Started with rocks today, to touch on that part of our mining curriculum. I’d brought in a couple of boring rocks from my garden but Tom came through with trays of way more interesting rocks, students could work alone or with a partner, and had to imagine what else this could be. At first many students were very literal about it or misunderstood and tried to use their science knowledge, but after some additional examples and redirection most pairs came up with some fabulous ideas, and some got really imaginative about what they could see in the shape of their rocks. Xavier and Preston got very competitive and came up with over 40 ideas! Spent longer than planned as they all (eventually!) got really involved with this, then we had them each hold up their rock and explain their favourite re-imagining of it.

After our brief intro to the idea of FIFO life last week we got much deeper today. First, we showed them four quick YouTube Shorts made by FIFO miners showing aspects of their work and daily life, with a quick focus question each time, students were intrigued by the living conditions and the salaries! 

Then we talked about being inquisitive - being curious - and having lots of questions. From an example mind map we asked them in groups to brainstorm as many questions as they could about FIFO, hoping the videos had sparked some thinking. Again, took most groups a while to get started and results varied but on the whole, every group came up with some original questions (and some came up with many!). 

We had thought we may get on to the beginning of planning their project today but ran out of time so that will be for next week.

Time-restrictions (and we haven’t been able to source our pins for Tom’s great individual boards idea yet!) meant a brief reflection, but Tom (rightly) said they like being able to use his remote pointer to highlight an area of the board, so each group had a chance to do this from their seat and identify a key habit from the day. Most of them focused on imaginative, thinking most of the warm up, but we also talked about being collaborative and being inquisitive. As seems usual in the high school situations it takes a while for even the language of the habits to become familiar as we don’t have quite enough time to really go deep, but gradually they’re picking it up. 

So, next week will be introducing them to their projects - or getting them to decide what they will be - perhaps an example of something similar might help them to have a concrete vision of what they could produce. Tom also suggested introducing pet rocks might work well - definitely a good idea, and can use in warm up next week and incorporate into reflection time as well and possibly more. 

In general there’s a fair bit of interest in the FIFO topic, especially amongst those who have relatives who work/have worked FIFO. They’re enthusiastic about Creative Schools so we will capitalise on that! They do work better with fairly significant help to get started, examples are not enough. 

I’ve been thinking I will see if I can get some real FIFO workers to answer some of their questions already for next week.

Amanda to investigate sourcing some pet rocks!
Tom to sort creative habits wheels.