of living things in an ecosystem
- Characteristics of local plants, animals and fungi
- First peoples knowledge of biodiversity -The interconnection between living and nonliving things in the local environment; our shared responsibility to care for the local environment (i.e., stewardship); information shared from the local First Peoples community and Elders
- Ecosystems:
-population: all the members of the same type of living thing (species) in an area
-communities: different populations in an area living together
Learning Principle 2: Energy is needed for life:
Examples:
- producers (plants), consumers (animals), and decomposers (bacteria and fungi) respond to their environment in energy pyramids (flow of energy in the community from the sun) food chains: the flow of food energy from one organism to another (e.g., grass to rabbit to lynx) food webs: interconnecting food chains (e.g., a rabbit may be eaten by a lynx or a wolf)
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/science/3)
Grade 1 Social Studies
Learning Principle: We shape the local environment, and the local environment shapes who we are and how we live.
- relationships between a community and its environment
- How does your local community depend on the local environment?
- What effects do the activities have on your community in your environment?
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/social-studies/1)
Grade 2 Social Studies
Learning Principle: Individuals have rights and responsibilities as global citizens.
- responsibility to the environment and community
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/social-studies/2)
Grade 3 Social Studies
Learning Principle: Learning about indigenous peoples nurtures multicultural awareness and respect for diversity.
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/social-studies/3)
Grade 1, 2, and 3 Language Arts
Learning Principle 1: Language and story can be a source of creativity and joy.
Learning Principle 2: Stories and other texts help us learn about ourselves and our families.
Learning Principle 3: Curiosity and wonder lead us to new discoveries about ourselves and the world around us.
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/english-language-arts/3)
Grades 1, 2, and 3 Career Education
Learning Principle 1: Confidence develops through the process of self-discovery.
Learning Principle 2: Strong communities are the result of being connected to family and community and working together toward common goals.
Learning Principle 3: Learning is a lifelong enterprise.
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/career-education/1)
Grades 1, 2, and 3 – Physical and Health Education
Learning Principle 1: Good health comprises physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Learning Principle 2: Learning about ourselves and others helps us develop a positive attitude and caring behaviours, which helps us build healthy relationships.
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/physical-health-education/1)
Core Competencies
Communication:
- Students often collaborate in order to develop effective communications.
- Students often collaborate as they work in groups to analyze and critique, and design and develop.
- Recognizing and appreciating different perspectives is key to both interpreting and creating communications.
Thinking:
- Students apply critical and reflective thinking to acquire and interpret information, and to make choices about how to communicate their ideas.
- Students use critical thinking to analyze and reflect on creative ideas to determine whether they have value and should be developed, engaging in ongoing reflection as they develop their creative ideas.
- Students demonstrate their competence as creative thinkers when they generate ideas about ways to increase their wellbeing, personal agency, or progress toward their goals.
- Reflection is a key part of all aspects of developing goals and monitoring and assessing progress toward them.
Personal and Social:
- Students identify their personal values and strengths and abilities to determine ways they can contribute to their communities and care for the environment.
- Students bring their understanding of how relationships and cultural contexts shape who they are to building relationships with others.
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies)
First People’s Principles of Learning:
“Learning supports the well-being of the self, the family, and the community”
“Learning is holistic, reflexive, experiential, and relational”
Current Understandings of Inquiry-Based Pedagogy Related to my Topic
As students use their Sit Spots they embark in a “wayfinding” (Chambers) and are encouraged through the inquiry process to pose new questions and problems about their world by interacting with the naturalistic environment. The outdoor inquiry gets students thinking about their world and the part they play within it. They begin to wonder and ask questions that develop deeper thinking and understanding of who they are and what is around them. When students can understand and appreciate their world they will build more empathy and kindness towards all living things.
As students sit in nature they discover how learning is all around them and the environment is the tool. By sitting in one place it helps the student to see the relevant and real and how they can transfer and apply to the real world. When we watch and listen in certain places we gain wisdom. It is like we are standing side by side with the experts of that particular place. David Donalds (2009) explains this wisdom when he explores the importance of rocks in Aboriginal cultures, he states that “rocks are located at places that have a history—a story—and wisdom on how to live a good life comes from looking closely at the place and listening carefully, over and over again, to the story” (p. 13). We gain an education of attention when we sit and listen to what places have to offer us and what it needs to teach us about how to live a good life. This is what we are doing when we are sitting in a Sit Spot. Chambers (2008) also illustrates that “Watching is both a perceptual and an intellectual engagement with what is watched. Watching is relational because watching implies ‘I am being watched’ as well as ‘I am watching’, so that the very animism of what I watch is recognized. Like watching, listening is a skilled practice necessary to a curriculum of place” (p. 121). By sitting still and watching we are learning from the life that is all around us and what it can teach us of how we want to relate to everything in our world. Students are gaining respect and gratitude for life that has come before us.
Environmental awareness starts with being in nature, but there is a potential role in story telling about the universe to raise environmental awareness. Hadzigeorgiou and Judson (2017) state that “The topics we teach need to be story-shaped” (p. 13). Through storytelling teachers create a sense of wonder that will connect them through “emotional and imaginative engagement, of how significant the natural world is. It is ‘wonder-full’ storytelling that has the potential to encourage, through an awareness of the personal and wider significance of issues and ideas, the reconnection of human beings with the natural world” (Hadzigeorgiou and Judson, 2017, p. 17). Egan and Judson (2015) also show that the story form of learning engages students emotions. It shows that stories do not need to be fictional and stories add a new layer of meaning to life and relationships. Sitting in nature is not enough; children can develop a love for nature, but still be unaware of how things work. Knowing the facts about the world and how things are interconnected shows awareness of significant issues that can affect everyone on the planet.
Understanding about the natural world should be part of a curriculum and shared through storytelling and poetry that teach about ecological relationships (Kulnieks, Young, and Longboat, 2013, p. 76). The stories are individual and creative and are vital to our understanding of the natural environment and developing healthy identities of their place in the world around us. When we are able to understand our place within the world, the wisdom that sits here and humble ourselves with what surrounds us we develop an appreciation for all life and how we want to take care of it. The stories and histories that surround us can help us understand who we are and the place we are in.
Our deepest beliefs come out in our questions about how we see the world and how we follow them. The inquiry environmental and place-based learning approach is a starting point for their social emotional health of who they are and how they can best contribute respectfully to the world. Through storytelling about the universe students see the relationships that exist between all living things, this is essential to understanding a place. Chambers shows that “It is where we are that matters. By learning to do what is appropriate in this place, and doing it together, perhaps we can find the common ground necessary to survive” (Chambers, 2008, p. 125). In this living process students gain an attitude of kindness towards all living things and a new perspective of our history. The inquiry process helps students to reframe and reflect on history to come to an understanding of what has come before.
Teacher Resources
Space for Kids – The Big Bang
https://www.esa.int/kids/en/learn/Our_Universe/Story_of_the_Universe/The_Big_Bang
Born with a Bang: The Story of the Universe (April 2020). Born with a Bang Part 1 and Part 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klOCdhqUfI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ACtwDaYHM
A sense of wonder can also be born from a YouTube video about the story of the universe, like the one posted below.
The Story of the Earth in 1 Minute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSt9tm3RoUU
Paolilli, Paul, Dan Brewer, Steve Johnson, and Lou Fancher (2001). Silver Seeds: A Book of Nature Poems. New York: Viking.
Janeczko, Paul B., and Henri Silberman (2001). Stone Bench in an Empty Park. New York:
Orchard.
Five Senses Observation Sheet: file:///media/fuse/drivefs-5144df3b1f3ee7aed8172d18c626d3a6/root/Five_Sense_Observation.pdf
References
BC’s New Curriculum-Building Student Success (2018). Retrieved
from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/
Chambers, Cynthia (2006). “The Land is the Best Teacher I Have Ever Had”: Places as Pedagogy for Precarious Times, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, University of Lethbridge, p. 27-38.
Chambers, Cythnia (2008). Where are we? Finding Common Ground in a Curriculum of Place Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies. University of Lethbridge Volume 6, Number 2, p. 113-128
“Complete Guide To Using A Sit Spot In Nature.” (June 2020) Nature Mentoring nature-mentor.com/sit-spot/#:~:text=
Core Competencies- Building Students Success (2018). Retrieved from
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies
Donald D., David (2009). Forts, Curriculum, and Indigenous Métissage: Imagining Decolonization of Aboriginal-Canadian Relations in Educational Contexts, First Nations Perspectives, University of Alberta, 2(1), p.1-24.
First People’s Principles of Learning (2015). Retrieved from
http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PUB-LFP-POSTER-Principles-of-Learning-First-Peoples-poster-11×17.pdf
Hadzigeorgiou, Yannis and Gillian Judson (2017). Toward More Effective Storytelling for Raising Environmental Awareness in Young Students. Journal of Advances in Education Research, Vol. 2, No.1 http://isaacpub.com/images/PaperPDF/JAER_100007_2017022111464418389.pdf
Jagger, Shannon (2015). Placed-based Learning: Community Mapping – Engaging Students With/in Place through Community Mapping. Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor
Education, Volume 26, Issue 3.
https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/12439
Kulnieks, Andrejs, Kelly Young, and Dan Roronhiakewen Longboat (2013). Indigenizing Environmental Education: Conceptualizing Curriculum that Fosters Educational Leadership. First Nations PersPectives 5, 1, p. 65-81 https://www.mfnerc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Section4_Indigenizing-Environmental-Education-Conceptualizing-Curriculum-that-Fosters-Educational-Leadership.pdf
Sobel, David (2008). Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Education. Stenhouse Publishing