Above and Below the Earth

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

ROOTS: Skills of Enquiry and Communication, Knowledge and understanding in becoming informed Citizens

TRUNK: Communication and Language, Questioning, Investigating, Drawing Conclusions, Environmentalism, Presenting, Media

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

Project Goal

*Currently being written alongside the children*

Steps to Success

Step 1: What is mining, and why do we do it?

Step 2: Where are mines located, and why are they there?

Step 3: What is the impact of mining on our world?

Step 4: What can we do to improve mining, or what alternative solutions are available?

Step 5: How can we educate others on the impact of mining?

Update: 24.01.2025

This term, the whole school project focuses on the environment. The Chiff-Chaffs have been busy developing their project proposals this week before presenting their ideas to their peers regarding which avenues our project should explore this term. We know that the Chiff-Chaffs are all interested in the world 'under our feet'; through conversations and discussions, they have repeatedly been excited by gems, mining, natural resources, wildlife, nature (forests) and sea life. Next week, we will work together to build our 'steps' towards our project 'end goal' alongside the children, and more information will follow as soon as possible.

You may find it helpful to discuss our project slides with your child ahead of discussions next week. The slides below will give us a structure around mining, what is it, why is it important, where does it take place and why etc.

Update 2 - 14.02.2025

Project Proposal Presentations

Please ask your child about their project proposal and why they chose that area of interest. They all articulated their ideas well and identified areas to learn further about. After the presentations, we sat down as a group to chat through our project direction and vision and have come up with the following project title...

'Above and Below and the Earth'

Chloe and Leo

Maya and Libbie

Hector and Thomas

Vaneesha

Naomi

Geoffrey and Ovie

Zac

Maxim

Amaya

We began learning about mining, its uses, history, and locations worldwide. We used our project slides to start discussions and further research.

We worked together to access relevant books in our reading nook. From climate change, gemstones, and minerals to mining, we read and spoke about a vast array of topics linked to our initial ideas and project steps

Our next objective was to learn about the locations of some of the biggest mines in the world. We used a map from the Identec Solutions website to help plot and locate these enormous mines around the globe. It was fascinating but also mind-boggling to know that the largest mine in the world (Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, USA) removes 410,000,000 kilograms of material daily, which is the same weight as 68,000 African elephants every day!

Our next challenge is to learn and understand why these mines are located in these locations.

Why are they there and not in London, for example?

Why do they mine only for these specific materials?

What materials are the most commonly mined, and why?

We began by painting the base layer, using tones of blue to create the effect of different ocean depths

Alongside our Science experiment, we created the layers of the Earth and spoke about their roles in the rock cycle. Did you know that the Earth's inner core is hotter than the sun?

We enjoyed learning about the rock cycle and plotting its journey on the insert for our globe

We worked in teams and subgroups to draw, label and paint the various stages of our diagrams

With Lizzie's guidance, we drew the Continents, islands and land masses around the world as accurately as we could - it was a terrific challenge

We have been busy digging our 'mine' too. It has been a fascinating moral journey as we understand the concept of using resources from under the earth, alongside the positive contributions we can make to support this use

Our Workshop with London Mining Network

We enjoyed an insightful and engaging workshop with Kerima from the London Mining Network. Kerima spoke to us about coal mining's impact on indigenous communities throughout India and the steps we can take to support the planet throughout the future.

You can click through the picture opposite to see what we got up to.

Developing our scale mine

Digging our mine as been lots of fun, but it has also taught us to appreciate the worms, bulbs and resources that occupy the soil before us

We have made some mud houses, rivers and roadways to improve our model's scale

We have made our model more expansive and detailed over the past week. We have added homes, rivers, trees, paths and entrances

Our new plants, grasses and trees

While 'mining', we uncovered and unfortunately displaced several crocus bulbs. With that in mind, we headed to the garden centre to replace what we'd taken from the soil and decided to plant new snowdrops, primroses, ivy, grasses and a bay tree

Discovering gemstones and growing crystals

Update 14.03.2025

Making bread with Jean

We absolutely loved learning the history, method, and process of bread with Jean. It was so interesting to see how flour is made and how yeast plays a vital role in baking, not least because of how delicious it tasted fresh out of the oven!

Designing our recycled stained glass window.

We are excited to create our recycled stained glass window alongside artist Dave Griffen from the Peak District. As part of our project, we have been learning about different minerals and materials that come from the Earth and will use this knowledge to help us understand how glass is made.

We used the following images of Dave's work to help us understand what a stained glass window is and how beautiful they can look.

Next, we discussed how each pane of glass is made up of lots of little pieces. These are carefully chosen to create a defined scene or artistic impression

Finally, we got our creative juices flowing and began sketching our designs, taking inspiration from nature and the topics we have covered so far in this project.

We chose to sketch our designs in teams or individually

We used nature as a core theme to influence and style our stained glass designs

Our final designs! Lizzie will now combine our designs before we sign off on the final proof for Dave. Once Dave has the design, he will create our custom design on a template that is ready for us to cut the pieces of glass at school

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A message from Dave after he received our combined class design (kindly sketched by Lizzie, who incorporated elements of each design)

Creating our class podcast

As you may have heard, a new podcast is in town! It is called 'Chiff-Chaff-Chats,' and this weekly podcast looks to share the wonderful world under our feet with our class and school community. Each week the Chiff-Chaffs will share a new episode via SeeSaw. They have been busy designing the podcast studio, gathering equipment, testing microphones, creating a backdrop, rendering a bespoke logo, planning episode content alongside rehearsing for their recording.

We hope you enjoy listening to their first podcast and sharing their learning with them at home

We worked together to carefully design our podcasts logo - what do you think?

Our trip to the SOIL Exhibition at Somerset House

We enjoyed a class trip to the SOIL Exhibition at Somerset House to gather further information and inspiration for our upcoming recycled stained glass window workshop. We loved our journey via the London Underground before popping up in central London and walking along Embankment to the gallery. The Chiff-Chaffs were a real credit to the school and did themselves proud, from asking thought-provoking questions to moving gracefully through the galleries. It was a great trip and something the Chiff-Chaff's will remember fondly.

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