Top School Trips -Issue 7

Mark Pickering is a trained teacher and education manager at We The Curious, Bristol’s science centre and an educational charity. takes over. Intuitive exploration is encouraged, allowing everyone to have a unique and personal experience that leads to more questions and lines of enquiry rather than set answers. Sessions that flex When it comes to our programme of workshops and shows specifically for school groups, we know teachers book our activities because of their relevance to the national curriculum (77% state this as the reason for booking). We need to ensure this is always a fundamental and recognisable part of our programming, but we also know that by presenting opportunities for learners to be curious, we stand the best chance of getting them to engage. Our approach is to design programming that aims to meet one or more of the following criteria: multiple successful outcomes are possible; ideas or predictions are needed; age-appropriate scientific investigation is undertaken. We aim to create authority-sharing spaces between the traditional question-and-answer, expert-and-learner scenarios, which means that our Education Communicators can allow children to steer a workshop that has been delivered hundreds of times towards their own areas of interest and expertise. They’re able to nudge learners into that curious space of wanting answers, not because that is the task and expectation of them, but because what they are doing is new, strange or exciting. When curiosity takes over In the science centre, we have the good fortune of presenting these opportunities during school trips. We’re engaging with learners with fresh eyes, “By sharing enthusiasm, validating learners and facilitating more freedom, magic does happen” when they’re feeling positive and excited, making memories that will stay with them as they grow. During our workshops, moments are shared that demonstrate to us how children think, how they can apply knowledge from one area to a surprising range of other seemingly non-connected ones. In this environment, children will share information such as “Did you know that even in space, a snake cannot feel love as it does not have that part of the brain?” (this was shared by a child during a workshop called Earth, Sun and Moon ). We have delivered workshops on Scratch coding anchored in the narrative of searching for penguins in Antarctica, where learners have instead independently pushed the abilities of our robots and coding software, not for the purpose of being disruptive or disengaged, but because they were given the opportunity and equipment to indulge their curiosity and ask what if? Did we allow this? Of course, yes. In fact, at the end of the session, we looped in the pair’s work as an example of other applications of the technology. Our learners make art created by simple circuit machines. They design and build earthquake-proof buildings and test them out on a miniature shaking table. Groups solve crimes using forensic techniques where there isn’t a ‘right’ answer, just the opportunity to put a case together based on collected evidence. Children experience the impact of decisions on the climate via a floodable island and carnival games. Each activity is designed with the aim of having learners forget they are in a learning room and doing something purely for the joy of investigating and indulging their own curiosity. Benefits for all As a trained teacher I know that by sharing enthusiasm, validating learners and facilitating and encouraging more freedom, magic does happen. I also know time pressure and the size of the curriculum that needs to be covered. I still passionately state the case for finding space for curiosity-led learning, not just for the benefit of learners but also for educators and their relationship with their pupils. It’s a shortcut to being in the zone or ‘flow state’, when everyone is immersed and relaxed, leading to a positive impact on wellbeing, building trust and strengthening bonds between peers and their teacher. At We The Curious, we believe that by harnessing the power of curiosity to explore and solve problems, we can tackle the complex challenges facing our world today. This starts in finding space for curiosity to take the lead in our classrooms, setting up a love for that buzz of delving deeper, that tingle of what if? , that can last a lifetime. wethecurious.org © KoLAB Studios www.teachwire.net/school-trips | 55 F EATURE S S T EM