At a recent Teacher Training Workshop hosted by the TerraKids team, the teachers were challenged to find new and creative ways to involve students in their learning. So, rather than always having the teacher in front of the class, our team encouraged teachers to involve students in a variety of ways including the use of puzzles to encourage collaborative learning, questions and answer competitions, and theme projects for students to work together toward a common goal.
One teacher who attended our training, took that challenge seriously and went back to his school to try out some of those ideas. Those ideas required hard work, but the result was well worth the effort, as students were fully engaged in new ways which promoted increased learning.
To the delight of our team, we received an invitation to see the students in action! The students and teachers organized a fashion show to emphasize the importance of re-using items which might otherwise be thrown away. Students from each grade worked together with their classmates to design elegant outfits from recycled materials which two students from each grade wore in a mock runway fashion show.
There was much color and creativity in the students’ ideas which re-used materials such as colorful paper, single-serving coffee pouches, plastic straws and even fertilizer bags!
In addition to the fashion show, teams of students participated in a trivia contest which included questions from many areas of the school curriculum including Science, Math and Social Studies. The number of correct answers was tallied at the end of the competition and TerraClear awarded reusable water bottles to the team who answered the most questions correctly along with all the students who participated in the fashion show. The picture below shows students engaged in a question and answer trivia competition.
It was a fun morning of learning for the students and such an encouragement to our team and the teachers at the school who were willing to try something new.
Students win TerraClear water bottles for their creative designs and participation in the Reduce, Re-use, Recycle challenge.
