STEAM

“This doesn’t feel like school but I know I’m learning? Did you know that the capital of Nepal is Kathmandu.” Daniel Yr 2.

Tomato fever gripped the Upper School on Monday as the children took part in the first of three STEAM challenge days. What is STEAM I hear you cry again? It is Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math taught through a project requiring children to solve a real world problem.

Our problem today was that of the Nepalese tomato farmers – who grow their crop high on the fertile land of the mountain but need to transport it down to the lowland in order to sell the produce at market and make a living for their families. The roads in Nepal make it very dangerous to transport goods so the children were challenged to create another way of transferring their precious produce.

Before the children got creating they took part in four workshops to give them a greater understanding of Nepalese life and the context the challenge was taking place in. This is a key fundamental of STEAM projects. Malcolm Harris of www.worldawarenesseducation.com spoke in our morning assembly and led small group workshops in which children handled Nepalese artefacts and learnt more about the way of life in Nepal. Mr Mackenzie and Mrs Gibbs ran special Maths session looking at the weight needed to squash a tomato (11kg in one instance) whilst Mr Andrews and Mr Ainsworth taught children about the growing of tomatoes and the tomato plant’s life cycle. The other session required children to use QR codes and the Ipads to research what life is like in Nepal ahead of their meeting with Malcolm.

The afternoon was a hive of activity with our intrepid children who worked in their houses and mixed year group as they designed, built, modified and evaluated their creations. It was extremely pleasing to see our children bonding and forging new friendships due to the shake-up in groups. There were tomatoes travelling down children’s homemade models everywhere you looked! I’ve heard of crying over spilt milk and must applaud the children for their resilience in smiling at the inevitable squashed tomato. At the end of the day Malcolm gave feedback to each group and showed them how the Nepalese engineers, had created an aerial rope way system which uses gravity to transport full baskets down the mountain and carry empty ones to the top. The day was a huge success and the Upper School children can’t wait for the next challenge: Ditch the Dirt, which will take place in January.