Kindergarten Engineers: Design and TV Studios for Imaginative Impact
What’s Going on in this Picture?
What
KG students designed simple machines to help positively impact some of the world’s issues that grabbed their attention. As a way of sharing their learning, raising awareness about these issues, and taking action in a virtual learning context, students shared their simple machines and how it would be a solution to the problem on a KG Engineers TV Show to be shared with the community.
Why
Finding age appropriate ways for students to transfer and apply their learning that develops agency and imagination is a key learning journey needed to help equip future generations of changemakers. Not only did the personalized inquiry allow students to explore issues in a way that they felt empowered to have a positive impact, they also got to practice their speaking and presentation skills, embodying the learner profile of a PYP student.
This learning journey truly is a testament to developing hope through creative and academic relevance, and advocating and taking action digitally as a way to be of service to the world and inspire positive change in others. This exciting experience shows that you’re never too young to care, become more aware, and be able to use your learning to have an impact.
How
Students used the Love Living Goals and the Good Life Goals (age-appropriate United Nations Sustainable Development Goal resources) to explore issues that they thought were important in their world. Teachers then followed the student inquiry and matched mentor examples, mentor texts and videos, and influential innovators to help students become more aware of these issues and how others in the world are taking action.
Students also engaged in explorations with Vex Robotics to build simple machines and apply and transfer their learning. While prototyping, creating models and drawings, and using problem-solution-impact sentence frames, students designed simple machines that could theoretically help to solve the issues. In preparation for the TV show, students looked at ISTE Global Collaborator standards, practiced making videos, recording videos, editing videos, adding voice overs to pictures, and filming each other in a DIY TV studio.
As teachers formatively assessed their readiness of the above mentioned concepts, students got ready for their big day where they would film in a green screen room sharing their simple machine, the parts of it, explaining how it functions, and explaining how it would positively impact the identified issue.