Year 5 pupils from Rolls Crescent working with EdLab were asked by the Royal Society to review six children’s science books. Working in pairs pupils took the books home in order to give them an in-depth examination, and then returned for a group review led by our science communication lecturer Dr Sam Illingworth.
The children enjoyed the challenge, and debated enthusiastically to come up with a final winner. Across the four judging categories David Macaulay’s ‘How Machines work’ came out top. This children enjoyed its interactive nature, and the way in which the science was communicated through the story.
For more information, and details of all the books go to the Royal Society’s website:
Mix-d is an organisation which works with young people who are mixed race to give voice to this underrepresented group. Mix-d have worked with this group over a number of years to hear and understand the perspectives of mixed-race young people, and as a result have created a number of packs to support professionals in working with these young people.
Mix-d have offered to work with EdLab students to create a professionals pack to support primary school teachers working with mixed-race children. This pack would be the first of its kind in the UK, and could help teachers to work with mixed-race children in a positive manner which helps to develop a strong and positive sense of identity.
To get involved in this project, or to work on a challenge which supports the development of this project, contact firstname.lastname@example.org or email@example.com
Key Partner: Mix-d http://www.mix-d.org/about
Key Words: Primary, Race, Mixed-Race, Educational Packs, Identity Formation, Social Enterprise, Social Justice
Use the Tinkering tools Scratch and Makey Makey to create engaging after school workshops
Scratch is a tried and tested tool for exploratory play and learning of coding ideas via tinkering. It’s genesis in MIT labs has ensured it is well supported with wide adoption and an interesting research base. Impressively, the community of users creating and sharing their creations or ‘scratches’ is significant in size and diversity. There are many remixes of all recognisable computer game types including adventure and narrative forms.
Makey Makey is a keyboard controller interface, which has had great success as a demonstration tool. It is often used in combination with Scratch to showcase the immediacy of new forms of creative software and interactive hardware controllers to create engaging activities.
We will be working with Code Club who are currently redeveloping their Scratch resource to increase the input and creativity of young people.