Robots friends of the planet
Students at CEIP La Angostura de Santa Brígida school (Gran Canaria) are really worried about the damage caused to the planet as a consequence of human action. In order to face this problem, they designed the project Let's be friends of the Earth, which deals with the environment, its protection and the changes caused by the effects of natural processes and human action.
It is developed within a school that takes part in a Comenius association and a CLIL programme in a dynamic and fun way, which is methodologically adapted to the students' levels. Children are directly involved in the activities, thus learning and enjoying the natural surroundings, the weather and the cultural events connected with the seasons. They observe how other European schools do the same and they compare results, thus providing cohesion and unity to students' awareness of the preservation of the environment, which is the main aim of the project.
Students in their 1st, 2nd and 3rd years in primary school have used - in some cases for the first time - certain ICT tools such as word processors, presentations, videos, digital camera, videoconference, forum, Voicethread...).
With help from the teacher, they have even posted some documents in their folders in the Student's Corner.The idea of making robots using recycled materials came from children in their 3rd year in primary school at CEIP La Angostura after seeing a video in their English lesson. Their teacher, Cecilia Cantizano, explained: "They looked really funny and so we decided to take some photos, include them in the TwinSpace of our project Let´s Be Friends of the Earth and start this activity in Voice Thread with the students taking part in the CLIL project (1st,2nd and 3rd years in primary school).Voice Thread has turned out to be the perfect tool to promote oral skills in a foreign language, also amongst the youngest, thus making greater sense of their learning through its communicative use in a way that seems fun to children of this age, and also encouraging self-assessment by listening to their own recordings. The result has been an open activity, as boys and girls from other schools and countries can take part with their comments, during school hours or at other times and indefinitely... How will all this end?...We'll see!"
