Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Our garbage - our concern

My paper knight
This is an English version of a post I've written in Slovene at the Ning site called Smeti, naše skrbi (Our garbage, our concern). The site has recently been created by my friend Vili (and will, sadly, need to be relocated due to Ning's new business policy).
The idea behind the site is to promote class collaboration around the topic of garbage - within and between schools and cultures. Teachers have been encouraged to post their project ideas to the Ning and I've posted this one:

DIY sites: practice English + learn about cool recycling ideas + connect with others

At http://www.instructables.com/ one can find numerous DIY ideas concerning recycling various materials. So why not directing students over to this site – they'll easily find there interesting and feasible ideas to carry out in practice – cross-curricularly within their school or reeaching out to other national or international partners in crime.
Interesting ideas could for example be gathered together at an English class and if necessary translated. Individually or within some practically oriented courses students could then create things and maybe organize an exhibition, an auction, or find some other meaningful or useful place for them (e.g. Biotechnical school students creating a scarecrow out of old CDs and setting it up on their school field...)
Older students could perhaps gather together interesting project ideas during their English class and pass them on for younger groups to create them... (Suzana and I have been thinking along these lines during one of teacher training sessions – she teaches young learners in primary school, I teach college students).
With this idea in mind I went to the before mentioned website and checked out some possible ways of recycling paper. I was amazed by numerous ideas there and by simplicity of this one here http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Paper-Beads/ - so I emptied my paper basket bin and used the paper and wooden beads to create this:

Here's a longish list of various DIY sites ... Worth checking out, I think.
Also worth checking out is http://earthcast.posterous.com/ - a great collection of nice green project ideas for teachers and students.

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