News . Best Practices Open schooling initiative about Rewilding in UK
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This best practice reports an open schooling initiative about Rewilding UK. It was developed by The Thomas Lord Audley School – Colchester at ESSEX. The activities were supported by Mastery Science team, two OU Researchers and the Science teacher in the UK. Participants were three classes, with a total of 90 students who developed a science action about rewilding. They discussed the issue with their family and were invited to convince the public about the benefits of rewilding. Students also used the self-assessment mobile application tool CONNECT-SCIENCE to reflect about their views related to science in their lives and society.
Care: Students were intrigued by the resources including the videos about the topic. They were very motivated to solve an issue about biodiversity affected by human actions and climate change. They discussed about which animal should return back to the UK natural habitats such as beavers, wolves, and lynxes to improve the ecosystem and the biodiversity using a voting system.
Know: Students learned about food web and ecosystems. They also researched about natural habitats for these animals. They practiced scientific thinking and data analysis skills including graphs in maths, data in science, geographic information and scientists’ articles on the web about animals’ habitat and behaviour.
Do: There were some very good class discussions generated by the resources, specifically on rewilding of beavers and wolves in this topic. Students were able to disagree and make salient points against each other without taking things personally or arguing. Families discussed the various options for rewilding. This was a successful homework. Students shared questions, created influential presentations using data and facts. Scientist judged the presentations of the best class groups and provided feedback.
Findings: The open schooling activity was useful for students’ engagement and meaningful learning. The ideas of food webs, food chains etc. fit well within the y7 curriculum. Very few were outside the curriculum.
Outcomes: Some students understood the topic well already, but links to real world idea cemented the topic very securely.
For lower ability the evidence-based task was difficult to deliver to retain attention.
For higher ability (at our school) very well. For lower ability more differentiation and other ways of delivering are required.