Educational programme
Schools' Education Programme
Overview
The educational aspect of the expedition
will be focused on the education of New Zealand children about
life in the Amazon region. This will include taking a number
of students from the Waikato region into the Amazon, and implementing
a New Zealand wide education programme in conjunction with
the expedition.
Students taking part in the expedition
The students selected to take part in the expedition
will travel with at least 2 teachers to meet the expedition
in Santarem, and travel with the crew through to Manaus, and
then on to camp on an island on a tributary to the Amazon
where education is a main focus. The island has very basic
water and electric facilities and will give the students an
exciting ‘jungle’ experience. Next stop is in
Novo Airao where there is “The Foundation”, a
company set up to teach the local people craft in order to
sell. It has a strong environmental focus and is fully equipped
with a classroom, and workshop, and is owned and run by Miguel,
our main contact in Brazil. There is also an area to plant
trees here. These students will all be Year 10 and will be
selected from schools within the Waikato, and will be in the
Amazonas region for approximately 8-10 days.
Education within New Zealand Schools
In New Zealand schools, teachers of students in
Years 7-10 (Form 1-4) will have the opportunity to use a resource
created specifically as part of the expedition preparation
that will fit into the Social Sciences curriculum. Schools
involved will teach background work about the region in the
weeks leading up to the expedition, and then will be able
to follow the progress of the expedition through the expedition
blogs and ask questions of the crew online, as well as the
New Zealand students participating in the expedition.
Fitting Into The Curriculum
Overview of the New Zealand
Curriculum, particularly Social Sciences
The New Zealand Curriculum is structured
in eight learning areas; one of which being Social Sciences.
The broad definition of this is:
The social sciences learning area
is about how societies work and how people can participate
as critical, active, informed, and responsible citizens.
Contexts are drawn from the past, present, and future and
from places within and beyond New Zealand.
For students in Years 1 to 10 (Form
4), this is taught as ‘Social Studies’ and broken
down into four conceptual strands:
- Identity, Culture, and Organisation
- Place and Environment
- Continuity and Change
- The Economic World.
Teachers of Social Studies will then
use a range of resources (books, Internet, etc), or write
their own resources, to teach students these strands in a
variety of contexts of their own (or their department’s)
choosing.
Where does our expedition
fit into the New Zealand Curriculum?
Our expedition fits soundly into the Social Sciences curriculum
in all four of the conceptual strands. We believe our expedition
is most suited to students in Years 7-10 as they do not have
the time constraints of senior high school students, whilst
being old enough to have an appreciation of the greater world
in which we live.
Getting Schools Involved
What information do we send
to schools?
To get schools involved, we need to provide them with all
the necessary information at the outset. The resources will
be written in April, and initial contact will be made with
schools in May. The initial contact will effectively by an
advertising campaign, with interested schools able to express
their interest and request further information.
Once registered, schools will be provided with details of:
- the dates of the expedition
- the cost to them (which should be nil)
- overview of the supplied teaching resource including:
- overview of curriculum areas covered
- length of time to teach
- amount of background work required by teachers (this
will be minimal)
- resources required by the school (data projector,
etc)
The units will be written in such
a way as to minimize the amount of ‘extra’ work
required by teachers.
How will schools be contacted?
The Education Gazette is a fortnightly magazine sent to all
schools containing articles about education, teaching vacancies,
and adverts for items of interest. We will advertise in this.
Probably better than that is to direct market the schools
by sending a brochure about our expedition and the resources
etc. We have a complete directory of all schools (over 2,500)
in New Zealand, with contact details and specific details
about the school type and roll.
Malcolm Barr
Education and IT
WORLDWISE EXPEDITIONS
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