Step aside

“People can make choices to support the sustainability of the Earth’s energy resources.”

Me to students : Does that make sense?
Students to me: (after a while)…not really…

Their understanding of “energy” during the pre-assessment task also reflected a superficial knowledge of the term.

And thus our unit of inquiry started.

As I was browsing the net, I came across this picture prompt- a map, which I thought would serve as a great provocation. The annual energy consumption per person. Kids love guessing where countries are, so it was a great way to address some geography at this point.

Annual energy consumption per person

I had also been reading Craig Dwyer’s post which inspired me to change my inquiry cycle and use a simpler one. Wonder (while exploring)- Explore (while wondering)- Create (while reflecting)- Reflect (with subsequent wonderings). I was feeling more at ease now.

The map allowed the students to make a lot of inferences based on patterns which slowly started emerging during our class discussions.

Here is a visual of their wonderings once they went home and revisited the map on their class blog.

Over the weekend, I requested the students to help out with resources. I had no clue what they would come up with, but it had to be something to do with energy.

Now the part where I step aside.

Junk

At this point, no knows how we are going to sort all this junk into centers.

My students suddenly took charge.  The junk would remain where it was.  They would pick what they wanted and work with whom the felt like.

Here is what happened next…

 

Soon I would need to step back in and ask them to share their newfound understandings, thoughts and wonderings. Maybe after another day of uninhibited, joyful exploration.

How do you feel the unit should go on from here? It would be great to collaborate with such an amazing PLN present here!