When this semester began, Kendyl Morris and I had an idea that an end goal in the form of an exhibition day with street-style food stalls, run by the learners, for the learners, which by the way would raise money towards World Poverty could be a rich and powerful context. And it was! 12 street stalls were busily selling their outcomes at the end of the Semester, all while sharing the links between their food, their country and the greater global community with the rest of the school.
The issue and the brief was to choose one of the 12 poorest countries in the world and develop a prototype that represented the foods of their chosen country. The understanding behind their chosen country would be the driving force behind the prototype that they would develop over the course of the semester. This seamless integration of social science and technology has allowed learners to have a deep understanding of the Nature of Technology
and to work collaboratively during their inquiry.
One of the countries, Madagascar, has been proudly represented by groups of four Year 7-8 learners. Their journey began by first understanding the climate of their country in great depth. This meant researching the food that was plentiful in their country, the culture, the government, the natural resources and the economy. This research allowed students to spark ideas, and then to move throughout the learning process.
By Ethan, Riley, Adam and Cameron
We researched our country and found out that in Madagascar a wide variety of food crops are grown. Madagascar is the world’s major natural vanilla producer!
Rice is the staple of the Malagasy diet, but in 1990 a cyclone damaged rice crops. Cassava, bananas, and sweet potatoes are also important. Other important food crops include cassava, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, corn, bananas, and potatoes.
Beheloke, a rural fishing community in Southwest Madagascar’s lunch or dinner will be white sticky rice, with a side of fried, dried or smoked fish; octopus; squid. Nothing is wasted. Fishing has been the only way to get by. We researched fish suitable for smoking in New Zealand and Kahawai was the most popular.
We dug a hole so we could actually smoke our fish, just like we imagined the people of Madagascar to smoke it. So then we smoked our Kahawai in a pit that we created at our school with leaves around the outsides of the bottom of the smoker so the grass and dirt wouldn’t catch fire. We used meth so we could start the fire at the bottom of the smoker, and wondered if this would be available in Madagascar. Together we problem solved and researched how to fillet a fish and learnt about the process of smoking a fish. We put rock salt on a Kahawai and sprinkled it with brown sugar. Then we put it in the smoker for 30 minutes. For the mussels, we put them in the smoker as well, but for not as long — just so they could cook until they had opened a little bit. We put them in the hole, covered it and waited just like we do here in Aotearoa when we prepare a Hangi. Our big learning was, feedback from stakeholders can be very important to develop an outcome fit for purpose. We also learnt that we can never take food for granted. We learnt about countries in poverty, living conditions and our earth’s resources.
Indonesia is the world’s largest importer of it’s staple food, rice. Nasi Goreng is a traditional fried rice that is served throughout Indonesia. Cooked over high heat, you can adapt all versions of Nasi Goreng to suit your tastes. My version is mild, with fish and has a poached egg opposed to fried egg.
Created by Ella, Rachel, Mia, Emily and Emma
We found out that Ethiopians use leaves to hold their food when they eat meals. We researched cooking
and eating with leaves and we found banana leaves are used a lot in Asia and the Islands. We used them to wrap around our prototype and it was easy to assemble and transport for our United Nations day stall.
With World Poverty Day fast approaching, it has become clear to Kendyl and I that the integration of two subject areas has allowed learners to decide on their own learning pathways and make deep links between both Social Science and Technology. We believe that the integration of two subject areas has allowed deep learning to occur for every learner.