Enviroschools Sharing Activites Workshop

Teachers from three QLDC Enviroschools ventured to Dunedin on the 21st October to attend the 'Sharing Activities' workshop. I just couldn't believe how good this day was. It's third workshop I've been to in the Skeggs gallery and this one was packed. As we walked in, the room was full to the brim with people, buzzing conversation and heaps of stalls around the edge of the room.

The idea was to help showcase the activities that can be found within the Enviroschools kit, this was certainly acheived. Teachers were asked to bring examples of activities they've run in schools to share the pros and cons with other schools. I lead a couple of workshops on the 'Where does it all come from? How does it change? (Precious Energy)' activity, page 342 of the kit, as well of having a quick flick through the Precious Energy Section of the kit.

This activity creates the opportunity for the children to piece together pictures depicting the journey of energy from its source to the required form. I really like this as it can so easily depict the different stages that we need to go through to extract usable energy from different available energy sources. This can in turn be used to demonstrate the efficiency / inefficiency of using different energy sources.

In the afternoon I helped facilitate workshop on action planners from section 3 of the kit. I just love these tools, I think they really guide the children through designing and planning an action project. They are so simple and as you fill in the boxes a list of things to do just appears. It is one of the best ways of simplifying what would seem an impossible task into lots of easily achievable actions.

The early start was a little shock to the system but the buzz of conversation in the car about the day on the way home made it all worthwhile. Everybody got lots of ideas about what to do next when back at school. A really big thank you goes out to all the teachers who came and kindly shared their ideas and experiences and also to everyone who helped organise the day. We had a ball and can't wait for the next one......