Integrated "food" project Week 5

It is now week 5 of term 1 and we have started the inquiry part of the food project. So far all 4 core teachers have used food as a common theme and taught their curriculum objectives from this context. I chose the level 5 social studies AO "Understand how economic decisions affect people, communities and nations". It is a great AO with lots of scope for problematizing the context of "food". The focus has mainly been on the decision to industrialise our food supply and the consequent effects. So we have looked at the relationship between the oil economy and oil products such as fertiliser on agriculture and watched the 30min doco "The power of community: How Cuba survived peak oil". This got them thinking a bit and we did a creative writing exercise just before watching the doco which I'll write about sometime. We have also looked at Free Trade and the Global Food Crisis and have touched on concepts like globalisation. Not the best concept to "touch on" really. I can't help thinking it is a concept that would make a great simulation game similar to Michael Wersch's example if you had the knowledge.

I started using the social studies social enquiry booklet and I must go back to it. The idea was to find out what they knew and give them some new information which hopefully they would find interesting and which they might build an inquiry around. A good idea in theory but the risk is that up until they actually start the inquiry, the teaching reverts to the banking metaphor of education. Closer attention to the social studies social enquiry model may help prevent this. It hasn't been too bad but I am very glad they can finally start their community exhibition display, which many have been jumping out of their skins to do. Their ideas are incredibly diverse and interesting but they find it very hard to turn an "issue" into a manageable research project.

Next week we will try and take them to Te Papa to critically appraise what is in an exhibition and what makes it successful. Then they can start to think more carefully about their display. The exhibition side of things is going to be very interesting. They have had to come up with a title of the exhibition which is still to be finalised and ideally all displays will reflect that title. Meanwhile, we have timetabled the next 2 weeks a bit differently. They have about 7 hours a week to work on their inquiry and I have 1 social studies period week to do whatever: keep teaching my AO, do some skills-based stuff that crops up from their research, or anything else I can think of. Despite "losing" three periods a week, it doesn't matter. They are utilising all different aspects of the key competencies. Having said this though, I don't see why all their displays shouldn't have a social studies component. Is it worth doing something in public education that isn't socially relevant and involves students participating as critically minded citizens? I think that is why schools exist. If a student has an obsession with butterflies, great. Read about them at home and develop a hobby. If students are to work together as a "community of learners", the butterflies need a social reason to be studied.