Author: Cheryl Douglas
77 Primary and High School educators attended an Eskom Expo for Young Scientists workshop run by Routes to Resilience in Cape Town on 2 February.
The idea behind the workshop was to assist educators to teach their learners (ranging from Gr 4 to Gr 11) to develop interesting and relevant Scientific Investigations or Engineering projects that can be entered into the Expo competition. By introducing teachers to the concept of Sustainable Development, the Sustainable Development Goals and how they can be used to develop critical thinking, communication, collaborative and creativity in both educators and learners.
The educators left the workshops feeling comfortable about what they could do in the classroom, enthused about tackling scientific investigations and looking forward to the follow up workshop, which will be run for educators and learners on 23 February (closing date for bookings is 12 February – contact info@routes2resilience.org).
Some of the feedback from educators:
An excellent workshop where clarity has been given to the whole scientific investigation process – loved the group interaction and input.
Excellent presenter – loved the links to the SDGS – will use in class.
In the classroom I’ll integrate the skills and process into all lessons and enrich the learners.
The information about the SDGs was useful and how to go about choosing a project. Will try to get different subject teachers to integrate knowledge from their subjects and to collaborate with each other.
It was very useful to be shown ideas regarding issues in the community and school and then branching onto the Sustainable Development Goals and help us link them to the topics chosen.
We were given clear guidelines about how to start a project. The workshop promoted critical thinking and creativity amongst educators and these ideas will be used with the learners.
Polished presentation – all components of the presentation provided clear guidelines. Extremely helpful and informative. In my classroom I’ll go through the same process Cheryl did from the initial generation of ideas/ problems through how to go about implementing their ideas. I feel the whole process is invaluable in exposing children to 21st century skills.
In the classroom I’ll do exactly what we did in the workshop!
Hearing about the SDGs! I want to bring SDGs into my teaching and raise awareness of them.
See that the ‘purpose’ of Expo is to create people with 21st century skills and not just scientific skills and the need to use SDGs as a starting point.
If you are interested in organising a presentation or workshop on Sustainability Leadership at your school, please contact info@routes2resilience.org. Let us know ideal dates, the number of educators, whether you are a primary or high school, and we can set up a Skype call to provide you with a course tailor-made for your school.
