Last week, 7 Pioneer began their second case study in the ‘Stand Up!’ expedition. We spent the beginning of the week getting to grips with the world – what is a continent? How many continents are there, where are they and what are they called? What’s a country?
This brought our attention to focus on the continent of Africa with its vibrant, diverse and wonderful physical and human geography features. This sets the context for case study 2 and 3 in our expedition. Students were in groups with different expert texts which focused on the 4 major biomes of Africa and their characteristics. Once the students had read their own expert text it was over to them to complete the notecatcher for each biome by teaching each other the information they had discovered.
Next up – human features! The students had a range of information about the different countries of Africa or of averages about the whole continent. Students soon realised the variety between the different countries and how there were many similarities and differences between the UK too. This was completed using a GoGoMo protocol – a personal favourite!
We then zoomed in on two countries in Africa, Nigeria and Somalia, by watching documentaries and news reports. The students learnt how Nigeria is the richest and most populated country in Africa and completed a notecatcher based on the different human features of the country. It was clear to see the inequalities between the multi-millionaires and the slum-dwellers of Lagos We then compared this to Somalia, a country which faces the challenges of civil war, drought, famine, poverty and piracy – focusing on Mogadishu and the changes that it has undertaken in the last few decades. Students were asking really thought provoking questions about the countries, it’s been a fantastic week!