Not being to go off of campus has been challenging for some parts of the job. For our Grade 1 students studying ecosystems this has been even more challenging to plan. We’re not able to go out, most of our green space is under construction and I’m trying to plan an experiential approach to understanding why habitats are important for living things.
Luckily I bumped into a friend who suggested ants. They start off in a test tube, so upkeep is pretty easy and the hook for the kids is we have to build the best habitat for them.
So we can go outside, see where ants are (thankfully ants are almost everywhere). Look at what natural things they do and need, what they eat and where they want to live and then start designing a new home for them. The winning design will get to have their home be created for the ants to live in.
So hopefully this goes well, we don’t start for awhile, but the kids I think will be interested. It gives them a chance to look at what’s happening in another living thing’s life and hopefully think about how to make it better. We’ll see how it goes anyway.