Eco Detectives

The Key Areas of Competence (KAoC)

This term's cross-curricular project will develop the children's skills in the following curriculum areas:


ROOTS: Skills of Enquiry and Communication

TRUNK: Communication and Language, Questioning, Investigating, Drawing Conclusions

CROWN: Creative Arts & Design, Techniques and Materials, Designs, Decisions and Planning, Food, Habitat Adaptations


Project Goal

To learn about the importance of reuse, reduce and recycling

Steps to Success 


Step 1: We will learn about recycling, reducing and reusing materials and items we use

Step 2: How can we learn new skills to create reusable items (beeswax wraps, candles and blankets)?

Step 3: What is the impact of food waste on our planet?

Step 4: How can we grow our own plants and herbs, whilst discussing key factors of 'food miles' and seasonality on our planet

Step 5: We will create an invention/idea to help 'Build a Change' for the future, specifically focusing on; building sustainably

Our Promises!

 During our workshop at the BBC Earth Experience, we made the following promises:

12th january 2024

"What is our project?"

This term, the project focus across the school is based on the environment as we look ahead to our 'Save Our Futures' event on 20th April. To support the Crocodiles in planning the direction of our project, we visited the BBC Earth Experience to initiate discussions about the natural world, various environments, and our impact on them as humans. 





Project Title
After a democratic vote and much discussion, the Crocodiles have titled their new environmental project as... 'Eco Detectives'.

Brain Storming

We brainstormed some ideas after our trip to The BBC Earth Experience. This mind map was the first step towards the title and direction of our new project.

We took a beautiful, crisp morning walk around our school grounds as we began to focus on the nature around us. This is also the starting point of our nature poems, which we will be working on this term in preparation for our 'Save our Futures' event in April.

After a few exciting and broad conversations around climate change, local and global environments, the Crocodiles created their own powerful Eco posters. They thought carefully about their designs and the messages they wanted to convey to others. 

Question to ask your child

 What were the steps to create a beeswax wrap out of recycled materials?

26th January 2024

Beeswax Wraps

As one of our promises has been to 'reuse'; we began by making beeswax wraps out of unwanted cotton clothing. 

We first selected the material we wanted to use, cut it to size, sprinkled some beeswax and then carefully used a hot iron to melt the wax onto the material  - voilà 

Vegan Cookies

Yummmmmyyy! Learning about 'food miles' naturally led us towards discussions about where our food comes from and the impact it can have on the planet. We spoke about the origins and the distances various foods travel before they arrive on our plates. We decided to make some delicious vegan cookies with a few ingredients to end our week on this topic. Thank you, Naomi and family, for the great recipe.

9th February 2024

Gardening

In preparation for our own plants and flowers, we turned over and aerated the soil in the greenhouse. Over the coming weeks, we will plant a few herbs, flowers and plants ahead of our 'Save our Futures' event in April. 

Planting

We worked as a team to label the parts of a plant and the things plants need to survive. They are sunlight, warmth, air, nutrients and water.

Questions to ask your child

Question to ask your child

Can you name/label the parts of the plant shown?

The parts of a plant we learned

You can use the web page below to learn more about plants, their parts and their life-cycle

Using a Microscope

Alongside our project learning on the environment, we have also been budding scientists! We have enjoyed using a digital microscope to look closely at various prepared glass slides. These have included parts of insects, pollen, flowers, dust and our fingerprints. We will continue to use the microscope over the coming weeks to learn further about plants, insects and pond life.

1st March 2024

Sewing Workshop

We thoroughly enjoyed our first sewing workshop with Lynn on Tuesday. Over the course of the coming weeks, we are going to make a wonderful class quilt out of recycled materials. We are going to learn how to use a sewing machine safely, the three layers needed to create a quilt and of course, the importance of reusing unwanted items to create something new.

Illustration Workshop with Poonam

We have had a busy but tremendous week! Not only have learned a new skill on Tuesday (sewing), but we have also turned our hand to illustration. Thank you, Poonam (Ovie's mum) for spending time with us on Thursday and for introducing us to the wonderful world of illustration. The Crocodiles created an amazing class nature poem last half-term and, with Poonam's help, began to illustrate some of their ideas. This stems from our idea to create our poem in three different mediums; vocal, 2d (illustration) and 3d (sculpture). We are looking forward to sharing these with you all at our Save our futures event in April.

Our class nature poem


Some questions to consider


Can you share our poem at home?


What is your favourite part of the poem?


Can you remember what is an adjective, and how does alliteration work?


Can you find the adjectives and any alliteration in our poem?

Crocodile Quilt

Here is a short video of us carefully creating our beautiful Crocodile Quilt with Lynn

Illustration

Here is a short video of us learning some illustration techniques with Poonman

Our Project comes to end 

After an amazing Spring term focused on our wonderful environment, sustainability and reusing what we can, it is time tom bring this chapter to a close. The Crocodiles have thrown themselves into each step along the way and have learned a huge amount during this project. 

Our futuristic and sustainible cities

Divided into three teams, the Crocodiles set their minds on creating cities of the future. They brainstormed their ideas, collaborated, sketched grand plans, and then got to work on building their models. After carefully building their models, the Crocodiles then labelled and explained their choices in preparation for our Save our Futures event.

Our sunflower and herb shop 

We sold our sunflower seedlings and delicious herbs to raise money for the school's chosen charity. We raised over £60 for these wonderful causes - well done, Crocodiles!

We designed future cities whilst considering the importance of renewable and sustainable energy sources. We learned about solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy sources.

Recycle Beeswax Wraps

During our project, we spent time creating beautiful beeswax wraps from recycled and leftover material from our Crocodile quilt. These wraps are a great way and alternative of storing food.


Our project learning wall

This wall shows the Crocodile's journey through the project and various steps