learning in progress ….

One of our cluster projects this year has been on "Sustainability", supported by a grant from Australian Schools Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics.

So, since our launch earlier in the year, schools in Whitehills cluster have been working on “sustainability” related projects. The aim has been to embed sustainable practices and thinking into each school.

From a curriculum viewpoint “Sustainability” can be considered as a big picture theme or "fertile question" (eg how can we live sustainably?) , or a “through line” that runs through studies of science, sose, civics and citizenship. It can also be used as a context for systems thinking.

Sustainability also offers relevant contexts for literacy and numeracy – students are aware of global warming, drought and related issues that are getting a huge amount of media attention; many want to know if they can do something about it.

We had a sustainability expo recently, showing some of the classrooms projects which have been in place. Students ran most of the sessions, and also rotated through sessions run by other schools and external groups.

Following some of the photos below, there is a link to an independent review of the day – from our externally appointed critical friend.

(as a sustainable initiative, this isn’t a once off; all schools in the cluster have agreed to work towards becoming accredited as sustainable schools, taking on the framework of “Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative” with its various modules and external PD facilitation via CERES)

Now, some pictures and explanations of the day : 

Students ran activities and presentations, including explanations of the “black balloon” calculations and this graph data ...

dramatically presented ...

the day was solar powered (for the PA, laptops, projectors and various other bits and pieces etc)

The council has sponsored a trailer, which belongs to Weeroona, being fitted out with large, fold out, solar cells, and its also large enough to hold an energy vehicle and other sustainable displays. Can be hired from Weeroona.

here's one of the EV's (students got to drive them in one workshop), with the marquees in the background ..

... which were used for schools to present and view each other workshops ...

as well as external agencies, like Coliban water

some workshops investigated renewable energy - such as solar cells and hydrogen fuel cells

This hydrogen powered car uses solar energy to electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen, then recombines the gases in a fuel cell to release electricity. Storing the gases allows it to discharge energy even when there is no sunlight – effectively charging a battery in gaseous form ... good science ..

others had students investigating planting, organic farming etc

Rob Gel was able to attend and spoke to 220 students over lunch

You can, or course, make most things look good with a few well chosen photos. Its harder to convince a professor of education who spent the day casting a critical eye on the event, as part of our accountability. Here’s what he thought :

Congratulations on a terrific day yesterday.I thought it was a very worthwhile day and certainly was very much in-line with the project aims. I thought I might put down a couple of things in writing, which you may or may not wish to use in reporting on the project.You could use them as from someone who is an outsider looking in, type of thing.I spent most of the day wandering around chatting informally to students, teachers, principals and other provider participants. My overwhelming observation was the engagement of the students through the whole day.I did not detect any students mucking about, getting bored as the day went on, or displaying any disruptive behaviour at all.Indeed their behaviour was one of interest, and 'wanting to find out'.In a number of the sessions I sat in on the students were asking routine questions as you would expect, but these were sprinkled with a number of quite insightful questions by students that prompted higher engagement by their peers.The other notable thing was that in many of the displays, students from the particular school were running their show, and often quite young students. I was impressed that they were often not just reading from preparedscripts, but able to answer and engage with their student audience about not only what they had done in their school garden or water project or whatever, but they were able to articulate why this or that had been done.It was obvious that a number of principals attended, some for part of the time and others for the whole day. This I take as an indicator that the leadership within the different schools were placing a high priority on this project that they regarded 'of worth' in the conversations I had with them.Various of the providers who were running activities along side the school groups thought that this was a worthwhile day too.They believed also that the students were engaged in their activities and were learning. I had comments that a number of them looked forward to an ongoingrelationship with this project. The teachers also seemed to me to be also engaged with the subject of the day. It did not seem to me that any of the teachers were just seeing it as a day outside the classroom.This for them seemed to be an important learning occasion for theirstudents. I thought the lunchtime address by Rob Gell was icing on the cake for the day's activities. Well done againCheers
Philip Professor Philip C Clarkson
Australian