SInging in the rain

Categories: Rivers, s1 and s2, Advanced Higher
There seems to be a cottage industry around water cycle songs if you visit youtube. I don't normally dwell too long on this with Intermediate for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is not very prominent in course arrangements, secondly, most of the students know a simple version from science and thirdly, if they go on to take Higher, it's done as part of the hydrosphere and I already feel there is too much repetition between the two courses. So instead of this, I'm going to show some snippets of the youtube clips like the one above and ask students for other ways in which they could remember it easily. Then, as a home activity, I'll ask for their versions to be submitted as a poem, mnemonic etc. I was going to ask for a sonnet, but that might have been a bit cruel ;) I'm going to use up most of the period ampping a drainage basin from memory. Watches at the ready!
Favelas with s1 went generally very well on Thursday. I moved the goalposts a bit. One of the things we try to do with this activity is remove any element of fairness by making the resources the class have brought in part of a communal dump. Students then draw lots for numbers to forage at the dump.I think this is important, as it illustrates differences in the access some people might have to materials which could improve their living conditions. I felt with my current class, however, that some of the boys in particular were quite happy to rely on others bringing in enough, as it was clear that some girls had brought in enough for almost the entire class! So, I let them keep it...this made trading interesting and crime was rife. I'll try to photograph some of the favela efforts tomorrow and publish via posterous to here. There is also a self assessment of the activity to see what the students have learned which could be transferable to the real life example. Then, the durability testing....
Advanced Higher should have remembered that a draft of the Study is due in at the end of the month. I am getting a little depressed at the lack of fieldwork, but this is very much the onus of the author, and I can only help with the written side if there's something to write about ;0) Maybe the weekend will have seen a blizzard of activity? Tomorrow will tell...